Blue: Dodgers, Moons and Waves

As it turned out, just the one World Series game was left with the Los Angeles Dodgers winning their first title in 32 years, but another profit took the final season total to £538.56 which, as I mentioned before, feels more of a win than it should. 

The bad news is that with the NBA, NHL and MLB seasons all ending fairly recently, it could be a while before the daily leagues return, which for the indoor sports is usually around this time of year. 

For the record, in the MLB play-offs this season Unders had 28 wins to 25, (and 100% when the game time temperature was less than 55F as was the case in the Regular season), while backing the favourite was profitable on both the Money Line (+7.21 units / 9.1%) and the Run Line (+13.95 / 25.2%). Other than in 2017, this hasn't typically been a profitable strategy in recent seasons, but this season was by no means typical and I'm not sure we can read too much into it.

The NFL season appears not to be hugely impacted by the reduction in crowd size, sometimes to zero, with the Small Road Dogs System 14-9 for the season so far. Not a big surprise given that this simple system has had just two losing seasons since 2005.

The question for this season was always whether the market would continue to over-value the Home side even with no or fewer fans in attendance, and the answer so far appears to be yes.

In the Presidential Election, Biden has drifted slightly from 1.51 / 1.52 to 1.53 / 1.54, tremendous value unless you believe the polls are more wrong than they have ever been before.

The Economist has Joe Biden with a 96% probability of winning the Electoral College and to win Pennsylvania, around 93%. As Political Gambler Paul Motty noted today in this article, Biden at 1.53 (was 1.59 at the time of the article) looks like another solid bet. 

The race for the Senate is also interesting and having backed the Democrats at 2.84 early this month, the price has moved in the right direction. It's interesting to note that since 1900 there has never been a Congress where the House and President have been Democrat controlled while the Senate has been Republican controlled. The Economist actually gives the Democrats an 83% chance of controlling the Senate, although this includes the tie. 

The tight Senate races in Georgia (two), Iowa and South Carolina will decide this. 

Hopefully the theme of blue will continue next week. The Dodgers play in blue, there's a blue moon in America for the first time since March 2018, and the first for the whole country on Halloween since 1944, and a blue wave or tsunami to come on Tuesday.

Back to Baseball, Biden and Barrow

I'm back a couple of days earlier than originally scheduled, which is a good thing as it means everything went according to plan, and so with the World Series still in progress there are still another one, or maybe two, games for me to add to the season profit reported in the last post. Game Six is tonight with the Los Angles Dodgers 3-2 up in the series and favourites versus the Tampa Bay Rays. 

Draws in the EPL are also back after starting the new season with none in the first 20 matches, the pace has since picked up with 13 in the last 38. The "Toss-Up" matches are up by 3.71 points using Pinnacle's closing prices, but we've only had three selections. As a reminder, in these matches, backing the Draw in all matches has an ROI of 7.33% (adjusted for an overround of 103%) since 2000. The ROI in Big 6 games is now over 31% in that period following last weekend's perfect draw in the Manchester United v Chelsea game.

In politics, the US Elections are less than a week away, and Biden is still value at 1.51 / 1.52. To reach 270 Electoral College votes, Trump needs to secure all the Lean, Likely and Solid red states, the five "toss-up" states, plus three of the "Lean Democratic" states unless he can win Pennsylvania in which case one other state would do it. That seems a tough ask, and his poll numbers are tanking by the day with early voting at a record high with over 70 million people already having voted. For those who say "yeah, but the polls were wrong in 2016", one week prior to the election in 2016, Clinton was up by between 2.2 and 3.5 percentage points (and won the popular vote by around 3 million). Biden today leads by 7.4 to 9.1 points.  

Finally, congratulations to Barrow who tonight won their first Football League game in over 48 and a half years, a new record as even Brighton haven't gone that long between league wins.  

