London Blues

It may be slightly premature, but the next round of the EPL in two weeks time sees a potential title decider as the current top two face off at Selhust Park on September 12th.

It's rather an oddity that only one London Premier League club (Crystal Palace themselves as it happens) has won a home game this season with lesser city rivals Arsenal (L,D), Chelsea (D,L), Tottenham Hotspur (D,D) and West Ham United (L,L) all win-less in their home matches.

The decline in EPL home advantage I wrote about at the start of last season continued last season, where blindly backing Away sides to win would have made you 9.29 points on the 379 matches Pinnacle Sports priced following 19.30 points from 2013-14's 380 matches.

Having said that, a more profitable 'blindly backing' strategy in the EPL would have been that of backing the underdog which was +54.69 points over the last three seasons, with each season profitable, and a strategy that would already be in profit by 26.14 points this season

Early days yet, but Away wins in the Premier League are off to a flying start this season with a 42.5% strike rate and +30.48 points. Only seven teams have won a Home game while 13 have won on the road.

Road To Nowhere

Some people take my writing here a little too seriously, so to clarify I am, of course, teasing Steve M about Australia and its sport. For a nation of 23 million, they consistently punch above their weight in several team sports, as well as producing individual stars in other team sports and in individual sports such as golf, which as Steve pointed out on Twitter overnight, saw its final Major of the season won by Jason Day, no longer one of the best players to never win a Major.

Steve recently had a guest post from Matthew Trenhaile who some of you may be familiar with from his several previous thought proving and constructive comments to this blog. A well written and worth reading post from Matthew, and I also see he has his own blog, which I am happy to add to my blogroll. Matthew writes well, and is very knowledgeable about his subject, even if his choice of font and text colour takes me back about 30 years to my days as a computer programmer in the less than salubrious surroundings of West Croydon:

Another blog that might prove to be interesting is Cherry Analysts, whose intro reads:

I enjoy working out the puzzles of betting markets using maths and logic to beat the interest rates the banks offer. I stick to certain events that I enjoy and have shown that I can make a profit in over the last decade. The reason I stick to these markets is simple, I am happy to put hours of work into them as they interest me. You won’t see me giving out advice on Lithuanian under 19s Basketball for example, as I don’t care about it and in the end that would probably cost me money.

A man after my own heart, and it helps that the author also appears to be another Crystal Palace fan. Such good taste. Even closer to home than Crystal Palace, is a team called Whyteleafe. While following their fortunes on Twitter on Saturday, it appears there was a lot going on. The score went from 2:2 to 1:2 to 1:1 to 2:1 in the space of a few seconds. Amazing scenes.

Were the game in-play on Betfair, there would have been some interesting price movements! Whyteleafe eventually won 3:2 in case anyone is interested - first win of the season, although the gods of randomness were in a jovial mood at the end:

Diamonds In The Sporting Wilderness

I need to make an apology for an ill-considered line I wrote recently. In a casual and poorly researched comment about the quality of sport in Australia, I wrote this:

I think the fact that Steve doesn't really care where he lives is more helpful. Steve's 'fortunate' to live in Australia, where decent sport is hard to come by

The Steve referred to is of course Daily 25's Steve M who, unless I have missed it, has been very quiet about his nation's top sport.

While the Rugby team took another hammering this weekend, unbeknownst to me, Australia has been hosting a World Cup in Netball over the past few days, and my Twitter feed today tells me that Australia actually won it. Yes, really! Congratulations to Steve and I am especially impressed over how modest Steve has been about his nations biggest sporting success in many a year.

Before getting too carried away, it should be noted that the tournament is only taken seriously by two countries, with New Zealand being the other, so calling it a 'World Cup' is a little cheeky.

A quick look at the record of this tournament shows that of the 14 tournaments, Australia has won (or jointly won) 11 and been second the other three occasions. New Zealand have won (or jointly won) it four times, and been runners-up eight times. England, South Africa and Trinidad and Tobago are the only other nations to ever finish in the top two.

Anyway, this observation is not intended to take anything away from Steve, who is no doubt celebrating this rare international sporting success late into the night with a glass (or two) of wine. Perhaps they will ease the pain of the Wallabies result. 

Warts And All, Or Not At All

A couple of comments on my previous post, with Martin (Brulati) taking umbrage at my thoughts on his repeatedly justifying why it is acceptable to 'not count' certain losses, and why, given his previous history in the area of discipline, I don't feel he's cut out to be a trader. He snaps:

Nobody force you to read my blog. ;-) In my opinion you should make a small step down of your big horse or how was the performance of your draw section? It's easy to be always negative against everybody and not have the same objectivity about the own results.

Martin is certainly correct that no is forced to read his blog, but he specifically asked me back in June to add his blog to my blog-roll, which rather gave me the impression he was looking for readers and comments. Apparently I was mistaken, or at least comments are only desired where they align with his own already formed opinions, so I shall dismount from my 'big horse' (I think Martin means 'high horse'), offer comment and advice no more, de-blogroll his blog, wish him well for the future and leave him in peace.

As for the ability to be objective about ones own results, I think after twelve consecutive profitable years of betting / trading, it's one thing that I am able to be, and if constructive criticism is to be construed as 'negativity', well so be it. I call it as I see it.

G commented:

Good advice for Martin - doubt he'll listen though. I wonder if I should adjust my P & L figures when I have a loss due to indiscipline? Hmmm probably best not....

Apparently G called that correctly. "Advice is only welcome when it agrees with my own opinion". As I have written before, P and L figures are of no interest to anyone but yourself, but if they are not an honest record of your results, they are meaningless. As with the weekend golfer who intends to hit the ball but misses, and who chooses not to count the stroke, you are only cheating yourself. My betting spreadsheet goes back to January 1, 2006 and records every profit and every loss since that day. It would look a lot better if I excluded losses incurred during half-time when the score was adjusted (NBA) or losses due to being tired, or losses due to any number of other unfortunate events, but it wouldn't be worth anything had I done that. It has to be warts and all. My net-worth spreadsheet would look a lot rosier if I didn't count my liabilities, or overlooked alcohol related spending, but the truth isn't always pretty. Putting lipstick on a pig is another expression that springs to mind.

