It Started Off So Well

... to borrow the opening line of the Queen song Save Me, and while I shall soon be far from home, I'm hoping it's not in the state of undress that the protagonist in the song finds himself in.

On Sunday night, I received an email from a reader which was extremely pleasing as he not only shared some data and thoughts with me, but also because it showed that at least one person enjoys the NCAAF and NFL posts.

The email concluded with:

PS: The NFL road dogs system looks like a winner tonight. :)

Pride comes before a fall. At the time of my reply, the early matches were concluding, with three winners out of three, and I wrote: 

For the NFL tonight I have Ravens, Giants, Seahawks, Colts, Jaguars, Raiders, Chargers and Saints.

Ravens won, Jaguars up 22, Raiders won - rest to come. I'm in good shape!

I should have said "this weekend" rather than "tonight" as the last two games were Monday Night games, but three winners at least out of the eight had me confident of a profitable start to the season.

Unfortunately from a system perspective, after my investments were applied, the Raiders shortened to +1.5 and were no longer an 'official' selection, so I was down to two winners with five games to come.

After that promising early start, things went downhill fast, which will teach me to gloat. The New York Giants, Seattle Seahawks and Indianapolis Colts all failed to cover in the later games on Sunday, while the Monday night games had one loss and one push. The New Orleans Saints were soundly beaten by the Minnesota Vikings while the San Diego, excuse me, Los Angeles, Chargers managed a push with a late surge from 17 points down, which felt like a win of course.

Small Dogs Roar

Although the weekend got off to a disappointing start for the NCAAF Small 'Dog System with a loss on Friday night, followers will have been delighted with Saturday's sweep with all eight selections winning, not only covering the spreads, but remarkably with all eight underdogs winning the games straight up.

Saturday's selections were:

I'm not sure that has happened before. We're only in Week 2 of the season, but early signs are promising for road (away) teams in general, with bigger road 'dogs also in green early, as are Small Road Favourites.

Be warned that big road 'dogs are typically not profitable. 2016 was a rare exception, but nineteen of the previous twenty seasons saw losses. I suspect that 2016 was a blip, and not the start of a trend.

NFL Winning Margins By Era

This is somewhat of a continuation from my earlier post today regarding the key numbers in NFL betting, and the findings of this Odds Shark post which opened with:

That’s because three is, by far, the most popular margin of victory in the NFL as far back as our OddsShark data goes (1984). A total of 13.95 percent of games are decided by three points in the NFL while 8.05 percent of games are decided by seven points, which is the second most common game differential.

Three point wins are indeed by far the most frequent margin of victory going back to 1989, with 15.5% of the 7,074 matches finishing that way. Seven points is second at 8.8% followed by ten points with 5.9%.

The top dozen margins (1989-2016) are :

The problem with all encompassing results like this is that all seasons are not the same. I mentioned the rule change prior to the 2015 season which resulted in fewer extra points being scored, and in 1994, the NFL adopted College Football's two-point conversion, both changes which should impact winning margins. 

Thus there are really three distinct periods for NFL margin data, pre-1994, 1994 to 2014, and 2015 to date (although this is likely sooner rather than later as further changes are already being discussed). 

Rugby is similar, in that when I played, a try was worth a measly three points, with a conversion worth two. I'm not old enough (quite) to remember when the try itself was worth no points, but at one time this was the case, before it slowly increased to its current five in 1992. 

Back to the topic, and here are the NFL's winning margins by 'era':

There are some notable differences, for example the increase in not only 5 point, 6 point and 8 point wins, but also in 7 point wins. 10 point margins are declining, as are 4 point and 17 point wins.

Of course other factors impact the winning margin, with greater parity in the league a major one, but it's always interesting to track these things.

Returning to Rugby, and a nice segue into the sad news for readers that this blog shall again be dormant for a while as I shall be away for a few days, taking a trip to see the Newcastle Falcons v Saracens game next Saturday in Philadelphia. I'll be one of the Bath Rugby shirt wearers, my son being the other.     

Odd Numbers From the NFL

As I mentioned yesterday, the 2017 NFL season is now underway, and I'll be continuing with the NFL Small Road 'Dogs system, which is similar to, but not exactly the same as, its College cousin.

Anyone interested in betting on American Football will soon find out about about the key numbers, 3 and 7.

Three points is, of course, the value of a field goal, while seven points represents a converted touchdown.

Going back to 1989, 6,921 games which is as far back as I have data, the spread has been 3 points a leading 14.75% of the time, while 7 points has been the line 6.87% of the time.

