Inplay Trading Review

When I awarded my 2014 Best Trading Product Oscar to Pre-Match Trading back in June, I told readers we’d be testing its new sister product sometime in the future.

Well, I’m pleased to tell you that the future has arrived. 😉

So let me introduce Inplay Trading from Emo and Ads, the team who bought you the ever-popular Pre-Match Trading.

The idea being that when you’ve finished pre-match trading, you can now switch to spending your time in-play trading!

(Honestly, a life, who needs it!?)

OK, so what is InPlay Trading?

I’d describe it as a dashboard for managing live trades in a professional way.

Essentially it’s an in-play stats scanner designed to save time and effort by pulling together all the critical data you need into one helpful screen.

Statistics include shots on and off target, corners, possession, and red and yellow cards. Live market data drawn from popular markets (such as Match Odds and Over 2.5 Goals) then help you balance the way prices are moving with the way the game itself is unfolding.

The Scanner updates all these statistics in real time as the game is played.

It also lets you focus only on the matches you’re interested in via a series of database filters.

http://youtu.be/GGNGlphDSDM

I envisage two general modes of use.

Either:

a) you know which games you wish to trade already, and you use the tool to consolidate and monitor all relevant data about them in a single place;

OR

b) you set up filters that reflect the criteria for matches you’d like to trade… and IPT then tells you which current games fit the bill. You can then switch into mode (a) to trade them.

A product like this should make you a calmer trader!

Too often, in-play trading can become a bit manic, with mistakes creeping in as you jump from market to market, or from stats website to website.

IPT brings together all your critical data into a single console, so you’re on top of your trades – unlike your competition!

IPT is really a tool rather than a set of strategies.

Ads tells me that “In the members’ area, we do offer some trading strategies, yes. But most members do their own thing really”.

So the key question becomes.. will having a tool that gets you organised also make you more profitable?

Or, put another way, does calmer trading translate into bigger profits?

There are three subscription options:

• One month – £29
• Three months – £75
• Six months – £135

Hopefully, we’ll see productivity improve so much with IPT that the price becomes a no-brainer!

Two Points of View

Below, you will read two different points of view. Read through them and make up your mind as to whether Inplay Trading is the tool you’re looking for to help with your trading.

Lucy

Hello, Ian here, with my report on a brand new service from the Pre-Match Trading people – Inplay Trading.

As you might assume from the name, InPlay Trading is about, er, trading football matches in play.

The hub of the system is a browser-based Scanner (Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari recommended) which is really a neat piece of programming.

It lists most, although not quite all, football matches going inplay at Betfair along with a running collection of statistics.

These include:

• Match Odds (Home, Away, Draw)
  • and £ Matched
• Over/Under 2.5 Goals
  • and £ Matched
• Correct Score
  • and £ Matched

The most interesting statistics, however, are on the right of the screen and these give you an up-to-date accounting of:

• Shots on target
• Shots off target
• Corners
• Penalties
• Free kicks
• Red cards
• Yellow cards
• Possession
• Pressure Index

These are given for both teams so you can see at a glance who is on top and putting in the most effort.

No Pressure, then

The eagle-eyed among you may have nodded sagely at the list which contains standard football statistics– until you got to the Pressure Index.

This is InPlay’s custom indicator which calculates how much pressure a team has been applying in the last ten minutes.

Essentially it’s a combination of possession and the number of shots on and off target.

When it gets over 50 it highlights, so you know that the team is putting in an extra special effort with, we hope, the increased likelihood of goals.

Making money

So far so good, but how do you make money with it?

Well, if I can pull this right back to basics, it’s about using the stats to determine whether or not there are likely to be any goals, how many goals and when they are likely to occur.

Some crystal ball, eh? 

The site suggests several strategies you can use with the Scanner.

For example, if there are 3 or more Shots On Target (SOT) within 15 minutes, back Over 2.5 Goals.

If there are 4 SOT within 20 minutes, back Over 1.5 Goals.

After 20-30 minutes, if there have been 3 SOT and the home team is trading within a certain range and the 0-0 correct score is less than certain odds, back certain correct scores.

There’s a touch more to the systems than that but you get the idea.

My particular penchant was to lay 0-0 or the Draw but you really need low odds to make this work well. 