60, Sequences End And Train Wrecks Predicted

My previous insightful post on the quality of Australian sport (a rather timely post it could be said, following their Ashes performance), drew this response from Steve M (Daily 25) on Twitter:

As Crystal Palace's Steve Parish commented in his The Times interview last week:

“The Premier League receives £753 million from the 212 TV stations overseas per year for the right to show the games. That’s more than Serie A, La Liga, the French League, the Bundesliga, the NBA, the NFL and the baseball [MLB] for their overseas rights put together. That is just staggering. We have one of the greatest products in the world.

By way of contrast, the AFL is watched in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Ireland by an average viewing audience of 60 - although this number climbs to 61 if Seamus's sciatica is playing up and he can't sleep. Coincidentally, the average viewer age is also 60. 60... Now where have I seen that number before? For anyone worried that I'm giving Steve a hard time, we go back a long way - he even sent me a nice gift on one occasion - and he doesn't read this blog anyway :)

Anyone following the C-LAY-ton Kershaw system would have pocketed a modest 1.35 points last night as the eponymous laying system stopped its losing run at four. Unfortunately, the Unders winning run also came to an end after seven wins:

Finally, and it's an 'Oh dear', Martin (Tennis Trader) is at it again. Some of you may recall the Mulligan he took a month ago, writing after a trading loss:

I didn't count this loss to my profit & loss statement (exactly -100 Euro), because I will not do this approach any more. It's looking like an excuse, that's true. Probably I would count the profit if I could turn the trade in a winner. I am honest about this issue. You see, never believe a profit & loss blog ;-).

Indeed, and now he's at it again.

I will keep the KPI on the right side unchanged, because the mistake happened outside the strategies that I am testing at the moment.

Those of you who have followed this blog for a while will know that Martin (Brulati) quit trading back in April after (apparently) recognising that he had no edge in his chosen sport of tennis:

In the end only platforms like Betfair or betting companies make profit. There is no added value in trading sportsmarkets. If two people make a bet, one will win and the other one will lose. Over long term both will lose, because Betfair (and the other companies) takes the margin.

He wasn't quite right in his comment above (a small number of customers on Betfair do manage to make a long term profit - hence the need for the Premium Charges), but anyway, comments such as this one:

Just seconds after I lost the trade, I transferred a big part of my money back to my saving account. This lack of discipline was only possible, because there was too much cash at Betfair.

reveal that Martin self-admittedly doesn't have the discipline requited to be a successful trader:

Trading Psychology

The psychological aspect of trading is extremely important, and the reason for that is fairly simple: A trader is often darting in and out of stocks on short notice, and is forced to make quick decisions. To accomplish this, they need a certain presence of mind. They also, by extension, need discipline, so that they stick with previously established trading plans and know when to book profits and losses. Emotions simply can't get in the way.

His blog is not pleasant reading to be honest, (a train wreck waiting to happen), and in my humble opinion, Martin should focus on his day job, and walk away from betting / trading altogether.   

Aussie Time

Several of you appear to recognise a bargain when you see one, with both some renewals and new rookies signing on for next season. Rather oddly perhaps, an email from a non-renewer was just as pleasing to read:

I wont be renewing but this is no reflection on you or your service but purely a personal decision to not be involved in the betting world for now. Yours was one of my preferred service due its simplicity and efficiency. I run an ecommerce business which is growing and I need all my cash (and more!) for investment in stock. All being well I will return one day. I wish you good luck in the future.

And I wish the gentleman in question good luck with his new venture. The mention of simplicity and efficiency was shortly followed by a read of Steve (Daily 25's) latest post, which included these words of wisdom:

The biggest challenge for me has always been and I'm sure always will be not wasting time watching the games I have bet on.

Steve  preceded that nugget with:

I think the fact that I don't really care about betting is very helpful for me, while it might seem I spend a heap of time betting, the reality is it takes up less than 10 minutes each day and maybe an hour on Friday and Saturday.

I think the fact that Steve doesn't really care where he lives is more helpful. Steve's 'fortunate' to live in Australia, where decent sport is hard to come by (unless an England / British team is touring), but for those of us with a veritable smorgasbord of top class sport available year round, it's all too easy to spend (waste) a weekend watching sports.

More seriously, while we all want our betting hobby to be profitable, 'not caring' is a very good thing. Not having any pressure to make a profit keeps emotions out of our decision making, and it's another reason why full-time betting is, for most of us, a terrible idea.  

Bookies Catching Pigeons

A well (and anonymously) written article in the Observer / Guardian yesterday on the issue of bookmakers closing accounts. While the practice of closing or limiting accounts is certainly not a new phenomena, (as mentioned at least six and a half years ago, I can personally attest to it being applied in the 1980s), it appears to be far more widespread today, and ever growing. As the article explains, this is increase is in part because tracking individual punters is now easier than ever. Here it is in full - well worth a read:

As G Force burst through to win the prestigious Betfred Sprint Cup at Haydock, I began celebrating my biggest priced winner of the flat season, having backed him at odds of 25-1. But my joy at such a profitable day’s gambling was soon tempered by the realisation that yet another account with a bookmaker was effectively being shut down. After nearly four decades as a punter my betting is heavily curtailed. Not out of choice, but because I have had the audacity to win several thousand pounds.

Most of my internet betting accounts have either been closed by my bookmakers or so “restricted” that they might just as well be shut down. Time and again my attempts to place bets of £50 or less are greeted with responses such as “Alert – your bet has not been placed.” Instead, I am offered wagers of just £2 or similar amounts: bookmakers’ less than subtle code for “Get lost: we don’t want your custom.”

I am not a professional gambler; racing is simply my hobby. My love of horse racing began almost half a century ago. My late father, a freelance writer, took me to see Arkle race in 1966. I was just eight years old, but watching the greatest steeplechaser of all time had me hooked.

Today I still love the athleticism of the magnificent racehorses. I admire the courage of the undernourished jockeys.

Most of all I love the thrill of a bet, pitting my wits in a gladiatorial contest between punter and bookmaker. I can’t resist listening to the whispered racecourse tips from those supposedly in the know, that horse X is “catching pigeons” (showing great speed) on the training gallops. And I spend a couple of hours every evening after work poring over the horses’ form on my computer.

