Golf Trading

• *Significant terms: New customers only, bet at least £20 on the Exchange and if your first bet loses, Betfair will refund you £20 in Cash. Bet must be placed in first 7 days of account opening. T&Cs apply.

We often get asked how trading on golf works and whether there’s scope for making a profit on the exchanges from golf – the simple answer is yes! The prices on offer on Betfair in particular can be incredibly attractive compared to the mainstream bookies, however it’s worth that you can’t back players each way in this type of betting.

Our example comes from the 2021 Hero World Challenge, eventually won by Viktor Hovland (for another example click here). Having demolished Bryson DeChambeau in ‘The Match’ a few days before, Brooks Koepka looked a solid bet at 24 (23/1) on the Exchange to win the Hero.

A £50 win bet on Brooks gave us a potential profit of £1,150 in the short 20-man field:

With Koepka 1 shot off the lead at the halfway point, there was opportunity to either give us a completely free bet or give us a guaranteed profit. Here’s how:

With the current lay price at 8 (7/1 – the pink number next to Koepka’s name), we can offer £350 of our potential profit to other Betfair punters and recoup our £50 stake.

There’s over £3,000 available to lay immediately at that price, so by placing this bet we’d be left with a potential win of £800 on Brooks with our stake already returned:

That would then give us a trading screen where there’s no loss should anyone other than Brooks win:

Of course you may want to cash in right now and guarantee yourself a profit in all eventualities, so let’s ‘green up’:

By offering £1,050 of your profit at 8 (7/1) we can guarantee ourselves a profit of at least £100 in all eventualities. The lay screen then looks like this:

In this scenario we’ve reached a green-green scenario where we can take the money and run regardless of the result – the question is how long you’re willing to wait before laying the bet…get it right and you’ll make more money, get it wrong and your profit will reduce!

In our experience it’s significantly easier to lay your bet between rounds than it is in-play as there tends to be more liquidity, however much will also depend on the price you’re willing to lay at. If you offer a price higher than the ‘going rate’ then you’ll often get your lay matched.

As it happens, Brooks traded a little lower than 7/1 early in the third round on Saturday, however by the end of ‘moving day’ Collin Morikawa had opened up a commanding 5-shot lead which meant that the opportunity to trade had all but disappeared.

Would you have traded out and locked the £100 profit in at the halfway point or let it ride? Timing is everything in golf trading and making the right call in these situations can make or break your week.

Fancy having a go for real? Betfair are offering GBS readers a £20 money-back offer to try out the exchange – click here to get started and use promo code VAL225.

• Significant terms: New customers only, bet at least £20 on the Exchange and if your first bet loses, Betfair will refund you £20 in Cash. Bet must be placed in first 7 days of account opening. T&Cs apply.