Homework

Of course, it’s not quite as easy as that.

Some games do work out as expected/hoped but this is football we’re talking about and many don’t.

The secret is research.

You really need to do your homework and check out the stats on the individual teams to get an idea of how they might perform in the current game.

To help with this, the Scanner also has a link to SoccerStats for individual games (although not for all matches) where you can quickly see how the teams have been performing.

Don’t underestimate the importance of statistics and a bit of history.

You know what they say about history – we never learn from it!

I’d suggest that it’s pretty much essential to do some research before betting.

Through a Scanner darkly

When I began using the Scanner, my initial ideas were to lay the current Correct Score or Draw (when the odds were low), see which team was likely to win, or see if there’d be Over/Under 1.5 or 2.5 Goals.

I freely confess that I did little research which probably accounts for my results.

• Bets: 30
• Win%: 21%
• Profit: -49%

Before you have a whip-round for me, these were micro stakes so no great damage done but at that point I thought it best to regroup (as best as you can regroup with a company of one) and reassess my strategy.

Scan followers

At this point I mainly followed along, checking likely plays and seeing what would have happened.

Yes, you guessed – when I wasn’t betting all my selections won!

No, sorry, they didn’t, but that’s what usually happens, isn’t it?

To be honest, I can’t say that my non-betting results were any more inspired than my betting efforts, but I was amazed at how many times the Pressure Index heralded a goal.

Of course, it helped if the team had a history of SOTs, corners and the like!

An ideal play in such cases would be to lay the current score. However, the odds really need to be low for this to be consistently profitable.

Goals galore

You can also use the Pressure Index to anticipate a goal but simply backing that score is not always enough as another goal can throw that off, so you need a definite strategy.

In one instance, I used the Scanner to predict a goal to take the score from 2-1 to 2-2. I was right on the button. However, knowing another goal could lose the gain, I also backed Over 3.5 goals but, alas, not for enough so when the inevitable fifth goal came I was left out of pocket.

The trouble was, the odds for Over 3.5 Goals were incredibly low so the amount I would have had to stake would have wiped out the gain from the 2-2 win. It was meant as a saver although it didn’t save me much.

This highlights the necessity of having a well thought-out plan before jumping in.

Tools for the job

So, alas, it’s not a licence to print money.

At least for me it wasn’t, but in the right hands, with the right knowledge, I’m sure the football statistician and aficionado could use it to great advantage.

And if you are a footie fan and aficionado, you may be wondering what this offers over some other sites such as Bet365’s Live Streaming and flashscore.com.

First, it lists most of the games currently being played on one screen. At busy times the list can scroll off the page. However, you can remove games from the list if they’re of no interest to you.

If you like to look for betting opportunities during games, you’ll love this.

Secondly, it pulls together more stats – plus its custom Pressure Index – than other sites offer individually and combines them with Betfair prices and graphs.

Clicking on a price will take you directly to that Betfair page saving you loads of time.

Strategy & tactics

It also allows you to set up ‘Strategies’ by specifying certain game conditions such as the number of SOT, the number of Goals, the Correct Score, and minimum matched amounts. Set these in a Strategy and only when the conditions are fulfilled will the game appear in the window.

You can create several Strategy settings to suit several, er, strategies.

As of writing, the team are adding email alerts, too.

To you, m’boy…

So, how much does it cost?

InPlay Trading currently has three subscription options:

1. One month: £29
2. Three months: £75 (£25/month)
3. Six months: £135 (£22.50/month)

Conclusion

Unlike straightforward betting systems, trading systems and tools are more difficult to draw a firm conclusion about, because their usefulness and performance are so closely tied to the user.

I think this is a very interesting tool and could imagine many football fans using it quite profitably.

Alas, I’m not a footie fan although I do like statistics and analysis, and couldn’t quite get the stats to work in my favour.

I’m quite prepared to accept lots of things.

Such as I didn’t trade the best matches, I didn’t do enough research, I don’t know enough about football, and I didn’t formulate a definitive plan of action.

So while I accept that, the bottom line is that I, personally, was unable to find an edge with the Scanner. And while I desperately wanted to use this to make a few £, I couldn’t do it so I find it difficult to give it more than a Neutral rating.

Meanwhile, you probably already know if this is something you could profitably use. If so, don’t let my experience prevent you exploring it.