I bet on form, not inside information. Over the past four decades I suspect that, like most punters, I have lost more than I have won. However, in 2010 I won £700 and the following year I won £2,079.61. 2012 was a disaster: I lost £6,626.68. In 2013, I fared better and won £451.56. Yet 2014 was – by my modest standards – a remarkable year: my Cheltenham Festival winners included Sire de Grugy, backed at 28-1 for the BetVictor Queen Mother Champion Chase, and my Aintree winners included Pineau de Re, backed at 40-1 for the Crabbie’s Grand National. I finished the year exactly £18,012.92 in profit.

The first email officially closing one of my accounts arrived on a Saturday morning, just as I was choosing my bets for that afternoon’s televised horse-racing on Channel 4. The email from BetVictor read: “We are contacting you today to advise that a business decision has been taken by our Senior Traders and I must inform you that your business account has now been closed and no further business may be executed on your behalf… As explained in our Terms and Conditions, a Traders [sic] decision is final and will not be overturned.”

Other account restrictions followed and I was finding it harder and harder to get my bets (typically between £50 and £200) placed with my bookmakers, many of whom I had been a client of for more than 30 years. G Force’s win last autumn came after I opened a new account with Sportingbet solely in order to back the horse at 25-1, when other bookies were offering just 16-1.

When that punt was duly landed, my new account was effectively closed overnight after just two £50 bets – one a winner at 25s, the other an unplaced loser. When I rang up Sportingbet to ask why I had been offered £7 to win online instead of the £50 I was requesting on a horse as my third ever bet with the firm, I was told that I was on the “restricted list” after placing just two bets. I pointed out that if I couldn’t have £50 on a horse, I would never bet with them again. “That’s your choice, sir,” came the polite reply. Our brief association ended with me £1,200 in profit.

My experiences are not unique. Every week, up and down the country, leading bookmakers are closing accounts or severely restricting some gamblers’ bets because that individual is deemed to be – horror of horrors – a “winning punter”.

The news that bookmakers refuse to accept wagers from winning clients was met with incredulity by my non-gambling friends. “That’s outrageous,” said one. “Surely that’s against the law?” said another.

In fact, refusing to strike a bet at their advertised odds may break the spirit of the regulations, but it does not break any law. However, more and more bookmakers only want to accept bets from “mug punters”: those without discipline who bet far too much almost every day of the week and consistently lose more than they win.

Bookmaking can be traced back to the late 18th century in the UK. However, the punter-versus-bookmaker battle has been raging in earnest ever since the Gaming Act was passed in 1845. The bookies are usually the winners because, on average, they aim to shape a “book” in which they will make a profit of around 20% of all bets struck on a single race or other contest.

In the past two decades, however, the industry has changed significantly with new technology resulting in the spread of internet gambling and this, in turn, has made it easier for firms to identify winning punters than in the days when bets were mainly placed anonymously in smoke-filled betting shops.

“The large bookmakers increasingly employ mathematicians and risk managers, rather than those knowledgeable about sport, to ensure that they maximise profits – and have no chance of losing money,” said one senior industry source.

Like all businesses, bookmakers need to make a profit and no one denies them this right. But today, they make the rules, set the odds hugely in their favour and, with all these advantages and having already made healthy profits, they then increasingly refuse to take a bet. Is it any wonder that so many punters feel they are getting a raw deal?

Some “banned” punters try various tricks to strike their bets: some open accounts in the name of friends – but bookmakers then track internet addresses to try to thwart this tactic. One successful punter recently told the Racing Post that he had operated some 500 betting accounts under 30 different names over six years, but “the restrictions got so ridiculous I knocked it on the head”.

Barney Curley, now 75, is a legendary punter and former trainer, who has masterminded several seven-figure betting coups over the past 40 years. In recent years he has had to go to extraordinary lengths, getting scores of “foot soldiers” to place tiny bets the length and breadth of the UK and Ireland, in order to land wins totalling millions of pounds. By placing a succession of small bets at advertised odds, Curley can, for a time at least, avoid suspicion that someone is planning a raid on the bookies. By the time firms wake up to the fact that they are facing huge payouts on one or more horses, they have to honour the bets already struck.

Curley says: “Today the bookmakers, along with the racecourses, run racing. No one has the knowledge or the power to take them on, and there is no one to represent the punters’ interests. There is no one who will upset the applecart and say: ‘This [not taking bets from winning punters] is an absolute disgrace.’”

Curley no longer has any bookmakers willing to lay him bets with accounts in his own name. “I have to try to get my bets on with losing punters which is a pain in the arse because then you have to get them to pay you your winnings. I retired from training because it was so hard getting any money on my horses.”

In fact, bookmakers have rarely been under such scrutiny as they are now, after a series of complaints that they are ripping off punters in other ways, too. In April it was revealed that there had been an “over-round” of 165% on the 2015 Grand National – meaning there was a theoretical profit margin of 65% for the bookmakers built into the available odds at the time the race started. Allegations were made publicly that off-course bookmakers were manipulating the system to the detriment of punters, though these were denied.

It was announced in June that there would be a public consultation on whether the present system of producing a starting price – the odds at which most bets are settled by bookmakers – should be changed.

Alex Salmond, the former First Minister of Scotland and a keen punter and race-goer, told me that he intends to raise the issue of bookmakers refusing to take bets from winning punters in his new role as vice-chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Racing & Bloodstock.
“It is not acceptable for bookmakers to refuse to take a reasonable-sized bet because the client has a record of winning,’” he said. “If it is not a breach of advertising standards, then it should be. Bookmakers today simply don’t want to take any risks.

“In my new role, I intend to bring this to the attention of the Gambling Commission [which regulates gambling in the UK] and Ibas [the Independent Betting Adjudication Service, which rules on disputes between punters and bookies]. There is a difference between bookmaking, an entirely respectable profession, and fleecing people, which isn’t.

“Maybe it is time that the distinction was made harder in terms of the law. There is a difference between being risk-averse and being responsible for misleading advertising. An unreasonable refusal to accept bets should, in my estimation, be a reason for disqualification from a bookmaker’s licence.”

BetVictor refused to respond to specific questions about its trading or accounts’ management, but a spokeswoman said: “BetVictor reserves the right to refuse the whole or any part of any bet request for any reason… We also reserve the right to close or restrict any account without obligation to state a reason.”

