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When Wales substitute Robert Earnshaw missed an open goal that would have levelled the score against England at Wembley in a crucial Euro 2012 qualifier earlier this month, punters who rely on short-priced “certainties” drew a big sigh of relief.
The spread betting firms had already done well, as England, at 2.2-2.4 on goal supremacy, were playing at home against a team 113 places below them in Fifa’s world ranking, and were heavily backed to make the less than generous goal and match performance spreads.
“We saw an awful lot of customers getting with England in Bulgaria on the Friday before at 0.9-1.1 goal supremacy [England won 3-0], and they came back to play up profits from that game,” says Andy Wright, football trader at Sporting Index.
The lack of goals in England’s 1-0 win against Wales proved to be a problem for the betting exchanges. “We saw £9.2m ($14.2m) traded on the game, and would have expected more if there had been more goals,” said Andy Lulham, Betfair spokesman.
Things have gone more to plan for spread betters eager to cash in on the wide gulf in talent at these early stages of the competition: Group A winners Germany put six goals past Austria, Italy won twice in five days to top Group B, and world champions Spain scored six goals without reply against minnow Liechtenstein to qualify for the finals in Poland and Ukraine next summer.
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