MLB 2020 - When Breaking Even Is A Win

Another work trip starts tomorrow, so I shall again be off-line, this time for two weeks. Rather unfortunate timing really, with the MLB play-offs in full swing, meaning I shall miss every game of the World Series, but my boss doesn't revolve his business around the MLB season apparently.

After a disastrous start to this unique season, I'm more than happy to finish the season with a small profit.

In a season where the several changes were implemented, some before the season and some during the season, it was always to be expected that some of the long-term profitable strategies might not be profitable.

Obviously not having fans in the stadium was likely to be impactful, but more significantly the rule changes implemented weren't exactly minor tweaks with some of the major adjustments being American league rules throughout, fixtures changing to play geographically close rivals, a shortened regular season (60 games versus the usual 162), changes to the rules for extra-innings with a runner starting on second base, and limiting double-header games to seven innings. Basically the 2020 season bears no resemblance to any previous season. 

My latest read is "The Psychology of Money" by Morgan Housel (highly recommended), and Chapter 13 is sub-titled "The most important part of every plan is planning on your plan not going according to plan".  Although this book wasn't published prior to the season, it's a philosophy I've adopted for some time now (sports betting provides some valuable lessons in life). Cut the losing systems, stake appropriately (based on Kelly), and keep evolving.

The biggest change in 2020 was the reversal of value of backing some Hot Favourites (1.5 or shorter), which after three years of increasing profits, hit a wall and lost 4.8%. The month of August saw a loss for the first time since 2011.

   

For the T-Bone System, which is also a favourites based system, here is how the season ended, with previous seasons included for perspective.

The Totals strategy overall was slightly profitable, although the seven innings rule for double header games reduced the number of qualifiers for Overs. 

Unders actually showed a small loss with the heavy lifting all being done by the Overs in games where both clubs were from the National League. Apparently the market underestimated their ability to adapt to the Designated Hitter rule, because this matchup was also sole reason why "Hot Favourites" were a losing proposition this season.

Usually the winter is the time for looking at the previous season's results, seeing what edges may be vanishing and where new ones might be appearing, but I don't see any point in going over the 2020 season in much depth.

Some of the rule changes may become permanent, but a 60 game regular season played in empty stadiums against geographically selected opponents is hopefully unique rendering the data from this season almost useless, but this pandemic is nowhere near over, so perhaps not.  

New Balls Please

I have been critical in the past about the quality of some of Pinnacle's articles which are frankly sometimes embarrassing, but an excellent article and a great example of creative thinking comes in this article about the impact of ageing balls in tennis. 

It's probably fortunate that author Jonathon Brycki's interest is in sports and not medicine, or the article might have been quite a distressing read for men of a certain age, but for anyone who is a tennis in-play "between games" bettor, this is a must-read article.

I say "between games" because as I have written before, court-siders will always an advantage in-play, but between games when the market has settled, an edge such as the one proposed by Jonathon might be significant. 

The data from eight years of Grand Slams indicates that ageing balls do have an affect on serve and hold percentages. The magnitude is somewhere in the order of 1-2 percentage points for both. While this may seem relatively insignificant, in betting markets that are becoming increasingly efficient, a percent or two will often be the difference between getting your money in behind and having an edge.

The margin might still be too large to overcome, as Jonathon makes clear here:

It’s unclear whether bookmaker’s live tennis models incorporate the age of the balls, and even if they don’t, the inefficiency may not be large enough to overcome their margin. In any case, incorporating potentially unique data and insights into your model will drive it in the right direction, and improve the accuracy of your predictions.

As I have mentioned before, in a binary market, grandma should be able to pick winners 50% of the time, so in a market with a tight margin, you don't need a huge advantage to be into profit.

But back to the article, and kudos to Jonathon for the idea, the research and for sharing his findings, although perhaps the fact that his findings have been shared is proof that the edge isn't of any practical use. 

Regardless, it's a great example of the process we should all be following in our never ending quest for an edge. I wonder if any such study has been done in cricket regarding the impact of an ageing ball?  