Sportingbet declined to respond to any questions. However, most bookmakers will acknowledge, either privately or publicly, that the activities of winning punters are curtailed, although they stress that the desired bets of most punters are accommodated.

Craig Reid, head of trading for Betfred bookmakers, said: “The guys who are factored really well down [heavily restricted] are 2% of our whole database. They are shrewd. We will try to offer them some sort of bet, but they will get restricted.”

A spokeswoman for the Advertising Standards Authority, the advertising watchdog, said it had received more than 250 complaints so far this year about gambling advertisements, but she did not think any related to punters’ grievance about being restricted from placing bets.

Ibas said its primary role was to adjudicate on bets that have been struck. A spokesman said it would require a change the industry’s regulations, such as forcing bookmakers to accept bets of a specific size on advertised bets, before it could address complaints relating to restrictions on the size of bets.

I should point out that not all my bookmakers have turned away my bets. Ladbrokes and bet365 have invariably been willing to lay me a fair-size wager, but they are in the minority.
I can always bet as much as I want, within reason, on modern-day betting exchanges such as Betfair – in which one punter bets against another – but that is not my preferred way of gambling. In order to have a chance of a winning edge in the long run, I need to be able to back a horse at the best possible advertised odds. I often bet “ante post”, days, or even weeks, in advance of a race.

So I now have no fewer than 17 accounts with bookmakers and one with a betting exchange in order to have some remote hope of striking the bet I want. Of those 17 bookmakers, I would struggle to get on a bet of £50 at, say, 10-1 on the evening before a race, with most of them. I regularly get my intended £50 or £100 wagers reduced to £7, £6, £5 or even less (the record low offer for a bet is £1.67).

At one point, I lived in west London and could walk, anonymously, into a high -street bookmaker to strike a bet. If I needed a larger than usual bet placed, I employed the (free) services of my mother, who is now 87, to double my stakes. After she collected on two successive big wins at one shop off the King’s Road, the regular punters started revering her like a Mafia boss. However, I now live deep in the countryside miles from any betting shops and so using the internet is my only regular way of gambling.

Today I spend as much time plotting how I might be able to strike the occasional big bet as I do studying the form of racehorses. However, old habits die hard and, whisper it, I think I might have discovered a cunning method of getting one up on the old enemy…

The author’s name is known to the Observer, but it has been withheld at his request

2015-16 Plans

While I haven’t exactly been inundated with inquiries into my plans for the 2015-16 football season, a couple of subscribers have asked, the most recent enquiry being:

I was wondering if you were running your service again for this upcoming season?
If so how much is a subscription and how do I go about renewing.

I must admit that I was pleased to see the end of last season, in large part because running the FTL took so much time each week. 

While on this subject, FTL entrant TFA_Raz, also known as David, made a much appreciated gesture when advised that there would be no FTL this season, writing:

That's a shame mate it was a lot of fun. Please keep the £25 as a thank you for all the effort you put into it last season. My performance didn't deserve a cash anyway!

There won't be an FTL this season, so with kick-off just a few days away, it’s decision time on the Cassini Service. After much deliberation, and perhaps a little soul-searching, I have decided that, while results last season were overall on a par with other services, they are not enough to justify continuing as before. Pretty much everyone was saying what a tough season the last one was, (i.e. big losses), and in the leagues I follow there were certainly some unusual (compared to previous seasons) results, but with most subscribers paying £99 for the season, did it offer value for money?

Relative to other services I would say yes, but I am biased, and frankly even though the XX Draws and Bundeslayga selections are targeted at those looking to mitigate Premium Charges, I'm not comfortable that the Value Selections proved to be anything but, and pulled the overall achievable returns into the red.

So looking forward, since I will still be generating prices on each of the big 49 matches each week (EPL, Ligue 1, Serie A, La Liga, Bundesliga) for my own use, it's not a big deal to plug these numbers into a newsletter each week if the interest is there. I will also be adding some bets from a new league. Nothing too original, but the strategy has been profitable for the last three seasons where Pinnacle's Prices are available.

The cost will be £59 for the season, (£49 for renewing subscribers), and because I need an 'official' profit / loss number, I will include some 'official' selections each week (or round). The reason is that if this 'official' number, (actually the ROI%), measured against Pinnacle Sports prices as recorded by Football Data.co.uk, finishes the season below -2.0%, (i.e. no edge), I will refund half of this amount. As mentioned before, Pinnacle's Prices are usually beatable, so this 'official' number will be easily achievable with the smallest of efforts. Why only refund half the cost? The fee is so low because the money is secondary to the challenge of beating the very competitive football markets. I'm an old man by some measures (though not as old as some) and this is very much a part-time hobby for me, not a job, but it does take some time each week, and the small charge is for this effort. As with any betting venture, there can be no guarantees. A loss doesn't mean that there is a fraud being executed - and if anyone thinks it's worthwhile doing this for £29.50, they need help - it simply means that the markets continue to be hard to beat despite our best efforts.

For anyone interested, payments can be made via PayPal or Skrill to calciocassini@aol.com  

For anyone not interested, good luck to you this season. Having watched the Community Shield game earlier today, and with 'my' Crystal Palace making some positive moves in the off-season, the excitement is back. 

Old Guard

One big change during my time away, other than confirmation of the Ladbrokes takeover of Coral first made public in June, was that the option to revert to the old Betfair Exchange site appears to have been removed. 

Fortunately the old site is still available if you know where to look, but the new one is, from my perspective at least, a mess. There are many negative comments on the Forum, with one interesting observation being that the new site is targeted at younger customers - EastLower Gooner wrote:

It's geared to the younger folk, the newbies and the clueless...hence the reason they're opening up new markets like E Sports and League of Legends.

Ultimately you want people walking in, seeing your product and spending loads of money because they've been seduced by stuff like the Cash Out facility...the old guard who know how to look after their funds are not wanted.

Coachbuster, a poster who usually has something interesting to say, noted:

I will add (and not to rub the salt in ) but the protests are on the Horsey forum where the average punter is like around 75.

On the football forum some 2 generations down ,there isn't a single thread of protest - that should tell you all something

Onlooker added that:

Betfair should be aware of the old sayings ...
'Look after what you already have'
'Don't bite the hand that feeds you'
In the latter case - Your 'bright young things', "Under 30s," will be mostly Backers -
The experienced OLDER Betfairians are the Major LAYERS on here - and thus SEED the Markets.
NO LAYERS > NO Liquidity > NO Market = NO BETFAIR.