Ian

Hi everyone, my name is Alan, and Lucy kindly arranged a week’s free trial of In-Play Trading for me, in return for my writing this review of the product. 🙂

The idea being, as I understand it, to give an alternative perspective on IPT from an experienced football trader’s point of view – and perhaps to balance Ian’s earlier viewpoint, as I gather Ian is a trader, but not really a footy fan.

I have quite a bit of experience with the Betfair site.

I started about 7 years or so ago with a number of laying systems but in the last 4 years have concentrated mainly on trading football.

I started with the classic Lay The Draw system, but quickly progressed to more innovative and profitable strategies.

Which brings me to trading with tools like In-Play Trading – as, on first viewing, it looked an appealing piece of software.

The In-Play Trading Tool

IPT is a web based programme that monitors the majority of football matches on which Betfair allows you to place back and lay wagers in-play.

A match has to meet a minimum liquidity value in the Match Odds market (£1,000, I think) in order to be selected by IPT, hence you will not find all in-play matches.

However, you probably would not wish to get involved in any game that had this little liquidity anyway.

I adjusted the filter criteria to only show games with more than £90k matched.

I only play in the top European leagues and this little tweak filtered out a lot of games in which I had no interest.

The Scanner then displays, in real time, the following pertinent live stats:

• Shots on target
• Shots off target
• Corners
• Red and yellow cards
• Possession, and
• The very neat Pressure Index.

The screen shot below, of Swansea v Spurs (Sunday 14th Dec-14) after 33 mins. should give you the general idea.

The above statistics appear, in real time, for all in-play games that meet the liquidity criteria.

The tool is also able to be further configured to find games that match your own particular strategies.

For example, you could set the parameters to only display matches which are 0-0, where the draw price has hit 2.0 and there have been 4 or more shots on-target.

You may then consider laying the draw.

You could also ask IPT to find games which have had 4 or more shots on target in the first 25 minutes, and then consider backing Over 1.5 goals.

The options are endless and the software is very easy to configure to your own specification and requirements.

Under Pressure

I was particularly intrigued by the “Pressure Index” which is the 21 and 9 figures in the far right of the above screen shot.

The Pressure Index is derived from a combination of team possession statistics and shots on and off target, all within the last 10 minutes.

Because, as we all know, there is generally a build-up of pressure by one team or the other, before a goal is actually scored.

It’s simple to use too. The Pressure Index will flash when a team’s index reaches 50 or above.

In the week of my using InPlay Trading, I can report that the Pressure Index predicted a goal with unerring accuracy.

It is not infallible of course but it was right far more times than it was wrong.

There are also websites which will give you much of this information for free: for instance, Bet365 and www.flashscores.com.

But the thing is: they only display one game at a time.

By contrast, this clever piece of software groups several related matches together, and saves an awful lot of effort.

And the Pressure Index swings it for me.

What level of experience is required to make the cost of InPlay Trading worthwhile?

In my opinion, you do need to have an understanding of trading to make it worth investing in this product.

However, if you have a small number of in-play strategies, are disciplined and employ the right risk management approach in your trading then I cannot see any reason why InPlay Trading would not be a real help.

From my own point of view, it gave me visibility of far more games than would otherwise have been the case and it thus enabled me to take advantage of more opportunities than I would otherwise have spotted.

InPlay Trading also comes with 7 in-play strategies which I believe are simple, sound and likely to be profitable. I cannot expand on this because I did not use them – choosing instead to work with my own strategies and see if the software made a difference.

It most certainly did in a very positive way.

Conclusion

I have to give this product a big thumbs up.

It saves a huge amount of time and the Pressure Index is something else.

Of course, InPlay Trading won’t turn a novice trader into an expert overnight, but I think that anyone above novice status would benefit and would be easily able to take advantage of the opportunities it presents.

Since the end of the trial I have taken out a paid subscription.

Alan

So there we have it, a neutral and a pass.

The common feeling between Ian and Alan’s write-ups though is that IPT is not going to turn a novice trader into a more than that on its own, but it is a convenient tool which will be helpful in the hands of someone who already has experience.

I’m going to leave it in the Pass folder and let you decide if it’s what you need for your own trading.

Click here to find out more.