Trade the Ashes by exploiting session momentum in the three-way match-odds market: back the team likely to seize the next session, lay the draw early when it's overpriced and trade it down, and respect the weather, which can swing the draw price more than any wicket. Test cricket's slow build and big swings suit patient swing trading over fast scalping.
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This is a sub of our guide to trading major sporting events, and it focuses on the one cricket event that reliably pulls football-sized money onto the Exchange. If you have only ever traded limited-overs cricket, the Ashes will feel different — slower, deeper, and far more about reading momentum than reacting to every ball. Start with the fundamentals in our cricket trading basics and the broader cricket strategies guide, then come back here for the Test-specific approach.
Why the Ashes suits exchange trading
Two things make the Ashes exceptional to trade: liquidity and volatility. As the marquee Test series in the cricket calendar, an England–Australia Test attracts huge matched volume on Betfair — far more than a county game or a low-profile Test, which means tight spreads and the depth to trade meaningful stakes. At the same time, Test cricket is the most volatile format to price, because a single session can flip a match. A team can be cruising at lunch and in trouble by tea after a collapse of three quick wickets, and the match-odds price moves accordingly. High liquidity plus high volatility is the ideal combination for a trader: you get plenty of movement to trade and plenty of money to trade it with. The Ashes delivers both for up to twenty-five days across a series.
The markets worth trading
The Ashes gives you more to work with than a one-day match. The headline is the three-way match-odds market — England, Australia, and the draw — which is the heart of Test trading and the only mainstream cricket market where the draw is a serious price. Beyond it sit the series/outright market (who wins the five-match series), session and innings runs markets for those who like trading totals, top batsman and top bowler markets, and various method/most-runs propositions. For trading rather than betting, the match-odds and the draw are where the liquidity and the tradeable movement concentrate, so that is where this guide spends its time. The session-runs markets reward those who can read a pitch and a scoring rate, but they are thinner and best left until you are comfortable with the main market.
Trading the draw — the third dimension
The draw is what makes Test trading unique, and learning to trade it is the single biggest step up from limited-overs cricket. Early in a Test, with all four innings still to play, the draw is often a meaningful price — and as a match progresses and a result becomes likely, that price collapses toward long odds, or shortens dramatically if rain and slow play eat into the available overs. The classic Test trade is therefore a draw trade: lay the draw early when you judge a result is likely (taking on the liability that the match is drawn), then trade out as the draw drifts; or, conversely, back the draw cheaply on a flat pitch with rain forecast and watch it steam as overs are lost. The draw price is driven by two things above all — how many overs remain relative to the runs and wickets still needed, and the weather — and reading those two variables is the core skill. It behaves very differently from a two-way match-odds market, so treat it as its own instrument.
Session momentum: the core edge
If there is one repeatable edge in Test trading, it is session momentum. Test cricket is played in three sessions a day — before lunch, between lunch and tea, after tea — and momentum tends to run in clusters within and across them. A team that takes two wickets in the first half-hour after a break often takes a third soon after, because a new batsman is at his most vulnerable early and the bowling side is on top. The match-odds price reacts to each wicket, but it frequently overreacts to the first one and underreacts to a building pattern. The tradeable approach is to anticipate the swing rather than chase it: when you judge a session is turning — conditions favouring the bowlers, a fragile lower order exposed, the new ball due — take a position before the price has fully moved, then green up once the market catches up to what you saw. This is swing trading applied to cricket, and the Ashes, with its quality bowling attacks and dramatic collapses, offers it more often than any other series.
Weather and the draw
Nothing moves the Ashes draw price like weather, and ignoring the forecast is the fastest way to be caught wrong-footed. Lost overs make a draw more likely, sometimes overwhelmingly so, regardless of the match situation — a team five wickets from victory cannot win if the rain does not relent. Experienced Test traders watch the forecast as closely as the cricket, because a confirmed washout of a session can move the draw further and faster than a cluster of wickets. The practical implications: factor the forecast into every draw position, be wary of laying the draw when rain is forecast for the closing day, and recognise that an unexpected break in the weather (rain clearing earlier than forecast) is itself a tradeable event as the draw drifts back out. In Australia the heat and the hard, true pitches can also flatten a game into a high-scoring draw; in England, cloud cover and a moving ball can produce sudden collapses. Read the conditions, not just the scoreboard.
Reading the pitch and the conditions
Beyond the weather, the pitch itself is a core input the casual bettor ignores and the trader cannot. A flat, true Australian deck at Perth or the MCG favours batting, pushes totals up, and nudges the draw price down only slowly — results can still come, but you should expect runs and price the match-odds accordingly. A green English seamer at Headingley or a turning surface late in a match favours the bowlers and makes wickets, and therefore swings, far more likely. The key tradeable insight is that pitches deteriorate: a surface that is placid on day one often offers uneven bounce and turn by day four or five, which is exactly why fourth-innings run chases are so hard and why backing a result over the draw becomes more attractive as a match ages on a wearing pitch. Read the surface at the toss, listen to what the commentators and groundsman say, and update your view of how likely wickets and a result are as the match progresses. The trader who prices in pitch deterioration is ahead of the market that is still trading the first-innings scoring rate.
The situation: day four of a recent Ashes Test, the bowling side pressing for victory but the batting side digging in. About forty-five minutes before tea the three-way match-odds had the bowling side around 1.9 to win, the batting side out around 7.0, and the draw around 3.6 — a deep market with well over £1,000,000 matched.
The read: a new batsman had just come in, the second new ball was a few overs away, and the cloud was building — classic conditions for a cluster of wickets. I judged the bowling side’s price (1.9) had room to shorten toward odds-on proper if even one more wicket fell.