Some sweeping generalisations above, but I suspect there's more than a grain of truth in the general thrust of the comments. 

Blue Jays In Poor Shape After Getting The Runs

With little interest in tennis and cricket, July works well for me as a betting holiday month. In odd numbered years, there is no football of interest and only baseball challenges the mind . As you may have noticed, the blog has been idle while I have been travelling around enjoying some time off from my real work, and as a result, not even baseball has been followed too closely. Reader and baseball expert fizzer555 stopped by while I was away to comment:

Hi Cassini,

Joe Peta has done another of his always excellent write-ups of all the MLB teams and their performance YTD and his expectations for the rest of the season. The write-ups are in the pay for section of ESPN Insider so we can't repeat them here but, fortunately, he has used his LA Dodgers review on his Twitter feed as an example of the article and I thought, given your C_LAY-ton articles, useful to summarise it here.

The Dodgers were the best team in baseball over the first 81 games by a healthy margin even if 4 teams have a better W-L record as their results haven't fully reflected their underlying ability.

They have similar offensive stats (OBP, SLG, ISO) to Tornto for example but actually scored 100 runs less. They have the 4th best ERA and their bullpen has the strikeout potential to be the best in the league, particularly with Grandal now in as catcher.

There is no value in backing the Dodgers on a day to day basis. The betting lines on their individual games up to the All Star break have them rated as a 98 win team. Their stats say they are up to doing that although their actual win rate is on pace for 92 wins. Difficult to see any upside value then for individual games.

Their World Series price, however, is about 7.5 and not even favourite. "For now, there's clearly not much value betting them on a daily basis, but the play-offs may be a different story."

It's hard to argue a strategy of laying Kershaw when the Dodgers get priced up at such short prices when he starts, but the Dodgers look value for the NL championship and the World Series at the moment.

Compare any team's run total this year with the Toronto Blue Jays, and they will look poor. Toronto leads the league by a mile with 523 runs so far (by way of comparison, the next highest are 80 runs behind). Fizzer mentions their OBP and SLG, and the Blue Jays lead the league in the combined (OPS) category. (OBP is On Base Percentage, SLG is Slugging Percentage, and OPS is OBP + SLG).

For all the runs they have scored, the Blue Jays chances of making the post-season remain poor. With a Win-Loss record of 50:49, they are second behind the New York Yankees in their division, they are also three games back in the Wild Card race.

As for the strategy of laying Kershaw, as I mentioned before "I think I got a bit lucky with the timing of noticing Kershaw heading into a mini-slump". Kershaw has won his last three starts, and had one continued with the C-LAY-ton system, we would now 'only' be up be ~5.39 points.  

One other observation is that the Unders have come in on each of the last six Kershaw starts.

What A Load Of Craps

I am left with a few thoughts after reading the Martingale posts on the winnerswinonsports blog, the primary one being that it is hard to believe that anyone, never mind anyone in a well paying job, could be so stupid.

Having come up with a similar idea myself at the age of 10, as written in the "About Me" section of this blog, at least I had the excuse of inexperience:

The first system I came up with was a simple one - back the favourite and double up after a loss until a winner. Simple enough in theory, and I told my Dad about it. Not being a betting man himself, he ran it by some of his colleagues, and came home to tell me that it wouldn’t work because a long losing run would mean that the bank would be empty.

I may have mentioned this story before, but some years ago a friend told me that he was going to Las Vegas and had a guaranteed winning system. It was the 'double up after a loss on any of the even money shots' on Roulette. When I pointed out the flaw in his cunning plan, he said to me - "Ah! But here's the clever part. I wait until something has lost three times in a row before starting to bet on it". So after three consecutive reds for example, he bets on black. Not for the first time in my life, someone failed to be convinced by my logic, but he is still working (and betting) so it appears his fortune is yet to be made.

Why anyone would try this progressive system by betting on Draws or the numbers 1 to 12 on a Roulette wheel is even more puzzling. Fewer than one draw in three (unless you are following the XX Draw selections perhaps) ends up as a winning bet, so you are soon going to hit a long enough losing run to scupper the whole idea, either by hitting the house limit in the casino, or the limit in your bank account.

At odds of 2-1 or greater, there is no 'need' to double up. You only 'need' to double up after a loss if you are betting at evens - 'need' here meaning to recover previous losses, but I would question why you 'need' to recover the loss in one bet anyway. When you have a negative expectancy on each individual bet, you are doomed long-term anyway - but even if you do have an edge in say sports betting, the size of your stake should be determined by the size of your edge on that specific bet, not on the size of previous losses.  

Flash concludes the post saying that:

I remember him saying that with roulette you had the best odds of all the games in the casino, ie the odds were the closest to the true odds of all their games. The way you should look at it is that the casino always has the edge, so don’t even bother especially with a system like this.

This is not true however. The house edge on a single zero Roulette wheel is 2.7% (on the American double zero it is 5.26%) .

My own favourite casino game is Craps, and here the house edge on the Don't Pass / Don't Come bet is 1.36%, although I prefer to play the more usual Pass / Come bets at a 1.41% edge to the casino.

The numbers vary for Blackjack as casinos have different rules, but in Las Vegas, in a casino offering 'liberal' rules - i.e. a Dealer stands on soft 17, player may double on any two cards, player may double after splitting, resplit aces, late surrender - the edge is just 0.28%.

Baccarat also offers relatively good value, the edge being as low as 1.24% (as a player) or 1.06% (as a banker).

The way you should look at casino games is this - they are entertainment. Expect to lose, but an occasional visit is a lot of fun, and can be profitable. The likelihood of winning in the short-term is increased by playing the low house edge games.

For me Craps is perfect - a low house edge and great entertainment for a few hours. A couple of hundred dollars usually last a few hours in Las Vegas if you find a low minimum bet table (on the Strip, table minimums are generally higher, especially at weekends), and the drinks are all free. Watch the time though - in my younger years (a ridiculous expression, since I have never been as old as I am now), I once stood at a table for over eight hours before they closed it down at 5am. It was a good job they did - I almost missed my flight home. With no windows, plenty of free oxygen, and a constant stream of gamblers coming to the table, it's easy to lose track.