COVID-19 Suspends Play

For the last few days I have been away on my first work trip since January, and as a result of a positive COVID-19 test at one of the sites I visited, am now in quarantine. The good news is that you will likely see an increase in posts, and if this is not the case, then it's likely bad news and it was good knowing you!

The big news while I was away was that several of the US Presidential Election markets are currently suspended on Betfair due to the President testing positive. There's some confusion about why Betfair would do this given that in similar, although arguably less serious previous instances (e.g. Clinton 2016 pneumonia, Sanders heart attack) the market has not been suspended. The last price traded for Biden to win was 1.52, so hopefully many of you are in good shape, unlike Trump.

With 35 Senate seats up for grabs, the market here is also interesting, with the Democrats now favourites to have a Senate Majority at 2.8 in a three-way race with the tie very much a possibility. Republicans currently have 53 of the 100 seats and 23 of the 35 seats in this election are held by Republicans.

The Democrats will probably lose their senator in Alabama (Doug Jones) who won a special election in 2017, which means that Democrats need to win five of the 23 seats for control. Four would give them a tie, and with the Vice-President likely to be Kamala Harris, in effect that would be a win, but for betting purposes, only a tie.

Of the 23 seats, the Democrats are currently projected to win those of Martha McSally (Arizona), Cory Gardner (Colorado) and Susan Collins (Maine) which means they need one to tie and two to win from the toss-up seats of Joni Ernst (Iowa), Steve Daines (Montana) and Thom Tillis (North Carolina). In addition, four seats are in the 'lean' category and could yet move to toss-up. One seat to keep an eye on here is Lindsay Graham's in South Carolina where polling shows a close race, the incumbent being out raised financially, and as chairman of the Senate Judicial Committee will be spending a lot of time in Washington on the Supreme Court nomination. 

On the more traditional sporting events, the NFL Small Road 'Dogs System continues to produce winners. Week Three saw nine selections, with six winners taking the season record to 10-6. It's looking like we only have two selections today.

My father-in-law is currently in shock following the San Diego Padres first playoff series win in 22 years last week as they advanced to the NLDS where they will play the Los Angeles Dodgers. One piece of history from their win in Game Three against St Louis Cardinals is that the Padres were the first team in major league history, regular season or playoffs, to complete a nine-inning shutout by using at least nine pitchers.

So far in the MLB playoffs, as was the case with the NBA (41-35) and NHL (66-52), Unders is the play on totals with an 11-7 record. 

With the increase in goals per game in the EPL, the Draw continues to be an elusive outcome, but more on that later once we have the official prices for the fourth round of games from Mr. Buchdahl. 

Mother-In-Law Issues at the World Series

The Stanley Cup Finals are now set, and will see the Dallas Stars play the Tampa Bay Lightning. As in all play-off games in the NHL, Under is where to start looking for value, but in the Stanley Cup Finals this is even more true with 63% of games going Under in the last ten seasons. 

In a low scoring sport, we can't assume we will get 1.952 but Unders is a good place to start. In the past three seasons, this hasn't been a profitable strategy with every Game 1 going Over but with no crowd or home advantage, this season's playoffs have seen Unders win 56.5% of the time. 

I mentioned earlier in the week that there were three qualifiers for the NFL Small Road Dog System, but the line moved on the Chicago Bears game so 'officially' it wasn't a winner. We did have a winner on Thursday though, so 'officially' we are back up to 2-1 with possibly another four selections tomorrow.

Still no draws in the Premier League this season with plenty of goals reducing the probability. Newly promoted clubs have conceded 22 goals combined after just two games.

I mentioned that the World Series would be held in one stadium this year (Texas Rangers) but a little research revealed that this isn't a first.

In 1944, the St Louis Browns played the St Louis Cardinals in what was called a "Streetcar Series" with both clubs sharing the imaginatively named Sportsman Park.