Sandwiched in between these two at 7.97% is the 3.5 point spread, and according to Odds Shark:

The field goal with the hook (-3.5 spreads) is the most fascinating number here. Faves win and cover at far higher rates at -3.5 than they do at -3 or -2.5.

Be careful with this statement. 

"Far higher" is a subjective term. Of course you would expect the rate to be higher for -3.5 point favourites than smaller lines, and indeed this is what the results show, but whether "far higher" is an accurate description is arguable.

For straight up favourites, the results around the -3 point line are:

But the claim is that favourites win "and cover" at far higher rates at -3.5 too. 

Odds Shark's numbers supposedly (more on this later) go back further than mine, to 1984, but my numbers show that at -3.5 points, the spread is covered just 47.4% of the time, fewer than the -3 point spread. 

Odds shark comments further on the -3.5 point spread, writing:

The added half-point to make the line to -3.5 rather than -3 is designed to make the bettor uncomfortable in taking the favorite. The average recreational bettor would happily lay the three points with the cushion of a push floating around in his/her head but they hesitate when that number bumps to three and a half.

What often ends up happening is bettors allow this discomfort to veer them toward taking the underdog. The data says that’s a mistake. Faves cover at a profitable number if you were simply to take the favorites at -3.5 in every game in our database going back to 1984.

So my tip here is to try to embrace the hook rather than fear it when it comes to field-goal spreads. They tend to be decent moneyline sides to throw on a parlay and faves tend to have the edge against the spread here … and sportsbooks know it.

Even if the inclusion of the five years of data from 1984 to 1988 were to make Odds Shark's statement that:

Faves cover at a profitable number if you were simply to take the favorites at -3.5 in every game 

a factually correct one, I'd be wary about going against a trend that hasn't existed in the past 18 seasons.

It's also possible that the different findings are the result of using different data from different sportsbooks, so always check your own sources before acting on anything you read either here or elsewhere.

Odds Shark's numbers compared with mine are below:

Note that it's also a little strange that I would have so many more results (approximately double) from fewer years than Odds Shark. 

My numbers do include the post season games, but that doesn't come close to explaining the discrepancy.

Finally, a gift for the 2017 season. I've mentioned before how keeping an eye on rule changes can be a good way of finding an edge, and the change made after the 2014 season to move back the extra point by 13 yards is a good example. 

Although it wasn't clear how big an impact the rule change would have, it seemed logical to me that at least a few additional extra points would be missed, which was the intent of the rule change. 

In the 2014 regular season, 8 extra points were missed. 

Following the rule change, 71 were missed in 2015, and last season 76 were missed. Total attempts per season are around 1,200.

After two seasons, the secret is probably out by now, but my strategy of betting the underdog to cover 7 point spreads over the past two seasons has a 17-7-2 record, which at a winning percentage of 71% turned out to be one of my better ideas.

Last season (2016) three 7 point favourites won their games by 6 points, most notably the New York Giants on November 20th who played the Chicago Bears in a game in which no less than three PATs were missed, and the Giants won 22:16.

Handicap v Money Line

The 2017 NFL season kicked off last night with the New England Patriots at -8 a value lay (based on historical prices) at a pre-game 1.24 versus the Kansas City Chiefs.

Eight point favourites over the past ten seasons have an implied price of around 1.3, (see above). Playing the Money Line when the implied odds are out of line with the historical record, can be rewarding.

On my Double Error post from yesterday, Trader 24/7 had this to say:

Wouldn't Jesus have his own tipster service? He'd be well placed for insider information, if reports of his connection with an all knowing source are to be believed. I doubt he'd bother trying to get a bet on as no bookie would allow him an account, even those that did take his deposit as a new account wouldn't pay out, claiming 'act of nature' or some other obscure rule (country of residence?). I suppose he could use an exchange but the potential from tipping would be a better focus of his energies, in my opinion.

If Jesus has his own tipping service, I'm sure Statsbet will soon discover it and allow us all to share in its wisdom. Country of residence is likely Mexico, and if you are ever incarcerated there, the phrase "Jesus loves you" is not something you want to hear from your cell mate.  

Skeeve popped back with the sad, but not wholly unexpected news, that:

Both Ringo and Jesus decided to pass unfortunately. :) Still no word from Paul either. :( I can't complain though as I still have more followers than that brilliant twitter guy who can't calculate the price of a double. :)

Such a basic error which really makes one sceptical of the claim from the account that:

Either they made this "81/1" double an exception, or their record keeping leaves much to be desired. 

Accurate record keeping reminds me of this tale I regaled you with back in December 2013:

...the mother of a good friend of mine back in the 1980s used to enjoy a Saturday flutter on the horses at her local bookmaker in Coulsdon. Back in those days, winnings would be paid out in a small sealed brown envelope, and on one occasion she arrived home after collecting her winnings only to find on opening it that she had been paid out too much.

