Sunday 31 January 2010

Walk Like An Egyptian


Since everyone is titling their posts as above today, I thought I might as well follow suit. Could be a pyramid scheme that I need to get in on... or am I in de-Nile?

The Elo ratings got the Manchester City v Portsmouth result spot-on with the expected 2 goal win but Arsenal were out-played by Manchester United and the expected draw didn't happen.

A problem with picking the draw is that there is no room for error. You either hit it for a nice win at 3.4 or so, or you lose. With the 1+ goal predictions, you can back the winning team and get a winner even if the margin is not exact.

There are three teams in Serie A with the initial letter of "C" and Football Elite went for all of them today. The Recommended Bet was Cagliari, and two Short-List selections were Catania and Chievo but unfortunately all three teams drew to complete a negative weekend for the service. Cagliari were 2-1 up before being reduced to 10 men, so a little unlucky perhaps, but luck evens out over time.

I was looking at a very interesting link provided by Scott Ferguson showing the proofed results of horse-racing tipping services. As Scott says "Why bother risking losing your own money when there are people out there willing to pay for such 'great' advice..."

Matt (Football Elite) commented on the topic of only backing at evens or better, and his summary was that backing at shorter prices just doesn't pay. "Maybe the market is too efficient at that end of the market?" Perhaps, but my answer would be that if these shorter priced selections are failing to return a profit, then they are clearly NOT value selections. More research needed.

Finally, I am going to replace the Conference Regional leagues with Seria A and La Liga. Possibly the Bundesliga 1 and Ligue 1 also. The spreadsheet is certainly showing promise in the higher leagues, and I'm hopeful that the stronger leagues in Europe will also perform well.

I had an enquiry as to the availability of my spreadsheet, and while I am willing to share ideas in general, the spreadsheet does contain two years worth of proprietary data so it's not something I would want to be giving away. Besides, it's an evolving work in progress and will continue that way for some time.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've got sand in my shoes now Cassini-hope you got some too lol

Anonymous said...

Pyramid scheme...very good. That tickled me.

ben said...

Hello,

Is the Elo ratings a service you can subscribe to?

3 F's said...

My mummy came up with that title yesterday, Cassini