A night out with a few of my trader/gambling buddies certainly shows how times change when it comes to finding angles to keep ahead of the game.
One fundamental rule never changes however and that is to look for markets where value may be overlooked by the masses.
One way of doing this is by looking to oppose long established routes to profit in search of better value.
There comes a point when certain angles can be ‘played to death’ and the margins become ultra slim or non-existent and so the edge could therefore be on the opposite side of the fence.
This edge can then be made all the better with a little light touch research and/or using up to date ‘in-play’ filters, if playing in the football markets.
Sensible filters are an excellent strike rate improver when the right ones are used.
When you witness first hand how your strike rate improves with the addition of a selection filter it really does give you confidence to pursue your strategy even through downtimes, safe in the knowledge your average win rate will return.
Some traders I know have several filters in place, so much so that after applying them they are left with just ‘1’ or ‘2’ bets per week. Not a lot I hear you say, but these bets deliver a high win strike rate, in excess of 70% and as a result they do tend to go in with heavy stakes knowing their filters are solid enough to deliver them the 70%+ strike rate long term.
Other pro traders/gamblers prefer the high turnover, slim profit margin approach, a bit like myself. Although this is more to keep my interest and motivation going than anything else.
So whichever route or approach you take, when it comes to developing a system or angle always remember to add those filters and keep doing so until you find the right ratio of bets that adding those filters would deliver.
Here is an excellent free resource from Betfair’s simple but effective in-play live stats;
Put simply the more filters you add the less qualifying bets you’ll get, and the fewer filters added would deliver more bets albeit with a lower win strike rate.
One point to remember is to obviously ensure your base platform rules deliver a profit and then and only then, consider looking for filters to add to improve your hit rate.