There's an amusing story about the logistics of this series:

Since there was a shortage of housing during the war, and the teams were never at home at the same time during the regular season, the two managers — Luke Sewell of the Browns and Billy Southworth of the Cardinals — shared an apartment.

Of course, they’d both have to be in St. Louis for the World Series.

“However admirable this display of interleague cooperation might have appeared during the season, it would never do for the opposing managers to sit in the same living room after a World Series game, sipping bourbon and chatting politely with their wives,” wrote William B. Mead in his book “Even The Browns: The Zany, True Story of Baseball in the Early Forties.’”

“Besides, Sewell wanted to invite his mother, and Mrs. Southworth could hardly be expected to put up with a mother-in-law from the wrong family and, indeed, the wrong league.”

Fortunately, according to Mead, another resident of the apartment building was out of town for the month. The Southworths were able to move into the unoccupied unit during the series, snuffing out that potential crisis.

The Cardinals came from 1-2 down to win the Series 4-2 and the Browns later moved to Baltimore becoming the Orioles.

All World Series games in the same stadium also happened in 1921 and 1922 when the New York Giants twice beat the New York Yankees while sharing the Polo Grounds, which was the original home of the New York Mets. The Giants moved to San Francisco and I believe the Yankees are still in New York...

Playoff Updates: NBA, MLB, NHL

Teams arriving at a Game 7 after losing a 3-1 series lead have a losing record and in this series, four games have been Under so far with two Pushes.

Two of the easier wins last night in the NBA as the Denver Nuggets won comfortably, not needing the 7.5 points they were getting, and the Under also an easy win (by 14.5 points) for the ninth consecutive time in a Game 7. Hopefully some of you took note of the observation in my last post.

This win was the second time the Nuggets have come from 1-3 down in a series to win, following their First Round comeback against the Utah Jazz. 

The Conference Finals started in the East last night with an overtime win for the Miami Heat as 'dogs versus the Boston Celtics, while in the West the Nuggets will play the Los Angeles Lakers.

MLB announced a unique play-off format yesterday, with all Division Series, Championship Series and World Series games scheduled for a neutral venue in either Texas or Southern California, and importantly with no rest days scheduled within a series meaning some tough starting pitching decisions ahead.  

The host stadium for the World Series will be Arlington, Texas, and with the home town team currently the second worst in baseball and nine games out of a Wild-Card place, the chances of them having home advantage here are somewhat slim.

Other clubs hosting games are the National League's San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers, both staging American League games, and Houston, whose Astros play in the American League and will host National League games.

The expanded Wild Card games are all best of three games, and the higher seeded team will have home advantage. 

In case you need any more evidence for how unusual this season has been, the five clubs with the longest playoff drought are all in with a chance of ending their disappointment this year, including my wife's hometown club. 

They are, in order of woefulness, Seattle Mariners (last playoff appearance 2001), Miami Marlins (2003), San Diego Padres (2006), Chicago White Sox (2008), and the Philadelphia Phillies (2011). Every dog has its day.

In the NHL, the Dallas Stars have reached the Stanley Cup Finals thanks in large part to two overtime wins. I mentioned the edge on backing Unders in play-off games earlier this month, and since then we have had six Unders and two Overs. Two matches resulted in a Push. 

Patience and Discipline

Yet another Game 7 in the NBA Play-offs this week, after the Denver Nuggets overcame a 19 point deficit to beat the Los Angeles Clippers by 13 points on Sunday. 

Teams arriving at a Game 7 after losing a 3-1 series lead have a losing record and in this series, four games have been Under so far with two Pushes. 

The NFL is back, and the Small Road Dogs System had three selections in Week One, namely the Chicago Bears, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Green Bay Packers and I'll take the 2-1 outcome any day of the week. 

Although none of the opening eight matches ended as a Draw, with the 2020-21 EPL season underway, a timely reminder that backing the Draw in close matches is generally profitable in this league. As David Sumpter wrote back in 2016 or so:

It turns out that when two well-matched teams meet (i.e. the probability of a home win is only slightly bigger than the probability of away win) then draws are under-priced. When matches are skewed so there is a strong a favourite (i.e. the probability of one team or the other winning is larger than the other) then draws are over-priced.