Bet for long enough, and casinos will often comp you a meal or even a room for the night. It doesn't matter if you are winning or losing - you earn credits by putting in the time. It's almost guaranteed that you will meet some interesting people while you are playing, from drunk girls who can't keep the dice on the table, to serious looking gamblers who carefully select their dice and align them in a special way, which strangely seems to result in the exact same outcomes as when you cast them without care.

And you might even walk away with some winnings. The best night of craps for me was walking away from the table with around $4,000 after starting with $200. The last three visits have all been losers though - so I am due a win!

Studies Have Shown

Well Clayton Kershaw managed to get back to winning ways the other night as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies 5-0 at the shortest starting price (-380 / 1.26) in MLB in almost 7 years (24.Aug.2008 Cubs v Nationals -400 / 1.25).

Only eight teams have started at a shorter price this century - and two of those lost, including the shortest of -360 / 1.22. Not many of us have the patience to wait 7 years though, and I think I got a bit lucky with the timing of noticing Kershaw heading into a mini-slump. 

Had I run the numbers for Kershaw starting at up to and including 1.50 for 2014, I would have seen that the Dodgers won 13 of those 14 games, the only loss being the final game. 

There's nothing magical about 1.5 of course, other than at this price or shorter, the team is reckoned to have at least twice the probability of winning than the underdog. 

In the nine games meeting this criteria in 2015, the Dodgers won the first five, before losing the next three. 

In 2013, he had six wins from eleven games and in 2012, five wins from eight.

Only ten teams (from 42 bets) have lost at  under 1.51 and Kershaw was the starting pitcher in three of those!

"Studies have shown" baseball to have reverse favourite-longshot bias has been written about here before, but backing at these prices since 2012 reveals this:

The 'studies' may be out of date. In the five years from 2007 to 2011, backing the favourite would have cost you 100.55 points (1267, 847, 420, 66.9%) and 48.15 points would have been lost from 2000 to 2006.

Something to keep an eye on as the 2015 season hits the half-way point and the all-star break. 

Streaking

The price with US books on Clayton Kershaw tonight is -375 (~1.27), an incredibly short price for a pitcher who is at best, a little off-form.

It's the shortest I have seen the Dodgers (or anyone else for that matter) and the previous shortest line I can find was when the Dodgers played the San Diego Padres on September 8th last season (and won 9-4) with Kershaw starting and the line was -350 (1.29). 

I'll do some more research when time permits, but while Kershaw has to start winning at some point, I'm not seeing any value at ~1.27 pre game.  

After five wining tips in a row, including the US Women to win the World Cup tipped last week (an easier win than even I thought it would be), I'm on a hot streak. Be warned.

Time Machine

Time for Tennis again, and Lee Von Dangerous (possibly not his real name) writes:

I can see you have strong opinions on tennis trading, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but the gist of it is that tennis trading from home is not/cannot be profitable?

I don’t trade tennis but would be keen to hear your thoughts on other well known tennis traders such as Punt.com and Peter Webb?

The gist of my thoughts are that the average home-trader is at a huge disadvantage and very unlikely to find an edge that will generate a long-term profit. I suppose my opinions come across as strong,but I have never been a big trader of tennis, mostly because I find the sport rather boring to watch most of the time, and so I don't really care too much.

I just see all these newcomers, or old-comers like Tennis Trading, who seem to thing making a profit in their spare time is a piece of cake. I don't agree, and my reasons for arriving at the conclusion that for most of us, it's a waste of time and money, are all contained in recent posts and don't need to be repeated here.

Matt, of the now retired punt.com, is a pretty sharp guy, not only because he came down on my side on the Cassini v Iverson debate writing:

"the date is meaningless imo. If you need target, try retirement day, otherwise, date is just a random point. The sporting calendar has peaks and troughs..timeline of betting decisions should be linear. Picking a point on a very long line, pointless."

Exactly. However, while his path hasn't crossed mine in well over a year, I don't believe he's a part-time home trader, but actually a full-time professional gambler, and appears to still know what he is doing after his latest huge win:

I jest. I suspect that like myself, one of Matt's strategies is to lay low (1.0x), and even though the upside can be huge, it's still not pleasant to take a loss. Having taken a position, there's nothing wrong with eliminating the possibility of a loss but keeping a large green on the other side, but Serena managed to win, so the big pay day will have to wait. I just hope Matt invests his £1.36 wisely.

Peter Webb is familiar to most of us from his blog which is actually more of a tool written in 'business speak' for promoting his Bet Angel product than the revelations and ups and downs of a part-time home trader like most of the blogs out there. His latest post is a typical example, and starts:

Happy 4th of July to our American users. Hold on we don’t have any (yet)!

But the independence I am talking about takes a slightly different slant anyhow.

When we first designed Bet Angel it was a very simple one click interface. As time evolved we branched the product out to include more and more features, it was a reflection of our journey through the markets.

I must say that although I enjoy a good science book from time to time, this is the first time I have read anywhere that time itself "evolves" - an interesting idea anyway. If Peter is developing a time machine, he'll have a good shot at beating the court-sider based syndicates!

Anyway, I have no idea how much money Peter makes from tennis trading, or even if he considers tennis his primary trading market, but regardless, the two names discussed here are both involved in betting full-time, and not the casual home-trader I have in mind for my words of caution.

It would be interesting to know from either gentlemen however, how the tennis markets have changed from their perspectives over the past three or four years with the presence of court-siding syndicates.

Susceptible Stats

While the C-LAY-ton Kershaw system is currently taking the world of baseball betting by storm, it's worth taking a moment to explain to non-baseball aficionados that a pitcher's Win - Loss record is not actually a very meaningful statistic.

It's actually a very good example of how context is important with your statistics, as the insightful Shapeshifter has previously mentioned.

A pitcher's Win - Loss record is very much a secondary statistic and one of those statistics more susceptible to luck. From Nate Silver's The Signal And The Noise:

If you want to predict a pitcher's win-loss record, looking at the number of strikeouts he recorded and the number of walks he yielded is more informative than looking at his W's and L's from the previous season, because the former statistics are much more consistent from year to year.

Strikeouts are important because they stop a batter from reaching base, and if he fails to get on base, he's not going to score a run. If he doesn't score a run, the chances of his team winning the game are reduced.