She returned to the shop to complain. 

Double Error

Although there are upsides to it, the downside of following @Statsbet on Twitter is that several of his re-tweets result in despair and a descent into the dark world of depression.

To clarify, the fact that the tweets in question have been re-tweeted is because they are ridiculous and nonsensical, and Statsbet recognizes this, but plenty of other less intelligent followers of these accounts that presumably are being led astray.

Why anyone of sound mind would follow the tips of a complete stranger is beyond me. The problem is that many people are not of sound mind, or at least are seriously challenged when it comes to logic and / or mathematics. 

It’s also noticeable that even though English isn’t everyone’s first language, 140 characters can be a constraint, and haste can lead to errors, the number of spelling and grammatical errors suggests a low average intellect. If I had a penny for every dangling modifier…

Today’s gems included the claim of tipping two winners, both at 9/1, which was followed up with a Tweet stating that:

Presumably the account in question wasn’t brave enough either, or they would have been confused about the payout at 99/1, which is the correct price of a double with two winners at 9/1. 

Rather embarrassing that a supposed expert betting account would be unable to calculate the odds on a double, and also noticeable that not one reply pointed out this glaring error.

The only double paying at 81/1 would be one comprised of winners at evens and 40/1.

Another clueless account tweeted today:

This claim is quite astonishing in its demonstration of complete ignorance about probability and logic, although it makes no claims about being expert.

"Last thing"? That implies there's at least one other thing that has been considered, but I'm not sure that's so. 

Any bookies that are “wrong pretty often” would soon be out of business. 

A true 10/1 shot will win one time in eleven. A winner at long odds doesn’t mean the bookie was wrong. That’s not how probability works!

Fortunately the account in question has the grand total of four followers, so little harm was done sharing such “wisdom”.

Skeeve commented on my Calling Paul post, writing:

“Everything has to be public with you youngsters. :)”

While I am usually a quiet, shy and private person, it’s been a while since I was referred to as a “youngster” but I'll take it.

I was going to include ‘retiring’ in that above list of adjectives, but as Paul appears to be holding off for now, so my retirement is delayed.

Skeeve - How about John, George and Ringo? – did any of them sign up? Darren? Steve? Tim? Jim? Gary? Andy? Bob? Rich? Pete? Fred? Matthew? Mark? Luke? Don? Uncle Tom Cobley? 

Jesus? Looks like I’m going to need a miracle.

Calling Paul - Loudly

It's still early days for the 2017-18 football season, but it's somewhat unusual that more away goals than home goals have so far been scored in La Liga, and that the totals are even in Serie A. 

Quite a contrast to Ligue 1 where the ratio of Home to Away goals is 1.69 : 1, the highest in a top league since 2001-02. 

The lowest, end of season ratio in recent years, is League Two's 2015-16 ratio of 1.067 : 1. 

The strategy of blindly backing Away teams in League Two and the National League is off to a poor start, -7.94 points, but in the National League, the value to date is in backing Draws +15.51 points (ROI 16.3%) from the 95 games played so far. 

Speaking of the National League, old friend Skeeve emailed me to point me in the direction of his latest post, which was inspired by this post from July. 

Shame on me for missing Skeeve's post while I was on holiday, but the shame Skeeve assigns to me for my flippant Barrow / star player comment is misplaced. 

I am the victim of pure chance, as Barrow were picked on purely because a fellow Crystal Palace fan and friend of mine has a somewhat weird second-team fetish for Barrow, and I like to tease.

For the record, I wrote that:

Knowing that a star player for Barrow (assuming they have one) slipped in the shower this morning, suffered a concussion and will miss tomorrow's game is useful. Installing hidden cameras in the bathrooms of non-league stars is not practical, or legal, but plenty of people have contacts who can provide information before it becomes public.

Skeeve replies:

"Assuming they have one"?! After all that Byron Harrison's been through with his ankle in the last seven months, jokes about him slipping in the shower and suffering concussion in addition to a recent surgery seem particularly cruel. Sorry Byron. As for Cassini, shame on you, mate. Shame on you.

I can't say that I had ever heard of Byron Harrison or his ankle issues until today, but I wish him well for his recovery from surgery, especially since he at one time played for one of my old clubs (Carshalton Athletic), albeit with a little more success than myself. 

I also wish no ill will to Barrow. I remember them as a League team, before the wheel came off, and they lost their place to Hereford United. Not many remember that the team were formerly known as Wheelbarrow AFC.  

