Back to Lay on Championships - Carole

For those of you who are interested in the concept of back to lay - or trading - also know as greening up you may like to try trading on a Championship. This can be any event where there are a number of players/teams involved and will be over a few days or weeks and sometimes months.

Examples to trade would be football - the World Cup or other heavily bet on championships, any popular golf champinonship, tennis, Formula 1, X Factor etc etc. Anything really where you have at least some knowledge of the event and the event has a number of players or teams and takes place over a period of time.

This is a longer term trade and you need to be able to tie up some money for a period of time. The first thing to do is to select your teams or players that you think may stand some sort of a chance of winning - you do this BEFORE the championship has started. So lets take the recent World Cup as an example. I don't know very much about football so this is a good example for me to use!! Firstly I asked around as to who where the likely winning tems and selected Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands and Germany. I backed them all before the World Cup started and then waited whilst watching what the odds were doing.

Now you could put in a save for half the odds at double the stake and save them all before the championship starts, this is the simplest way to go. However, if you know what you are doing and you can read the likely outcome then you can lay those teams that you think might not win or back some back extra as you go along. This sounds very complicated - BUT if you remember what you are looking for is a green book (you cannot lose no matter what the outcome at the final is) then you can trade in and out of a position.

If you are unsure how to do this then just keep it simple and back to lay 2 or 3 teams that you think are 1) over priced to start with and 2) will trade shorter as they win the matches etc. You will then have a green book and will win no matter what the end result is.

Important note - as soon as your lay bets have matched and you have gone green your stakes are released back into your bank by Betfair as you cannot lose now!! Remember though your stakes will be tied up until you have gone green.

A second example is golf tournaments - anyone who follows golf will know that the odds swing about wildly as the fortunes of an individual golfer also swing about wildly on the course. One word of warning you really need to watch the tournament or follow the results to be able to trade in this market as the odds can move very quickly and very dramatically. I have had great results in this market but can't spare the time to watch the golf - if you watch it anyway - do so with your laptop by your side and do some trading!!

Lets say that you check the odds before the off and in your opinion a likely contender is priced too high - back him and save a lay at half the odds for twice the stake - the likelihood is that your lay will be met if he has some good rounds/strokes along the way. Do this for 2 or 3 players and you have your green book.

The F1 championship - this is a personal passion of mine and I had a green book 3 weeks into the beginning of the season. On checking the odds before the season started I noticed that Jenson Button was 50 to win the championship. This was madness and was way too high because the market thought as he had won the previous year he couldn't win this current year again!! That was my first big bet as I knew he would trade much shorter when he won a race or two which he duly did in the first couple of weeks. I had saved a lay at 10 for double my stake - now this would give me a win if he loses and a bigger win if he does actually win the championship (which he still may possibly).

I also laid Vettel (he is nearly always way to short in this market) and saved a back and twice the odds for half my stake (a lay to back) which has exactly the same effect as a back to lay. I added in a couple of other possibles Hamilton and Webber and again saved a lay to the back I had put on. After 3 weeks I was green on the championship and will win no matter what the end result (but will win more for some and less for others).

I hope this gives you a different idea of how to trade and you may find this a bit easier than horse racing which is very fast and easy to get wrong! Try a back to lay trade on a subject you know a lot about and GOOD LUCK!!