Somewhat arbitrarily I define 'close' matches as those where the difference between the fair win probabilities of the two teams is less than 25%, and 'toss up' when the difference is less than 10%.

In the eight seasons of the "Pinnacle era", with the overround adjusted to 103% for consistency, a number to which Pinnacle unfortunately appear to be headed quite rapidly, here are the results:

As a baseline, backing the Draw in all matches would have resulted in a 208.49 point loss, an ROI of -6.9%.

I'd actually previously not noticed the distinction in David Sumpter's quote above that he's looking at matches where the probability of a Home win is only slightly bigger than that of an Away win.

Close matches can also include matches where the probability of the Away team is slightly higher, and of course the two probabilities can be the same.

I'm not sure that Sumpter meant to make this distinction, but as I've mentioned before, the ROI on the Draw is actually slightly higher (16.8%) when the probabilities are the same or that of the Away team is slightly higher. Perhaps that wasn't the case in the Big 6 matches during Sumpter's period of study.

Finally, some words of wisdom from the Betfair Forum on a thread asking "Why do so many people lose at gambling?"

Zealot suggested that:

Most people lose because they are too greedy and 90% of them have no idea what a good return would be. Say, for example, you backed 500 horses over a 12 month period and your total outlay was £10k (£20 per bet). 

How many Joe Punters would be happy with a profit of £800? That's a very good 8% return. I would say less than 1%. If you ask a betting shop punter this question, most will say anything up to "Doubling It". Most have no clue of what it takes and how much work you have to put in. 

First step should be breaking even, and then with a little bit of tweaking, you will be well on your way. Patience is the key word in my opinion.

Those last two sentences are very sagacious. In binary betting, a blind squirrel will be able to win 50% of the time and you only need to convert 1.02% of those losers into winners if you are on Betfair's Basic Plan, or 2.46% at Pinnacle's Dime Line (1.952)  

Patience to wait for value opportunities is key, as is the discipline to stake appropriately when such opportunities come along.    

G7 Home Dog and MLB Woes

We have another Game 7 in the NBA tonight, in the Boston Celtics v Toronto Raptors series, where five of the six games so far have gone Under, with the exception being the double-overtime Game 6 where the 51 extra-time points took the total comfortably over. With the Toronto Raptors getting 2.5 points, this is only the third time in database history (since 2002) that the Home team has not been favourites, although this season all games are being played on a neutral court so it's not a huge surprise. Both of those previous games went Under.

Baseball continues to be an outlier of a season, with hot favourites unprofitable for the first time since 2014:

With some perspective, the results this season don't look so terrible with some nice profits in the bank from previous seasons, but it's tough to keep backing during a downturn, especially when the schedules and rules have been changed so dramatically.

Backing weaker favourites this season would have been profitable, but typically these are losing propositions. Clearly all the changes MLB has made this season have affected the markets. 

The Totals systems have also been messed up with the mid-season decision to make all double header games seven innings. August saw Unders as profitable in these games, but so far in September the value has been on the Overs. 

Pump It Up

The NFL season is here, and as with most other sports at the moment, it will be one with no fans at some stadiums, but fans at others, and thus a season with no precedent.

At least some Home Field Advantage (HFA) has long been held to come from the thousands of screaming fans in the stands who intentionally make more noise when the visiting team is driving and hard for them to hear play calls.

This season, some teams will have fans from the start, e.g. Miami Dolphins. Others hope to have fans as the season unfolds, e.g. the New Orleans Saints and Green Bay Packers, while others, e.g. the New York Giants have ruled out fans completely, at least for the time being.

Last week, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters on a conference call that there will be no advantage for teams with fans in the stands.