Speaking of injuries, and this New York Mets injury update shows just how unlucky that team has been of late:

Skeeve also wrote to me that in other news:

...a guy named Paul got on my waiting list a few weeks ago and he mentioned that he's read about my service on your blog, but unfortunately, never got back to me when I sent him an invitation to join. And I was ready to donate to your retirement fund! :)

Well, that IS unfortunate!

Come on Paul! My retirement fund needs every penny I can get. I'm not getting any younger. Sign up now. Please. Don't make me beg.

In all seriousness, Skeeve's Award Winning service is the best out there, at least that I know of. Search this blog for previous references to him, but in brief his level of research and knowledge on this league is second to none, including the bookmakers, as evidenced by consistent profits dating back over 10 years.  

Columbia, Colombia, Christmas and College

One comment while I was away, from The Soccer Doctor who added to the observations about backing Home teams in England in December with this observation:

As we are talking about the month of December, might I point you in the direction of the top three league in France and Columbia 1 in respect of draws for the month of December?

Backing blindly, this has been profitable in all but one of the last 9 seasons

I can't confirm these numbers, as Colombia (with an 'o') isn't one of the countries covered by Football Data, and the top divisions there are Categoría Primera A and Categoría Primera B rather than a "Columbia 1". 

It's also worth pointing out that December matches in Categoría Primera A are all play-off (knockout phase) games, and not league games, as the regular season ends in mid to late November. Perhaps Columbia (with a 'u') 1 is a different league in a different country? Otherwise, I have to admit to being a bit confused about this 'finding'.

Turning to France, and the December schedule there is always a light one, with leagues taking a break before Xmas. 

England is unique among the top European countries in that December is one of the busiest months, while for other leagues, it is one of the quietest and marks the start of a holiday mid-season break. 

It may well be true that the small sample size from France has been generally profitable, but I'd be very wary of reading too much into this, especially with a small sample size. If you look at enough leagues and data, you'll find what appear to be patterns all over the place, (it's called APOPHENIA - the tendency to apply meaning to otherwise random or unrelated patterns or data), so unless you can come up with a rational explanation for the results you are seeing, the chances are they are random. 

College Football is back, and followers of my NCAAF Small Road Dogs system will be pleased with the start to the season. Yesterday's system win for Texas A&M at UCLA looked to be in the bag early on. Texas A&M were getting five points and leading by 34 points on the field, but UCLA came back to win by one. Those five point spreads are dodgy, 21-24-2 over the most recent five seasons, but profitable over the past 16 seasons.   

As a reminder, this system has been profitable in 14 of the last 16 seasons, with very modest losses in those two losing seasons. Ten potential candidates for next weekend, but as explained previously, lines shift and this can all change.

The professional version of the game is back on Thursday (Kansas City Chiefs at New England Patriots) and readers should be well aware that the NFL Small Road Dogs system has also been profitable with just one losing season (2013) since 2005. At the time of writing, six potential selections for opening weekend.

Silva Linings Sportsbook

Failing to respect the fact that this is a family blog, James can't resist lowering the tone to gutter level commenting:

Riding for Ireland. Mrs Cassini will be pleased.

Does she stretch out to a length too?

As a civilised gentleman, I have no idea to what James may be referring and will move on.

Miguel Rodrigues commented on Marco Silva, specifically that he:

...is a wonderful coach,why he is not at Palace is something I don't understand, he is not money driven whatsoever.

If you could enlighten me why that deal was broke that will be perfect

Have a nice day

Given where Silva ended up, I don't think money was the issue, although I'd question whether money really is a non-issue for him, or indeed most people.

My personal feeling is that he didn't yet feel ready for a job at a big club, hence the rumoured talks with the likes of Southampton and Porto, before ending up at Watford...

On to more serious betting related comments, and a couple from SportsPickSystem, starting with this one about my observations on returns from backing Home teams in December:

Last season was very special. Backing home teams in December
2012: -13.35
2013: -14.32
2014: -33.23
2015: + 6.38

Possibly an interesting trend that began in 2015 and continued in 2016, but unfortunately the comment doesn't reference the  league or leagues producing those returns. I'd be extremely wary of any system built around a single calendar month, even if it has been profitable for two seasons.

Also related to Homes, Geoff at Fulltimebettingblog.com had a post on the topic, referencing this blog:

Quick comment to make on always excellent Green All Over blog and in particular one of the stats that was on that post.