He goes on to explain how a pitcher's win-loss record is also affected by how many runs his team's offence score - something he has little control over, and in the American League, no control over at all. Poor Mr. Kershaw actually suffered from this last night, although he didn't take a loss as he was out of the game by the time it became a loss. Kershaw conceded just one run in seven innings, while striking out seven.

In other words, Kershaw is better than his recent Win-Loss record might suggest. A lesser pitcher, which is most pitchers, might well give up several runs, but if his team can score several runs plus one, he gets credited for the win.

Kershaw's average Strikeout per innings is up a little on last season at 1.28 (2014:1.20) but his Bases on Balls total is down a little 27 from 114 innings (2014: 31 from 198).

Eleven years ago today, Greece won Euro 2004. Today, they'd be happy to win 2004 Euros 

Price Boost

Daily25 had a good post this week on the importance of getting the best price possible. It's obvious of course, but perhaps not so obvious is the difference it can make over a season. Steve concludes his analysis with:

I believe I cost myself in between $20,000 and $30,000 profit this year because of my laziness. The fact that I only made a total profit of $38,533.30 means I could have added an extra 78% profit and ended the season on a much better $68,533.30.

That Steve bets are in a different league (often literally) to those of most of us is irrelevant. What is relevant is the percentage difference it can make. Steve mentions that "Pinnacle usually has the top price", and while that may be true overall in the markets Steve bets into, it is certainly nowhere close to being true for football.

In the EPL last season, Pinnacle were the top (or joint top) price on 27 homes, 43 draws and 47 aways - a total of 117 out of 1,137 (10.29%). The big plus for Pinnacle is their willingness to take a bet, and with their average total book of 1.02%, they are usually very competitive. In reality, the "best price" is often not available to us, or maybe but for only a limited stake, but for all the FTL entrants last season, the return of every single one would in practice have been better than the numbers recorded.

Using Steve's idea, and I have seen Joseph Buchdahl run the same experiment on tennis, the best prices on the XX Draws from last season's EPL would have boosted the total profit in that league from 13.87 to 15.64 points (+12.76%), with Pinnacle being the top price on just five of the 95 selections. The EPL was the best of the five leagues the XX Draws cover, the worst last season was not surprisingly in France where the 10 year average for Draws of 30.18% plummeted to a record low of just 23.16%. The XX Draws were obviously not the only system to suffer, with TFA Graeme noting in his Euro Draw System review:

As you can see, France was a major issue. My ratings obviously favoured this league for Draws due to the low goal expectancy historically but last season, the strike rate dipped massively in this league. The underlying ROI for backing draws in France was -18.4% which meant you were always going to take a bath backing draws in this league.

Away wins were the primary cause, a trend that continues across all nine leagues I watch, (last season's 30.39% was a record), but in Ligue 1, Home wins were also at an 11 year high. The odd thing was that the average number of goals was only up a little on its five year average.

Draws are a more volatile statistic than average goals, and thus more susceptible to luck which in the short term tends to dominate. To paraphrase Nate Silver, sometimes luck will obscure reality, even over the course of a whole year.

Thanks to the disaster in Ligue 1 (-21.99 points) and the loss of -12.71 in Serie A, the XX Draws overall lost 7.68 points to Pinnacle prices, or -0.06 points to Best prices. Serie A had plenty of Draws (31.6% was the highest since 2004-05) but ~47% were matches where the stronger team was at home. (Usually some 60% of Draws are where the Away team is 'stronger' ,e.g. in the EPL, it was 59.1% last season). 

Blindly backing every Serie A game to end in a Draw with Pinnacle last season would have made you a 72.29 point profit (83.72 points if you can back at the Best price). Backing draws priced over 4.0 is historically doomed, yet last season would have made 42.87 points (with Pinnacle).

The draws in the Big Five leagues last season were at least up on 2013-14's record low, but only by a little, and the trend towards more Away wins continues to exceed the ten-year average of 26.97% .

  

Europe has always had three distinct cultures - work hard / save hard (North), work hard / drink hard (East) and take it easy / whatever (South) -Vive Charlie

Mulligans And Antiques

A Mulligan, in a game, happens when a player gets a second chance to perform a certain move or action; usually due to lack of skill or bitter luck.

With Wimbledon in full swing, perhaps it's not surprising that tennis is dominating this blog right now. Tennis Trader Martin replied:

Difficult to convince you . Yes, perhaps I like to convince me with your support. :-)

Well, clear words about tennis and it sounds logic, because it's a mature market. Smaller niche markets can be better to find a "technical edge". At tennis you have to do it mostly with the knowledge and patterns of players and markets. That was also the reason, why copy&paste of the Sultan strategies didn't work for me. You have to find your own way. In my opinion is possible if you don't compete with the courtsiders. Perhaps is luck at the moment, but since some weeks I trade quite consistent in the green zone. Let's see, where the way goes...

Unfortunately Tennis Trading's latest post made for uncomfortable reading. After losing some money trading pre-game, Martin wrote:

I didn't count this loss to my profit&loss statement (exactly -100 Euro), because I will not do this approach any more. It's looking like an excuse, that's true. Probably I would count the profit if I could turn the trade in a winner. I am honest about this issue. You see, never believe a profit&loss blog ;-).

Well, to be honest

So it counts if the bet wins, but not if it loses...  I'm not sure that's how it should work at all, but at least Martin was honest with us, if not to his P&L account. He continues:

If you don't count the mentioned trade, I had a successful day.

The problem is that small word that opens the sentence.

I also noticed Martin refers to this as the 'offplay market' - surely the opposite of 'in-play' would make this 'out-play'? I prefer the term pre-game anyway.

Still with tennis, and Bafel saw my comment "When I can tell who won the point before I see it on TV, it's time to move on" and had this to say:

In my opinion, tennis markets have matured to a point where the only real edge is your ability to read the game in play. Pro tennis traders make consistent profits because they anticipate to changes of momentum and take good risk/reward prices . They couldn't care less who gets to see the points faster as long as there is sufficient time between points/games to enter/exit a trade.

Courtsiders feed from scalpers and mugs leaving unmatched bets between points. But these strategies are not workable any more. Even nowadays mugs are getting smarter, and you will rarely see available money at volatile stages.

