Despite finishing with a loss in the final, my first real participation in cricket betting during this World Cup has been a positive one.
Tuesday 21 November 2023
World Cup Cricket and Two-Thirds Century Wraps
Saturday 18 November 2023
NBA Cup
Thursday 16 November 2023
Gambler's Fallacy
I'm not going to mention any names, but one tipster with an excellent track record who I've been following for several years now, recently sent an update with an interesting, and surprising, suggestion:We're currently a few points down for the season with both official and unofficial picks, so if you've been thinking about upping the stakes at some point, this should prove to be a great time to do that.
I couldn't agree less. Increasing stakes in an effort to recoup prior losses is loss-chasing and something which is often viewed as a defining feature in the transition from recreational to problem gambling.
If your system is profitable at level stakes, there is never any need to chase your losses. The positive expected value (+EV) will, in the long run, result in profits.
Tuesday 14 November 2023
Cricket and FRAN
Hi again, As I have often mentioned, I follow your blog with great admiration. What is your opinion on rating systems? On the one hand, ELO is often used to rate teams better. I use Ken Massey's site a lot. https://masseyratings.com/ Especially for college sports, it allows for very good ratings. Thank you very much and good luck.
While I love looking at ratings, the challenge I have is using them to beat the market. A little history, but back in 1987 (36 years ago!) I bought a book called The Punter's Revenge - Computers in the world of gambling - by Tony Drapkin and Richard Forsyth (I still have it in fact) and one chapter which had a big influence on me was 8.4 "Rating the strength of football teams".
The method was named FRAN (Football Rating Assessment Number) and was based on Elo (not ELO!) with Home teams "risking" 7% of their rating and Away teams 5%. I was quite fascinated by the idea, and spent many hours in the late 1980s / early 1990s maintaining ratings, looking for value, and with some success.
I remember one midweek round of matches when I had a number of multiple bets on Away wins in Divisions Three and Four, (in those days you couldn't bet on single matches), and all five landed for what, at the time, was a rather nice payout. I remember it because waiting for the final results to be confirmed made me late to meet a friend at the pub, and she was less than impressed with my excuse.
I think I've mentioned before that I'd look at the prices in the Racing Post on my commute into London, stop at a phone on my walk to the office and call in my bets which was great until my bookmaker accounts all got closed down in fairly quick succession, which was probably more than a coincidence, and made me realise that my time could probably be spent more profitably elsewhere. Similar to my reaction when told I'd have to pay Premium Charges, part of me was satisfied that the ban meant my success was being confirmed.
But I never forgot the idea, and many years later I resumed maintaining ratings on teams which is how I stumbled across the typical profile for matches with a higher than expected probability of ending up as a Draw, which became known as the XX Draws system back in 2012 or 2013.
Like everything else, the betting landscape has evolved a lot since the late 1980s. Betfair made it possible for me to make money consistently again from betting, but other, far more sophisticated organisations, were developing their own models to identify value, and a relatively basic model based on an Excel spreadsheet was never going to find an edge.
I think ratings compiled by others are a good starting point, but because they are widely available, you need to identify a weakness (one example might be the rating for home field advantage) and tweak the overall rating to improve it, but of course everyone else is trying to do the same thing.
Fortunately the sports markets aren't efficient, and in some cases remain inefficient for much longer than should be expected, and if you identify new trends early, and adapt your model accordingly, there is some hay to be made, at least for a while.
"The trend has vanished, killed by its own discovery." -Benoit B. Mandlebrot
Saturday 4 November 2023
October: Texas, UMPO, Cricket, Indexes and Health
The 2023 baseball season came to an end earlier this week with yet another underdog win for the Texas Rangers who clinched their first ever World Series on the road in Arizona.
The three main problems people face when they retire are apparently "financial insecurity, health issues and social isolation" and October was at least a good month for the second of those categories.
Sunday 29 October 2023
World Cups - Rugby to Cricket
It appears that Adam Johnson has sadly passed away at the age of just 29 after his horrific accident last night while playing for the Nottingham Panthers which makes the rest of this post seem very trivial.