“Surely a much catchier lede would have been that backing all Homes in England’s top three leagues last season would have been up by:”

“How far back you want to go looking for trends is up to the individual. Personally, I think two or three seasons is good,”

Certainly thought provoking so I spent a bit of time doing exactly that and found that while those figures were indeed correct ( and why would they not be when they have been extracted from the brilliant http://www.football-data.co.uk/data.php site)

The second comment on the problems of fluctuating prices was this one:

One way to mitigate the dynamic lines issue is to set yourself strict rules. For instance to determine if a MLB team is an underdog, the team needs to be priced at least at 2.000 (+100) at Pinnacle even if you don't play at that bookmaker. I choose Pinnacle because it's the sharpest book on the market which make it a good reference for odds.

BTW do you take the bookmaker margin when calculating the Implied Probabilities?

As readers will know, Pinnacle are my go-to book, as they are the most efficient in the business (as the comment says), and with their business model, no serious punter is unable to place bets with them. 

However, even if you always use the same sportsbook for your selections, that still doesn't solve the problem of the lines changing. For example, a team can be a qualifier at the time of the game, whereas it wasn't six hours earlier, but was 12 hours earlier, or late money can move a team so that it is no longer a qualifier although for days it looked like it would be.

The result, as I said before, is that in the real world, when for most of us with lives, it simply is not possible to wait until game time, you are sometimes on teams that are non-qualifiers, and not on teams that are. 

Sometimes these line moves will work out for you, sometimes they won't.

It's nothing to get too worked up about over the course of a season, and similarly, with the over-rounds these days as low as they are, I don't worry about the bookmakers' margins. Being consistent, i.e. having strict rules, is more important. 

As mentioned previously, I am travelling for the next couple of weeks, the first on business starting today, while the second is for a much deserved holiday, carefully timed to conclude in time for my spreadsheet's month-end updates! 

Cusp Selections

Last October, I mentioned one of the problems with playing a system based on Implied Probabilities. 

With lines being dynamic, qualifiers for a system like this will always be subject to change, and the list will vary depending on where you take your line from, and when you take it.

As Doc Sportello found yesterday, qualifiers can come and go. The Kansas City Royals were a qualifier for the T-Bone System with a price shorter than -140 (1.71) at whatever site he was using, yet by the time of first pitch were, according to the web site I use, -135 (1.74). Incidentally, they are currently qualifiers again today, at -145 (1.69). 

The result of such price movements is that you find yourself backing teams that end up not being system qualifiers, and miss out on others that do end up as qualifiers. As I wrote in that October post (in regard to College Football prices):

Sometimes these line moves will work out for you, sometimes they won't.

Teams that ended up in the -125 (1.8) to -140 range this season are currently in profit, by a massive 0.19 points, but how many of those shortened into that range, and how many drifted into it, I have no idea.

Last night also saw a rare loss for the Rhenium System (IP 0.75+) with the San Diego Padres (again) failing to follow the script. 

I will not be mentioning football for a while. 

Home For The Holidays

Steve "Mull It Over" Mullington consoles me with:

Unlucky there on your debut Cassini. Still, you got third so there is plenty to build upon.

Perhaps if I'd had a little more warning, I might have prepared myself better.

Geoff of Fulltimebetting blog, reminded me of how the race unfolded:

Slowly away, in touch in last trio, ridden over 2f out, progress to chase winner over 1f out, no impression after, lost 2nd near finish, kept on (tchd 5/1).

Better luck next time Mr C!

Yes I do know. I was there! The race summary was reminiscent of my Friday nights out as a young man. Chasing, making no impression, and losing out near the finish.

Recognising that the race was a touchy subject with me, Geoff smoothly (and with smooth moves like this, his Friday nights must be quite different from mine) changes the subject to football, writing: 

Regarding your posts concerning the "backing all homes idea" I wonder if you had the stats to hand showing what would happen if you excluded the first and last 6 sets of fixtures? Stewboss takes this approach with the view that form needs to settle down at first, with games at the tail-end sometimes meaningless.

I've tried looking at the data via the sites you suggested but cant quite seem to get my head around it to see where I should be looking.

Backing all homes wasn't so much an idea, as an observation. At the start of the season, there was no reason to look at backing Homes. The trend had been towards Away wins. It was curious how last season Homes were so prominent in different top leagues, but nonetheless, for now at least I suspect it was a temporary blip in the general increase in Aways over recent years than the start of a Home trend. We'll see.  

The idea of waiting for a few rounds (six seems to be the favoured number of matches for form) for form to settle down has merit for a model, as teams can change considerably from one season to another. It also allows the model to incorporate promoted teams which can be a challenge. The motivation factor at the end of a season can also be disruptive, but it can also be lucrative.

Just look at the record of teams managed by Tony Pulis once they have reached the 'magic' 40 point total - 6 wins in 46 such games. Last season, West Bromwich Albion reached that total by the end of February, yet picked up just five more points all season, and just one point from their final eight games of the season. 

