Football Trends: Dont pay a huge price for ten-ups safet ynet.

Byline: Kevin Pullein

A QUESTION for spread bettors: if you could buy corners at 11, how much of a premium would you be willing to pay for the privilege of having your trade settled at ten if the make-up should be any number lower than 11?

It's probably a question that many flag-kick enthusiasts would like to have the opportunity of answering.

And now they've got it because Spreadfair is offering corners ten-ups on all televised matches.

It's one of a range of new markets available on the exchange - others include goals x corners (for volatility addicts) as well as bookings and corners in the first, second and last half-hour.

In effect, ten-ups is a bet on the number of corners over ten.

If there are ten corners or fewer in a game, the makeup is zero.

If there are 11 corners, the make-up is one. If there are 12 corners, the make-up is two. And so on.

The correct answer to the original question, though, may be smaller than many of us thought.

In the Premiership during the last eight completed seasons - 1997-98 through to 2004-05 - the average number of corners was 11.1. The average for ten-ups in those games would have been 2.0.

In Europe, flag-kicks tend to be less plentiful than they are in England.

In the Champions League during the last four completed seasons - 2001-02 through to 2004-05 - the average number of corners taken was 10.0. The average for ten-ups in those games would have been 1.4.

You will have noticed two things - that ten-ups were lower where totals were lower (we would have anticipated nothing else) and that in both examples ten-ups were lower than many us would probably have forecasted.

The reason is partly that corners make-ups tend to cluster around the total corners spreads.

Extreme make-ups - those close to zero or 20 - are very rare. But, of course, they are precisely the ones that players find most vexatious.

In the table alongside I have illustrated how I believe the prices for corners ten-ups should vary with those for corners totals.

The figures come from my theoretical model but they seem to be fairly close to those we encountered earlier in the two practical, real-life examples.

When trading on Spreadfair, remember that you have to pay up to five per cent commission on any winnings - the screen price is not the settlement price.AS in all numbers markets, corners are things that most people feel happier buying than selling.

Because people prefer to be cheering for things to happen rather than not happen. And because if something hasn't happened yet, there's always the chance that it will in the future, whereas if something9.0 0.9 9.2 1.0 9.4 1.1 9.6 1.2 9.8 1.3 10.0 1.4 10.2 1.6 10.4 1.7 10.6 1.8 10.8 1.9 11.0 2.1 11.2 2.2 11.4 2.3 11.6 2.5 11.8 2.6 12.0 2.8 12.2 2.9 12.4 3.1 12.6 3.2 12.8 3.4 13.0 3.6 has happened already it can't unhappen.

One of the classic explanations of spread betting is: the more right you are the more you win, and the more wrong you are the more you lose.

Ideally, we would all love to have the first part without the second.

And now corners buyers can with ten-ups.

But you will have to pay a premium for the privilege.

And the amount you should pay may be smaller than you realised.

CAPTION(S):

Spreadfair's ten-ups market offers a new challenge to corners players