How can this be? Here's how - on the same call, it was announced that:

"For teams with no fans in the stands, we’ve created audio that will be played in all stadiums"

Apparently details are still being finalized, most notably about the decibel level to be allowed for the pumped-in noise, but it certainly appears to be a case of an unfair playing field.

Readers will be aware that the strategy of backing away teams getting a handful of points (the Small Road 'Dogs System) in the regular season has been profitable in most recent seasons:

That ROI is 10% if you restrict your bets to Divisional games only. Unlike MLB, the NFL have not changed their scheduling, nor made any COVID-19 specific rule changes, so I am optimistic that the season will play out in a fairly typical way. One big concern is that the market may see the HFA as reduced or non-existent this season, and the points Road teams are getting will be reduced. 

Three road teams opened as Picks for Week One, the Las Vegas Raiders, (get used to that name), Seattle Seahawks and Chicago Bears, although the Raiders are now 3 point favourites in some books while the Bears are now getting 3 points (and are currently a Small Road Dog pick) along with Green Bay Packers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

A quiet opening week might not be a bad thing. The reigning champions Kansas City Chiefs host Houston Texans on Thursday night and the Washington team still have no name and will start the season with the temporary, if unimaginative, name Washington Football Team.

Although not tied to the pandemic, the NFL has changed its play-off format this season with 14 teams (of the 32) now qualifying, and only the top seed in each conference now receiving a Bye in the first round.   

Finally, as I've mentioned before, I occasionally peruse the Betfair Forum, though more for amusement than in any expectation of learning anything useful.

One recent thread on the Football Forum was started with this comment:

It is nice for b/f to provide us live view...but until one team scores how are we to know which team is which?

Team colours would be nice.

Good grief. As one of the replies said:

If you are researching teams to bet on and don't know what colour shirts they play in maybe time to call it a day. Failing that a 10 second search on Google.

NBA: Evolving Playoffs and Game 7 Totals

After the two NBA Game 7s this week, here are some more details about how the Totals in a long series tend to play out.

First of all, some history. Since 2014, NBA play-off series are all Best-of-Seven, played in a 2-2-1-1-1 format, with the highest seed (better team based on regular season) having Home advantage in Games 1, 2, 5 and 7, although sometimes Game 5 and often Game 7 are not required,

Prior to 2014, the series were played in a 2-3-2 format, and the format has been tinkered with on several occasions, which means we have to be careful when comparing data across seasons, especially in Games 5 and 6.

The format was changed in 2003, when the First Round became a Best-of Seven series, reducing the chances of a higher seed being eliminated, (in 2007, the Golden State Warriors became the first team to defeat a number one seen in a best-of-7 First Round series), but also increasing the probability of a team sitting around for a few days waiting for their opponent who may be playing three games more.

In 2005 the two conferences (Eastern and Western) were realigned into three divisions each, with each division winner qualifying for a top-three seed regardless of their record.

This proved unpopular, and in 2007 the rules were changed again so that the division winners are now only guaranteed a top-four seed. If the top two teams in a conference are in the same division, this change means they won't meet until the conference Final, whereas before they could meet in the second round (the conference semi-finals).

Eight teams from each Conference make the playoffs, with the winner of the Eastern Conference playing the winner of the Western Conference for the NBA Championship.

So each season there are 15 playoff series, 7 between Eastern Conference teams, 7 between Western Conference teams plus the Finals Series. 

Teams need to win 16 games to be champions, and 71 of the 73 winners to date have been seeded either number 1 (49 wins), 2 (16), or 3 (6).

My suspicion is that there is more interest from the general public in playoff games, and that interest increases within each series peaking with Game 7s and also as the playoff rounds progress peaking with the Championship Series, and the public like to see points which may offer value on the Unders. 

Does the data support this idea?

Since 2002, when we first have data, Unders has been the result 51.5% of the time which is not a huge edge, but at the standard (Pinnacle) 1.952 (US -105) odds, you only need to win more than 51.23% of the time to be profitable.