While omitting the first few rounds from the results makes no sense when looking at a trend, what might be interesting is whether the first few rounds are enough to signal the possible start of a trend. 

Looking at the first six rounds of the EPL last season, Home wins were in profit after 60 games, with an ROI of 4.3%, but the leader early on was Lay the Draw with an ROI of 9.3%.

At the end of the season, Home wins were up another 27.58 points, while Laying the Draw had added another 6.32 points.

The gains for Homes in the EPL were all in the mid-season winter months, November to March +38.77 points, rest of the season -8.60. I think it's a coincidence, but in this case, eliminating early and late matches would have improved returns from backing Homes. 

The trouble is, in the EPL we had no strong signal for Homes until 14 rounds were in the books on December 5th, and the ROI was at 3%. 

36 of 58 (62%) of December's fixtures resulted in Home wins, and a 21.71 point profit in this month. 

Close behind the EPL's Home Win percentage of 49.2% was the Bundesliga with 49.0%, and as the table below shows, here the trend was evident from the start.

December was, by some distance, the best month for backing Homes, profitable in every league. 

One season's results mean little though, but it'll be interesting to see what trends unfold for the 2017-18 season.

Interesting and Better Fancied

It has been brought to my attention by Steve Mullington that I am running a mile at Sandown Park in a little over two hours.

There's a newcomer called Cassini running in the 6.45pm race at Sandown today (10th Aug). It must be worth a little flutter.

Of the eleven runners listed, four have already taken one look at me and decided not to bother, so the field is already down to seven. Expect more drop outs as I go through my warm-up routine.   

Timeform comments: 

Cassini (IRE) : Foaled January 12. Galileo colt. Closely related to useful winner up to 1¼m Cunco. Dam winner up to 1¼m (2-y-o 7f/1m winner). Wears tongue strap and he's an interesting newcomer.

In a race that lacks confirmed pace-forcers, Dubhe could get the run of things. Of the better-fancied horses, Cassini is most likely to be ridden furthest from the pace.

I'm looking forward to it, although not too sure about this 'tongue-strap' thing. 

Update: Didn't enjoy that at all. Stupid name for an evening race - Slug And Lettuce Value Lunch EBF Maiden Stakes, and only won £577.20 for coming third. Me and my short head are off to bed.

One For Sorrow

I have mentioned Australia's sports-betting investment fund Priomha Capital before, as far back as January 2014, so they must be doing something right based on longevity, (they were formed back in 2010 I believe), and courtesy of Investment Europe, found this article regarding their thoughts on the EPL next season.

Reporter Adrien Paredes-Vanheule seems unaware that Barclays sponsorship ended in 2016, but I can overlook that as the thoughts of others are always interesting. Although no Champion has repeated since 2008-09, I concur that at 5.0 Chelsea look value, even if favourites Manchester City are starting the campaign off with the easiest Premier League fixture in world history. 

I've posted the current odds (above) because they are slightly changed from those in the article.

The football season is back in the UK and other countries across Europe. This Sunday has seen Arsenal taking over last season’s Barclays Premier League champion Chelsea during the traditional pre-season Community Shield game.

It is another former champion, Leicester – 2015/2016’s BPL winner – the Gunners will face for the opening of the season on Friday 11 August.

Winners, relegation, first games of the season, InvestmentEurope has collected the views of Brendan Poots, CEO of Melbourne-based sports hedge fund Priomha Capital, who runs strategies that invests in various sports events including football.

Poots first notes the usual suspects top the markets for the 2017/18 Barclays Premier League with Manchester City favourite in the betting world at $2.90, followed by Chelsea ($4.70), Manchester United ($4.90). Behind the trio remain three other contenders : Tottenham ($11.00), Arsenal ($13.00) & Liverpool ($16.00).

“Our ratings have Manchester City and Chelsea sharing favouritism at around $3.50. Given the current markets City are not value but we do not want to oppose them… our only BACK (long position) pre-season is Chelsea.

“Manchester United, by our ratings are closer to a $7.00 chance, consequently we have taken a position against them pre-season. Tottenham, Arsenal & Liverpool all look fairly priced,” Poots explains.

Tough fight to stay up

Priomha Capital’s CEO says that a solid season can be expected from West Ham, Everton and to a lesser extent Southampton as they should finish in the top 10 this season.

“We expect West Brom to drop a few places from last season, and we expect Newcastle to be very competitive in their return to the Premier League,” he argues.