I'm sick and tired of people on tweeter complaining about guys trading with fast pics etc, as if it was the reason why they ain't making profits. I don’t know for other sports, but for tennis traders a courtsider is the least of your problems.

The idea of 'fast pictures' is nonsense for a start. All pictures are delayed, just some are less delayed than others, but none are as fast as being court side of course.

To address Bafel's points in order, he suggests that the "only real edge is your ability to read the game in play". For this to be true, you would need your ability to read the game to be better at this than anyone else in the market. That's a tall order. Confidence is good, but is this a realistic thought? Exchange betting is no longer a novelty, and one can presume that at least some tennis insiders are active in the markets and certainly people who are a lot more knowledgeable about tennis than the average trader.

If it is true that "they couldn't care less who gets to see the points faster", that statement can only be true if everyone ahead of them is less knowledgeable. If you can get matched at say 1.5 after a point, it's because the court-sider syndicates have the true game-state price at 1.51 or above and aren't interested in 1.5. It's a poor value bet.

If there is a lack of liquidity at volatile stages, I would suggest that is because the court-siders have driven the home amateur out of the market. I'm surely not the only one to realise that "When I can tell who won the point before I see it on TV, it's time to move on". What you end up with basically are court-sider syndicates competing with other court-sider syndicates. Best model wins!

The reason people complain about losing out to "guys trading with fast pics" is because trading skill (ability to read the game) is no longer enough - you simply can't win consistently if you are at a chronological disadvantage. It's a legitimate reason to complain, but it's also a waste of energy - no one is listening.

Perhaps this makes it clearer. Imagine you're an antiques dealer, and you walk into an antique shop where an item has been on sale for a year at the same price. It's probably not a great deal for you. If you think you're getting a deal, you're basically counting on the fact that every other fellow dealer in the past twelve months wasn't aware of the 'true' value, and passed on it. You would have to have a better idea than all those ahead of you of the real value.

However, your chances of finding value are much increased if you are the first customer in the shop after the item is listed for sale. The principle is the same for tennis trading.

A clueless, or shall we say a less sophisticated, customer could buy the item at the asking price, and after a while, the market picks up and they can sell it for a profit. That doesn't mean that they bought at value, only that they got lucky with how the market moved. If your habit is to pay more than the true price for something, you're generally not going to make any money.

So I would say that the tennis court-sider is certainly NOT the least of an at-home tennis trader's problems. He is why trading tennis in-play from home using the the TV for your data is an exercise in futility. I understand that some people have a vested interest in perpetuating the myth that the home-trader can consistently make a profit trading tennis in-play, but I fail to see how this can be true.  I'm Bafel'd quite frankly, given that fair value isn't nearly enough as I explained in this post.

Premium Charges

On a call to the Betfair Help Desk earlier this week, I asked about the Premium Charge portal which hasn't been updated since the week ending June 21st. For a few days, there was the option to review Premium Charges from the My Account / Activity tan, but that too has gone. The young lady told me that "they are working on some things because, to be honest, it was confusing people". Well no kidding! Someone finally noticed? I optimistically asked if the Premium Charge had been scrapped, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Something strange is going on though. The portal worked fine for several years, so why it has suddenly been pulled is odd. To deduct the charges without informing people first seems very poor, but they have us by the balls. Incidentally, when someone says "Well, to be honest", does it mean that usually they are lying?

C-LAY-ton Kershaw

Lost again last night, at a short offplay price of 1.44 I am told. That is four in a row for this simple system. If you don't count the losses, Clayton Kershaw is having a great season.

Lacking Conviction

Martin returns service with these thoughts:

Nice post again, I saw that you changed the topic already to more serious problems. :-) I just want to discuss about your opinion at tennis markets. So you like to tell me, that is not possible to make any money in one of the most liquid and volatile markets for a part time trader? That surprises me. Here I think different, in my opinion you definitely overrate the court-siding. How he should know it better during a break time? If you are referring to the full timers... not all of them are genius and beside are a lot of average Johnny Punters around especially at big events.

You are the best example that you can make a side income with trading. You think is only possible at side markets like baseball or basketball?

About the scam... yes, he is active since six years. Police and authorities don't care about it, because they don't understand the case. They consider it like a loss at stock exchange. That's the loop hole for the scammer. Well for me this story is marked off. It was a hurtful loss, but there are more serious problems in life than lose a part of the yearly salary.

Topics come and go, and the Greek crisis was merely, for us anyway, a temporary diversion. As for my thoughts on trading tennis, yes I find it highly unlikely that a part-timer trader working from his flat can make a consistent profit. It defies logic. You may be at less of a disadvantage trading during breaks, but that doesn't mean you have an advantage. You need an edge to make a profit. Even if you are getting fair value (2.0) on a coin toss, the commission ensures that you will slowly lose money. Any full-timers who are not geniuses or who don't have fast data will soon not be full-timers, and silly money from Johnny Punter will be snapped up by the fast boys.

I suspect that Martin is really trying to convince himself rather than me, that a steady profit is possible from casually trading tennis. It's about the last place I would look to trade though. When I can tell who won the point before I see it on TV, it's time to move on. I have no desire to bet when the odds are stacked against me. Ironically the only reason I started betting again after a long hiatus was because of the in-play opportunities that exchanges betting provided, but the markets have matured. It used to be possible to lay ice hockey teams at 1.2 in the first period if they were trailing by two goals but Canadian snipers caused the delay to be increased and the liquidity died. It was that observation incidentally that made me realise that laying low in-play could be a profitable strategy. People are greedy. College football was great for a while - especially when people didn't know the overtime rules - but liquidity is dead these days. Markets either wise up, or dry up. I got lucky by discovering the exchanges back in 2004, a time when there were plenty of opportunities. It's not so easy now. I'm just glad I don't have a record of how much time I've spent on it!

The comment that "there are more serious problems in life than money" is very true. Important to maintain perspective, and if you betting sensibly and don't need to win to pay the bills, it's easy enough to do.

Finally on a personal note, Mrs. Cassini is doing some gloating after her nation's win over Germany in the Women's World Cup semi-Final. She did make me take a small interest at half-time, replying to my "where's our edge?" comment with "I'm American, and I'm a woman". Hard to argue with that logic. As for the "I'll give you the money if it loses"...

My turn tonight perhaps, although at ~1.5 to win outright, I think the USA are value.