In the 'If needed' games, i.e. Games 5, 6 and 7, the Unders record all-time is impressive, and notably more impressive if the game was preceded by one or two Unders also.

Unfortunately since the latest change in format in 2014, the trend is not so strong. One reason may be that we have fewer matches to look at, but also it seems reasonable to assume that markets are more efficient these days than they were in the 2000s.

There's also a noticeable divergence in results between Conferences since 2014. 

In the NHL play-offs, where 58.6% of Game 7s go Under, there was another one last night between the Philadelphia Flyers (nominally the Home team) and the New York Islanders. With four goals in total, this was another win for Unders.

With baseball not playing out this season anything like it typically does, systems that have performed well for many years are struggling. With different rules in place, it seems likely I should exclude these matches from analysis in future, but Signora Cassini is happy with her hometown San Diego Padres looking likely to end their thirteen year play-off drought with the third best record in the National League West, albeit playing under American League rules. Her father was a minor league player with the Angels (then California Angels) organisation, so he's not quite so happy. 

Trump Support Swamped by Blue Wave

Some proof that there is a god came yesterday when five* boats in a 'Boaters For Trump' Labor Day weekend parade on Lake Travis near Austin, Texas, sank in 'choppy water'. 

Metaphor jokes have been deleted - editorial ruling: too obvious. 

Poseidon, traditionally known as the god of the sea, but also god of water in general, gets the win.

Some unconfirmed reports claimed that when boaters radioed the local Sheriff's Office saying that they needed help and were sinking, the response was "All boats matter". 

I found this first-hand report from one of the boat (the SS Magaritaville) owners. It's a tough watch, and to rub 'salt' into the wound, apparently Jimmy Buffett, no relation to Warren, has asked that the name not be used again on any replacement boat. 

In other Trump news, while his odds on Betfair haven't shifted much, I don't think the reporting of Trump's contempt for the military and religion (he may have a point regarding religion to be honest) this weekend isn't going to win him any new voters and polling next week might well reflect this.

Biden is still available at 1.97, and his polling numbers are looking much stronger than that price would imply when looking at the individual states he needs to win.

With 249 Electoral College votes if there are no upsets on the blue side down to Michigan (which went to Trump narrowly in 2016), then Biden needs to pick up either Pennsylvania (to tie), or Florida for the win. If he loses these two states, he can still win by taking Wisconsin and Arizona. North Carolina is a toss-up state also, and with 15 EC votes may be crucial.

From the Trump perspective, he will have 219 EC votes if he wins all the states where he is currently ahead, meaning he needs 51 more votes to win. Where are they coming from? If we concede Florida to him, he still needs another 22 votes, i.e. Michigan or Pennsylvania plus one of Arizona, Wisconsin, or Minnesota. Or those last three states combined. It's really not looking likely right now, but Trump is available at 2.1 which looks a terrible price to me, but £3,109,940 has already been traded at this level, with another £2 million matched at 2.12. 

There are still two months to go until the election, and an October surprise may yet come along, but it's not clear to me how Trump is going to make up the deficit seen in the fairly consistent poll numbers. Surprises can work both ways, but although Trump's base has been pretty consistent and might not drop much in the event of yet another Trump scandal, I'm not sure what kind of Biden story would win Trump enough new voters to overcome his current position. 

* Post updated to reflect that in fact five boats, not four, sank during this parade.

Easy Unders and Trump at Evens?

The Unders in Games 7 opportunity I mentioned on Monday has given us two winners this week.

On Tuesday night, we had a very comfortable winner with the Denver Nuggets and Utah Jazz combining for a total of 158 points, the lowest total in a Game 7 since 2012, and 60 points under the 218 Total line.

This win extended the sequence for Unders to six but not for long as the sequence was extended to seven last night.

The Game 7 between the Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder, a series which had seen the previous two games both go Under, was another winner and no doubt many of you had your houses on this one. Maybe not, but hopefully some of you made a little money.

Overtime was a slight concern, but the Rockets won in regulation by two. 