The sport hedge fund’s ratings see Newcastle outperforming the two other promoted teams Huddersfield & Brighton and place the Magpies close to mid table at the end of the season. “We are heavily in Newcastle’s corner,” comments Poots.

“Huddersfield are expected to go straight back down. We cannot disagree with that. Burnley are strongly favoured by the market to be joining them. We do not agree with the market’s opinion. Burnley was very solid at home last season and there is nothing in the key indicators to expect this to change.

“Their home form alone will be enough to keep them up. Our ratings expect improved away performances and this should be more than enough to keep them safe. We will be backing them to stay up. Newcastle will have no issues staying up, now that they are back. This leaves Brighton, Watford, Crystal Palace and Swansea to be fighting to stay up,” Poots argues.

The opening six

Priomha Capital’s CEO pinpoints that apart a couple of pre-season positions taken in the Priomha Cloney Multi-Sport strategy, the hedge fund will look to trade the opening six rounds as their own separate competition.

“Manchester City have a relatively easy opening to the season. Their potentially tricky matches (including Liverpool) are all at home. They are very likely to have at least 16 points after the opening six rounds. If this is the case then they will be trading close to $2.00.

“Last year, after a solid opening they were trading sub $1.60 (I pity those that took that price). We will take a small piece of the current $2.90 on offer with a view to trading this during the opening stage of the season,” says Poots.

He pursues: “In the first six weeks, Chelsea has Tottenham (away) and Arsenal (home) as their toughest tests. We have them dropping points at Spurs but beating Arsenal. They will be on at least 15 points after the first six rounds. Their price will probably firm during this period but given that we already have exposure to them we will not be actively trading.

“Manchester United have a relatively easy run to open the season. They are a strong chance to be undefeated. Consequently, given that they are already very popular in the market we can expect them to be trading around $3.00 or lower if they start as we expect. A strong start has been accounted for in our pre-season ratings of Manchester United. We already have exposure to them pre-season. We will increase that exposure should they trade in the $3.00 range by LAYING (short position) them again.”

Poots suggests that Arsenal, Tottenham and Liverpool will have harder starts to the season and anticipates they will be all in the 12-15 point range.

“Should this be the case their prices will not drastically move. We will not trade any of these sides during the first six weeks,” Priomha Capital’s CEO says.

Newcastle United's prices are a little unusual. 

Based on the winner market, they are rated 10th / 11th (along with Southampton), behind the usual suspects above, plus Everton, Leicester City and West Ham United, but in the relegation and top half markets, they are rated 15th, ahead of only Swansea City, Watford, Brighton and Hove Albion, Burnley and Huddersfield Town.

Lay Newcastle United to win the league - Nap. 

The mention of Chelsea and their visit to Tottenham Hotspur is also interesting. This will be the latter's first home league game at Wembley Stadium, and as has been well documented over the years, teams take a while to adjust to new grounds. Game 7 for Chelsea is v Manchester City while Game 8 appears to be their toughest game of the season. 

Trivia Time: What other club has played home league games at Wembley Stadium?  

Doctor's Orders

I promised a baseball update, and that is below, but first another compliment, this one from Norway and Dr. Sportello, possibly not his real name, who wrote:

I sincerely hope you won't be hanging up your boots any time soon, as I've only just stumbled upon your blog. Terrific stuff. I've even managed to squeeze some money out of the T-Bone run-lines since then. My only sorrow is that the amount of interesting writing on this blog probably exceeds my brain's ability to absorb information.

Greetings from Norway, and have a pleasant week.

I actually write this blog with my fingers rather than feet, but I have no intention of hanging up boots, gloves, coats, hats or anything else, at least not any time soon. At least not permanently. I do have a business trip coming up next week, followed almost immediately with a trip to see my second 'once-in-a-lifetime' total eclipse on August 21st, so my fingers will be rested for about two weeks.

I also made it to the total eclipse of August 1999 in Cornwall which was a great experience, and this one should be even better as Falmouth was unfortunately a little cloudy.  

The comment is much appreciated, and it's good to hear that some people take on board some of the ideas I share.  

How much easier it is to post a baseball update when you hear that someone else has been able to make some money from suggestions published here.

Since Dr. Sportello mentions the T-Bone System, we'll start there. 

At the last update the trend of former seasons was continuing nicely for both the Straight Up / Money Line bets and the Run Line:

Seven of the subsequent nine bets all won Straight Up, and five of nine on the Run Line taking the profits now to:

Last night's qualifier was the Chicago Cubs, and while not included in the numbers above, they were a winner on both lines after beating the San Francisco Giants 5:3.

The Rhenium System  (75% or greater Implied Probability) is currently up 2.45 points from 12 selections, on track to beat last season's 2.58 points from 21 selections.

