3 Key Tennis Trading Strategies
Tennis betting is made for betting exchanges. Due to the frequent dramatic odds swings and the fact that the prices move after every single point, it is a sport which is absolutely ideal for trading on a betting exchange. In this article, we will discuss some important tennis trading strategies and how our free to use betting tools can be utilised to achieve a profit.
1) Scalp The Server.
A scalper is a trader who looks to profit from short-term movements in a market. It is one of the most popular trading strategies in tennis because the price is always changing. One technique scalpers look to adopt is by backing the player who is serving. They will then look to take a profit if the chosen player wins or takes a significant lead within a game.
Take the recent World Tour Finals match between Roger Federer and Kei Nishikori. Before his service game, at 4-4 in the first set, Nishikori was available to back at odds of 4.0. When he went 30-0 up in that game, his price dropped to 3.65. After Nishikori had held his serve, he shortened further, to 3.30. By having £50 on Nishikori pre-game @ 4.00 (profit £150) and by laying him for the same stake after holding his service game @ 3.30 (liability -£115), you would lock in a £35 “free roll” on Nishikori. Scalpers would hedge this £35 across both selections for a £10.60 profit. This might not sound particularly impressive, but applying this method hundreds of times a day and getting it right more often than not, it is plain to see how scalpers can make serious profits.
Using the bet.me betting ladder is the best way to achieve such a technique. Our trading tools allow you to place bets or enter the queue at each price point with just one-click, improving speed and efficiency. This view also gives you a full insight of the market in terms of the depth of liquidity at each price increment.
2) Lay at Low Prices.
This is a strategy which can lead to rapid bankroll increases with less risk taken. Common entry points using this strategy are laying a player when a set and a break up in a three set match, or laying someone who is leading by two sets to love in a five set match. The obvious drawback to doing this is the likelihood of long losing runs. If you are constantly laying players @ 1.01 – 1.30 and are hoping to trade out at much bigger prices, then more often than not you are going to need to have the discipline to either trade out for a loss or take that loss to the end.
“2 sets to love up in a best of 5 match”
Another tennis trading strategy would be to look at which players have either history in throwing 2 set leads away or are inexperienced in best out of five Grand Slam matches. You could then look to lay these players when the opportunity presents itself.
For example if two players started a five set match at broadly the same price, you could look to lay the player leading 2-0 in sets (Player A) at around 1.15. You could then hope for Player B to win the third set. If he was to do so then you would be able to hedge for a decent profit with Player A now trading at more like the 1.5 mark. Or, if your reading of the game supports it, then you could look to keep your position with the expectation that Player B wins the fourth set. At two sets all and with momentum on his side, it is highly likely that favouritism would flip-flop and Player B would now be trading at around the 1.8 mark. With this example, it’s easy to see how profitable this high variance strategy can prove.
One of the most important things to consider when laying at short prices is player personality traits. Which players have a history of blowing leads? And on the flipside which players have strong deficit recovery stats? It would be a great idea to build up this information in a set of spreadsheets of a database. More simply, if you watch enough tennis, you can start to get an idea of which players are mentally weaker than others in certain situations and are likely to fold when the pressure is firmly on. It’s also a good idea to keep note of player retirements and tournament workloads, with an eye on match fitness levels.
3) Anticipate the Swings – WTA Tour.
The percentage of service games held for the last five years across all surfaces on the ATP tour is around 81%. Compare this to the WTA tour where the percentage is more like 66%.
The upshot of this is that there are far more drastic price movements in women’s tennis caused by these breaks of service and thus there are often more trading opportunities. One strategy would be to lay whoever breaks serve first, then hedge that position if and when the break is recovered. There may be the opportunity to continue to adopt this strategy throughout a match. If the average games per match in a women’s game is about 23, and as noted above, 34% of service games lead to breaks, you are looking at an average of 7.82 breaks per match. With this in mind, you can continue to build and rebuild your position over and over again.
Our integrated real-time charts on bet.me can be extremely useful when trading tennis in this way. As well as analysing the graphs to anticipate future swings in the market, historical price data within the market can be monitored to help assess probable prices if a certain outcome is to occur.
An obvious caveat to this strategy would be avoiding certain players whose service hold percentage deviates from the mean. The likes of Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova and lesser known players such as Naomi Broady and Krystina Pliskova, who bomb down aces for fun, are highly efficient at holding serve.
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