In our previous Brownlow betting article, we provided you with a few tips for trading on the medal and building Brownlow betting equity. Now, the big night is upon us! So, how can we turn the equity we’ve built up during the season into even greater profits? Let’s take a look as we take a closer look at live betting on the Brownlow Medal.
Have a plan on Brownlow medal night
It’s important to have a plan for how you intend to approach Brownlow night, and we’re not just talking about making sure the beers are cold. Not everything always goes to plan, so it’s important to be flexible, but you should have an idea of where you are starting, how things will progress and where you want things to finish.
You’ll be starting either from scratch, or with the equity you’ve built through trading during the season. And ultimately, you want to end up with your money on the winner!
So you need to think about the best way to get from A to B when betting live on the Brownlow Medal.
Know when your players will poll
You should already have a spreadsheet with a mapping of your predicted votes. Understand where the key players will poll votes and where there are periods of runs of high votes or no votes. These peaks and troughs provide potentially ideal spots to trade, by either backing or laying where there is perceived value.
Identify key matches in the season
Look at the entire season and highlight some of the absolute key matches in the season that will define the count. There will be games where say for example, Geelong play Gold Coast. If Selwood and Ablett both have good games, the decision as to who gets the 3 votes and who gets the 2 votes has a massive bearing on the final result as it’s effectively a two vote swing!
Trend players as the count unfolds
As the count develops throughout the evening you should keep track of where the count sits relative to your predictions. If you’ve missed a couple of 1 votes for Josh Kennedy early in the season, so he’s +2 on where you thought he’d be at Round 6, then check what difference that might make at the end of the season. If those two votes might be enough for him to win, then you can plan your moves now in Round 6, rather than when it gets to Round 23 and it’s too late.
On the flip side, if players are underpolling then that’s a definite sign to abort ship. If Ablett misses a couple of early 3 voters then we know he’s going to very much struggle to win after missing seven games, so you can safely lay him.
Keep an eye on the Before You Bet twitter feed during the evening as we’ll be regularly posting our thoughts about the trends on the night.
Beat the rush on the ad breaks
It’s incredible watching the live Betfair markets to see how wildly the markets swing during the ad breaks. People are sitting at home watching the coverage, and then wait for the ad to throw that $20 on Jordan Lewis because he polled two games in a row.
Be better prepared than those guys. Firstly, don’t bet on Jordan Lewis. Secondly, have your phone ready and Betfair on speed dial, or find an alternative way to trade. You want to beat the rush and grab the value before the ad break kicks in.
Our game plan and a couple of plays
In 2014, we strongly feel that Brownlow medal night will once again become a two-horse race. Gary Ablett will bolt out of the blocks. We feel that he will get so far in front by Round 15, it will be absolutely scary. At the moment, he’s $5 to win overall but you’d have to think he’ll be way less than that by Round 15, should he poll as we predict.
Can he win it? Maybe. But our plan will be to use the equity we currently have in Ablett, and try to move it across to Joel Selwood. Ablett will be way in front, so his odds will shorten and Selwood should drift a little. Then we’ll come home on Selwood with a wet sail. We believe it will come down to that final game, so the markets will be all over the place in nervous anticipation. Selwood should poll at least one vote in Round 23. We have him getting two votes, others have given him three. So we think he’ll snatch it in the final round.
There are many other plays that you could make during the count. One that we’ll look for on the night is to see which way the votes are heading in Sydney. Is Kennedy or Franklin overpolling? If so, they are going to give it a shake, so we might look to back them early and then lay later knowing that they miss the final games of the season.
Can we find value on any smokies? It’s really hard to see the winner coming outside of those four, but Trent Cochin and Dyson Heppell are two that we’ll be watching closely. Heppell is a tricky player to predict and he could steal more one vote games than we think. With Cochin, we know he’s an overpoller and with Richmond winning nine on the trot at the season’s end, he might get more votes than we think he should. If either show early trends of being ahead, then we’ll look to make a play on early in the count and lay off after Round 21.
We hope that’s given you something to think about come Brownlow night. Have a look at the season and look for possible players and rounds where you can make trading plays, but ensure that you have flexibility to be adaptable as the beauty is that anything can happen!
Don’t forget to check out our general 2014 Brownlow Medal betting tips!
