In this article we want to write about some of the pros and cons concerned with when is the best time to place your football bets. Should we place our bets when the markets open to get in on the early action and possibly get better, higher prices? Maybe we should wait until the manager’s press conference so we can get the most up-to-date team news, or hold off until prior to kick off when the starting XI is announced. Or maybe we’re better off waiting until the match begins so that we can get a look at how the teams involved are playing before parting with our money. Read on to find out about some of the pros and cons of when to place your bets.

For this article, the best way to think about the time to place your bets should be thought of as in four time periods: very early, early, pre-kick off and inplay. Let’s go through each of these and break down the pros and cons of each one. Obviously enough, each of these time periods will suit different bettors and their way of betting. Some love to get in early and get a good price while the vast majority of people leave things late and prefer to take odds that have been influenced by market movement, team news, starting lineups, etc. While others prefer to wait until a match starts before placing any bets.

Very Early Prices

This is when the market opens first. The vast amount of early prices aren’t available with your normal highstreet bookie, but are with the ‘sharp’ books. In sports betting, there are three types; ‘soft’ books and ‘sharp’ books and exchanges (Betfair, Matchbook etc.). We’re written a bit about these before, but basically the ‘sharp’ books charge less commission per bet and encourage large-scale punters to bet with them, examples include Pinnacle, SBO Bet etc. ‘Soft’ books charge much higher commission per bet and their odds are usually not as enticing as sharp books, examples include Bet365, Ladbrokes etc.

Because the sharp books add less commission to their odds this means that the odds are a ‘fairer’ or a truer representation of the implied probability of an event occurring. Or, in simple English, the odds with sharp books are truer odds.

An example, if we have a Premier League match and Over 2.5 goals is priced at 1.98 with Pinnacle and Over 2.5 goals is priced at 1.92 with Ladbrokes then we can see that the price is better with Pinnacle pretty obviously. Once we factor in their commission (overround) of each bookie, for this example 2% and 8% respectively, then in actuality they both believe that Over 2.5 goals will happen in 50% and really the odds should be 2.0 for both of these bookie, but when they add their ‘charge’ the prices are changed. It’s because of this that sharp books offer matches earlier than softbooks, they don’t need to charge as much commission in their odds because they take high roller bettors more than regular punters.

Betting early means you can get odds that are a closer reflection of the actual probability of an event occurring. Many times with the sharp books when something has a 50-50 chance the odds will open at 1.98, for example Over/Under 2.5 goals or Both Teams to Score. The price will move then depending on which side of the market is the most popular, the more popular the side the more the price will fall, so getting in early on the action can mean that on a Wednesday before a Saturday match you could get a price on Over 2.5 goals at 1.98, but on Saturday morning the price might be as low as 1.85 or even lower. In value terms that’s outstanding.

However, the biggest risk with taking early prices is that team news can upset the apple cart on you. Let’s say Liverpool are taking on Leicester at home, Over 2.5 goals is priced at 1.98 on Wednesday. There’s good value in that price so you take it. It falls to 1.92 on Thursday and 1.89 on Friday morning. You’re already laughing to yourself because you got such a good price. However, on Friday evening both Mo Salah and Sadio Mane are injured, suddenly the price shoots up to 2.05 and all the value is wiped from your bet as you’ve lost 7 ticks. 2.05-1.98 = 0.07. This is the greatest risk involved with betting early.

Early Prices

Many punters like to wait until after a press conference before making any selections. The reason here is that they want to know the latest team news and they want to know what the manager is saying regarding a team’s motivation coming into a match.

The pros here is that you’re still getting into the market earlier than most punters and you can get a better price than those who’ll bet later. However, the risk here is that, like with Very Early betting above there can still be changes before a match kicks off. A good way to prepare additionally is to go over fan forums as they’re usually pretty good places for learning about what players are injured or are going to lose their place before the manager announces it at a press conference. The hardcore fans of clubs are usually very clued in to what goes on behind the scenes at clubs and scanning the fan forums can yield a wealth of information.

Pre Kick off Prices

As kick off looms, more and more punters are getting involved in the market. This means that prices will have changed quite a lot since the opening prices are released. There are two arguments to be made here:

The market is now reflective of the true odds or the market has gotten it all wrong.

The market should be more reflective of the match now. Bettors have more up-to-date information at their disposal than the traders of the sharp bookies had when they released their prices. They can make good predictions of the starting lineups involved, they know who is injured and the motivation of both sets of players. Surely, the prices now are a truer reflection? Well, yes and no.

Traders at the sharp books know their stuff and they’ll have priced the match accordingly. Some of the sharp books use algorithms that include up to 25 different variables when setting odds, these include things like; previous head to head results, recent from, home form, away form, player form, player motivation, expected weather conditions, expected goals etc. Then they pile their gathered info into their software and the odds are compiled. Can punters really beat traders when it comes to pricing up markets? They can, but it’s not easy and you need to know the markets and the leagues inside out to be able to price markets as well as bookmakers can.

The odds now are a true reflection of what the market things is going to happen, or in other words what people think is going to happen in a match. You have a choice to make, do you trust a bookie’s opening price regarding something occuring in a match, or do you put your faith with the market and make your decision based on what its predicting?

Inplay Prices

Inplay betting is massive now, nobody really predicted just how successful inplay betting was going to become and we don’t really need to tell you about how many markets inplay betting can allow for.

The pros of betting inplay is that you can watch a match and make your predictions for what will happen based on how you see the game developing. Maybe an underdog has started better than expected and you fancy them to open the scoring. Maybe a strong home team has started even better than expected and you fancy them to open the flood gates on their opposition. To become good at inplay betting you need to know the sport inside out and know the teams involved as well too.

Another pro of inplay betting is that you can get good value on prices because as the match progresses odds will either rise or fall. If a home favourite started the match at 1.80 to win, but hasn’t scored by half time it will likely be priced around 2.20 or maybe higher. They’ve been the dominant side so you can take that bet. 1.80 didn’t offer much value, but the same team to win the same match as time runs out at better odds can present good value.

The cons of inplay betting is that, well, in football anything can happen and sometimes teams can share 30 shots on goal between them and still the match can end up as a 0-0 draw, or a heavy favourite priced at 1.40 at the start of the match can end up losing 0-3 to the bottom side in the league at home. They don’t happen very often, but they do happen often enough for you to have to be cautious when it comes to betting. Always remember in betting that there are no sure things sports betting and every bet made involves differing levels of risk.

It comes down to a couple of decisions you have to make as a punter. Do you go with early odds that indicate value, putting your trust in the traders of sharp bookies who have priced up matches, or do you wait and see how the market is reacting to things like team news, weather conditions, motivation etc. Or maybe you prefer to wait inplay so you can see the teams in action before making a bet? All of the above four time periods have their pros and cons, as bettors it’s important for us to know them and to use them to our advantage in the betting markets.