The trade: I backed the bowling side for £100 at 1.9. Within twenty minutes two wickets fell to the new ball exactly as the pattern suggested, and the price shortened to 1.45. I layed £131 at 1.45 to green across the book.
The result: backed £100 at 1.9 (potential £90 profit), layed £131 at 1.45 (liability £59) — locking roughly £31 profit whatever the eventual result, before commission. Not a fortune on a £100 stake, but a clean, low-stress swing banked in under half an hour by reading the session, not the scoreboard.
The lesson: I did not predict the match result — I predicted a session swing from conditions and game state, took a position before the wickets fell, and greened up once the market agreed with me. That is the repeatable Ashes edge: trade the momentum you can see coming, then take the money off the table rather than riding the position to the close.
In-play, the delay and discipline
Trading the Ashes in-play means living with the in-play bet delay — the few seconds Betfair holds your bet before matching it — and with the reality that your television or stream is itself behind the live action. In a sport where a single ball can take a wicket and move the price several ticks, that lag matters. The discipline this demands is to trade ahead of events rather than reacting to them: by the time you have seen a wicket on screen and placed a bet, the price has already moved, and you are chasing. The session-momentum approach above is partly a way of dealing with the delay — you take your position on a read of the conditions before the ball is bowled, so you are not racing the market on confirmed news. Test cricket is forgiving here compared with T20, because the slow build gives you time to think between deliveries, but the delay still punishes the reactive trader. Plan your entries during the natural pauses and you turn the format’s pace into an advantage.
Trading the series outright
The series market is a slower, position-trading game that runs across all five Tests, and it offers a different kind of opportunity. Outright prices move on the result of each match and on big in-match swings, so a team that goes one-nil up sees its series price shorten sharply, and a dramatic comeback within a single Test can move the outright even before the match finishes. Traders who follow the whole series can build a position early — backing a team they fancy at a longer price — and trade out as the series narrative develops, greening up after a favourable result rather than carrying the bet to the end. It rewards patience and a genuine read of the two squads, and it ties naturally to the major-events approach of treating a tournament as a series of linked trading opportunities rather than one bet. The liquidity is thinner than the match-odds market, so size accordingly, but the swings across a five-match series are large and there is plenty of time to work a position.
Common Ashes trading mistakes
Three errors cost newcomers the most. The first is ignoring the weather — trading the draw purely on the match situation and getting blindsided when rain rewrites the equation. The second is chasing wickets: seeing a wicket on a delayed stream and backing the bowling side after the price has already moved, repeatedly buying high. The third is over-trading the quiet periods — Test cricket has long passages where little changes and the price drifts on low volume, and forcing trades there just feeds the spread. The fix for all three is patience and preparation: know the forecast, anticipate swings instead of reacting to them, and sit on your hands when nothing is happening. Test trading rewards the trader who makes a handful of well-judged trades a day far more than the one who churns. Keep a record of your Ashes trades, as you would in any structured trading challenge, and the patterns of when you make and lose money become obvious quickly.
The verdict
The Ashes is the connoisseur’s cricket trade: deep enough to trade real stakes, volatile enough to offer constant movement, and slow enough to let you think. Trade it by reading session momentum and taking positions before the market catches up, treat the draw as its own instrument driven by overs remaining and the weather, and respect the in-play delay by anticipating rather than chasing. Keep stakes sensible, green up your swings rather than gambling on the result, and watch the forecast as closely as the cricket. Build the foundations in cricket basics and the cricket strategies guide, learn the longer game in Test match trading, and apply the same event-trading discipline you would to any major sporting event.
FAQ
Is the Ashes good for Betfair trading?
Yes — it is one of the best cricket events to trade. As the marquee Test series it draws huge liquidity on Betfair, and Test cricket's session-by-session volatility produces large, tradeable price swings. Deep markets plus big movement is the ideal combination for a trader, across up to twenty-five days of play.
How do you trade the draw in Ashes Test cricket?
The draw is a genuine third price in the three-way match-odds market. Lay it early when you judge a result is likely and trade out as it drifts, or back it cheaply on a flat pitch with rain forecast. Its price is driven mainly by overs remaining versus the game situation, and by the weather — watch both closely.
What is the main edge in trading the Ashes?
Session momentum. Test cricket runs in clusters — wickets tend to come in bunches, especially with a new ball or a new batsman in — and the market often overreacts to the first wicket and underreacts to a building pattern. Anticipating a session swing from conditions and game state, then greening up, is the repeatable edge.
How much does weather affect Ashes trading?
Enormously, through the draw. Lost overs make a draw more likely regardless of the match situation, so a confirmed washout can move the draw price further and faster than a cluster of wickets. Always factor the forecast into draw positions and be cautious laying the draw when rain is forecast for the closing day.
Is Test cricket or T20 easier to trade on Betfair?
They suit different traders. Test cricket is slower, deeper and more about reading momentum, which gives you time to think and forgives the in-play delay more. T20 is fast and reactive, with prices moving every ball. Beginners often find the Ashes more forgiving because the slow build allows planned, patient entries.
Related reading
Build from the major sporting events pillar and the cricket strategies guide, start with cricket trading basics, then go deeper on Test match trading and contrast it with T20 trading. Apply swing trading, mind the in-play delay, and check current form via cricket match predictions.
Test cricket swings hard and the in-play delay works against reactive traders — the Ashes can lose you money as fast as it makes it. Most Betfair traders lose overall, and reading a session wrong on real stakes is costly. Green up swings rather than gambling on results, keep stakes within your bankroll, and never chase. Past results don’t guarantee future returns. 18+ only; help at BeGambleAware.org.
Trade the session, not the scoreboard — anticipate the swing, respect the weather and the delay, and green up rather than gamble on the result.
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