Favourites with an IP greater than 0.667 are also having a very good season:

And for anyone following the Home Improvement System:

Only the Mountain High System is letting the side down, yet again, with its worst performance since time began - well, 2010.  

Passion, Mastery and Expertise

A good day for the ego of this blog's owner, with two very much appreciated compliments coming within a few hours of each other.

One of, if not the, nicest comments about this blog is above, coming via Twitter, and thank you very much Mr. Irish Whiskey, while Miguel Rodrigues had this to say via a comment:

Ty for the reference, as for my references regarding this blog I think there is not even a discussion no one shares the passion, mastery and expertise that you show here for almost a decade on a daily basis, and to be honest you can find some OK forums, some OK betting sites with articles but the blog sphere is quite poor

I was 17 years old in 2011 when I created twitter (adonis)

Regarding my profile cover on twitter I hope Bolton and Palace are not rivals

Have a nice week, all the best

This blog, currently around seven months shy of a decade, has certainly outlasted many of its contemporaries. At the outset, I wouldn't have bet too much on it lasting a decade, unless the price was value of course, but even the current 1.01 is starting to look value, a debilitating stroke, heart attack or serious accident notwithstanding. 

I am a little confused by the Bolton reference above. Perhaps conflating Brighton and Hove Albion and Bolton Wanderers is excusable when you're Portuguese. 

I confuse Aves and Chaves in the Portuguese League, which admittedly is nothing to Braga about and not very Sporting, but in my defence I'd had a glass or two of Porto.

With a sick bucket handy, I risked another visited to Miguel's homepage, and was relieved to see that the nightmare image of Tony Bloom and others celebrating promotion, has been replaced with that of former Bolton Wanderers and Super Eagle star Jay-Jay (so good, they named him twice) Okocha. Long may he reign on Adonis's homepage. 

Unfortunately not everyone is happy with the blog. 

While there has been plenty written about underdogs over the years, I have to admit that the dogs Tony is interested in are of no interest to me at all. 

Fortunately the newly launched SportsTradingTools is more familiar with the subject than I (honestly, it would be hard not to be) and responded with:

You'll likely find many of the pro traders don't trade Greyhounds as the liquidity is quite poor in those markets compared to other sports

Perhaps I'm missing a trick, but I really don't see illiquid Greyhound markets as likely to offer any value to an outsider. 

Covering a number of sports does help to add variety to this blog, and it is said that variety is the spice of life, but don't expect dogs to be added to the list.

Tomorrow, a baseball update. 

2016-17 Big Five Review

As the 2017-18 season gets underway, I thought I'd take a look at last season relative to the previous 10 seasons. It was unusual in many ways.

First the relative decline in goals per game in the Bundesliga, which from 2006-16 led the "Big Five" - the others being the EPL, Serie A, Ligue 1, and La Liga - every season in this category, averaging 2.88 goals per game.

Last season saw the Bundesliga drop to third, behind Serie A and La Liga, but this relative drop was due to an increase in goals in Italy and Spain rather than a decline in German output where goals remained very much in line with their average.

Home goals per game in these three leagues were all at 1.66, but the Away goals in Serie A jumped by 17.3% from a ten year average of 1.10 to 1.30, while in La Liga, they increased by 12.8%, from 1.13 to 1.28.   

More goals means fewer draws, so it's no surprise that the Draws in Italy dropped from an average of 27.2% to just 21%, while the increase in Away goals pushed Away wins up from an average of 26.5% to 30.5%. No edge on backing Aways blindly though, as this strategy would have lost 39.36 points on the season although all the losses were on the longer-shots (IP < 0.3). +13.99 points sub 0.3.  

Over the ten seasons 2006-16, the average Home win percentage in all five leagues was 46.2%. 

In every league last season, this average was comfortably exceeded:

This trend towards Home wins was also seen in England's Championship which went from an average of 43.4% Home wins (2006-16) to 47.5% last season, while Draws dropped from 28% to 23.6%.

Whether any of these changes will become trends or merely blips remains to be seen, but it's interesting watching how leagues evolve over time. 

Pure Randomness

A recent commenter on this blog is young Miguel Rodrigues, who has the modest Twitter name of @adonis9898, and which as I have mentioned before, is an account worth following, even if his banner picture turns my stomach and makes me throw up a little bit in my mouth each time I see it.  

With an emphasis on the Portuguese League, Miguel has been betting professionally on football for three years. 

Statty, aka @Statsbet, recently posted a Q and A with Miguel, and there are some good observations and advice therein. 

Some random quotes from the Q and A, which were completely selected at random with no pre-selection bias whatsoever...