From the 32 matches all-time, 20 of the 21 strongest favourites were winners, and 9 of the 11 weakest were losers (see left). If only every sport was as clear cut, and it's a shame this tournament is only quadrennial, and not only for the investment opportunity. It's a tournament that is slow to get going with so many one-sided games, but when those more competitive games come along, it's hard to beat as a sport.
Although there are no elimination matches in the Six Nations, a similar pattern is seen here, although backing very short priced favourites is not profitable long term.
We have to wait a while for the Rugby Championship next summer, and there's the new Pacific Nations Cup featuring Canada, Fiji, Japan, Samoa, Tonga and USA which will take place next August / September which will have some knockout games.
Wednesday 25 October 2023
Uncanny Ability - A Story of a Person
Comments on the blog these days are few and far between but Gnome Mange, possibly not his real name, had one on a post that was published more than six and a half years ago regarding the infamous Peter "Pee Wee" Webb. Gnome Mange wrote:
After nearly 6 years I now think you are correct. All these horse trading pre-off is just marketing gimmick to sell his software, probably with the blessing of Betfair themselves to bring in more liquidity.Read the original blog post for more details, but the only surprising thing about this comment is that it took six plus years for GM to reach this conclusion!
I tried pre-off horse trading myself and it makes no sense. There is no rule where the odds have to be, it could go anywhere. I fail to see how staring at odds moving around somehow give you insight to the future...
"Referring to yourself in the third person creates distance between "I" and "he." So if you have an exaggerated view of how great you are, you could be using this distance to make yourself even bigger."Without further comment, here's a paragraph from Peter on Peter:
It’s not only this pioneering approach that has caught people’s imagination but also Peter’s uncanny ability to predict and exploit whatever market he embraces. However, it is always characterised by a deep understanding of risk and a lifelong pursuit of its limits. This is a story of a person, who from his childhood, has sought through a very personal journey, to profitably apply a passion for numbers and statistics to real-world markets.
The ability to predict and exploit any market would indeed be uncanny. It would also mean that Peter would be one of the wealthiest, if not the wealthiest, people on the planet. I suspect he isn't, and as Gnome Mange says - "It makes no sense". When someone is talking about themselves in such a flowery and ridiculous way, it should ring some alarm bells to anyone thinking of parting with their money.
Thanks for the comment though and the trip down memory lane. Moving on to more current events, and it wasn't a bad weekend overall, although the Bundeslayga System had a bad round and dented the profits.
The Rugby World Cup (RWC) semi-finals went as expected, but it can hardly be claimed that the South Africa bet was value even if it did ultimately land. Up 0.29 units and we now have odds for 27 RWC elimination matches, and 18 of the 19 shortest priced favourites have won, with just one of the other nine prevailing. New Zealand are a weak favourite in the Final, and while Third Place matches (or Bronze Finals) as Rugby refers to them are best avoided in football, in Rugby they do seem to go to form.
In the MLB playoffs, the underdogs continue to do well. Very well in fact with 12 winners from the last 15, and twice as may wins as losses in total (22-11) when even a 50/50 record would guarantee a profit. With just the World Series to come between two Wild Card teams from the West, we're up about 16.76 units so far. The favourites, with home field advantage, are the Texas Rangers, who play the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Rangers have never won a World Series. With a negative ROI of 1.9%, underdogs tend not to do so well in the World Series, although now that the Designated Hitter rule has gone, that might change.
In College Football, the manuscript systems went 4-2 ATS and 5-1 on the Totals for a nice profit, while in the NFL we went 3-4 ATS and 2-1 on the Totals. Combined for the season, these systems are now 104-60-5, up 40.9 units.
It's still early in the NHL season and like last year, it's off to a slow start down 3.75 units after 31 matches. Last season we were down 12.25 units at the end of November, but we still ended the season in profit.
The 2023 NBA season started last night with two games, but no qualifying bets, which may be a good thing after 2022 was a disappointment for both systems, with rare losses. A blip, or has the edge gone? Time will tell.
And finally to football, and the good news was that I updated the document early on Saturday morning with a new system and it produced two winners for subscribers from two qualifiers. The Bundeslayga Systems were terrible as mentioned earlier, losing a combined 7.24 units, the Segunda División Draws had one winner from three for a tiny loss, and there were no selections in the EPL.