The US Next President market appears to be somewhat inefficient right now with the two candidates tied on Betfair for a while yesterday.

Since then Biden shortened, presumably in response to a number of key state polls which were all favourable to him, but at the time of writing the race has tightened again.

Biden leads 51% to 43% across the country, but the Electoral College (EC) system means many votes are wasted, e,g, in California. Trump won in 2016 by the narrowest of margins.

He won Michigan by 0.3% (47.6% - 47.3%), Wisconsin by 1% (47.9% - 46.9%), Pennsylvania by 1.2% (48.8%- 47.6%). Those three states combined for 46 EC votes, which was enough to win.

Latest polls from these three states all have Joe Biden ahead by 48% - 44%, 52% - 42% and 49% - 45% respectively.

In addition, Florida and its 29 EC votes also looks good for Biden by 50% - 43% after going for Trump by 1.2% in 2016.

It makes no sense to me that the odds for the win are so out of line with these polling numbers and the individual state markets on Betfair, although liquidity there leaves something to be desired. 

With Biden out to 2.06 at one point, I've added to my position on him winning.

Unders Begets Unders in Playoffs

With the Denver Nuggets tying up their playoff series against the Utah Jazz last night, we have our first Game 7 of the 2019-20 NBA season.

With data going back to 2002, the Home team wins 74% of these games, and covers 57% of the time, but with Home and Away merely an administrative technicality in the play-offs this season, we can probably ignore this statistic. For the record, Denver are the "Home" team tomorrow. 

In 'normal' playoff games, Home teams win 64.4% of games, but this season that percentage is down to 55%.

In the First Round of playoffs, the numbers are 65% and 56.4%. The percentage declines from the early rounds to the finals as does the difference between the teams.

When looking at covering the spread, First Round games see the Home team cover 51% of the time, which is not too exciting, but the Totals markets in Game 7s show a tendency for the Overs to be 'over'-valued with Unders the result more than 60% of the time.  

Some of you may know that in a playoff series, a key indicator for Unders is previous matches in the series, an observation that gets stronger the deeper into a series you go.

For example in a Game 4, if the two preceding games both went Under, 53% of games will again go under. In Game 5, this percentage increases to 57%, in Game 6 to 63% and in Game 7s to 80%.

If you are impatient and want to jump in after just one Under, the numbers are 53%, 59%, 60% and 63% respectively. Stake accordingly. 

Unfortunately the Nuggets and Jazz series has gone Over in five of the six games, and the market seems to adjust to an Overs result much more efficiently than to an Unders.  

We may have another Game 7 this week if Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Houston Rockets tonight.

Birthday Boy Buffett

A winning start to the 2020-21 football season, although laying the 4-1 outsider isn't likely to excite too many readers because, to quote Warren Buffett (who turns 90 today), "nobody wants to get rich slow." 

Unfortunately, barring an unlikely lottery win, for most of us getting rich slowly is the only way we are going to get rich, but the good news is that so long as you don't leave it too late to start, it's something that anyone can do.

"Personal finance is just math mixed with discipline and self control." - Steve Burns

In fact, birthday boy Warren Buffett has made nearly 90% of his estimated $82 billion after reaching the age of 65. 

"Investing well is important, but investing well for a long time matters even more."

Of course that means he had about $8 billion to his name when he reached 65, and I for one am behind schedule on reaching that goal (unless Tesla keeps up its run) but we don't all need to be Warren Buffett to be wealthy or rich.

The 20th-century journalist and social satirist H.L. Mencken once quipped that a wealthy man is one who earns $100 a year more than his wife’s sister’s husband.

According to this article, you need $1.4 million (just over £1 million) to be 'comfortable' in the US, and another $1m to be considered 'wealthy', sums which may seem enormous in your 20s but which don't seem that enormous or unachievable as you get older. 

Coincidentally, the article mentions Warren Buffett's house and that it represents 0.001% of his total wealth suggesting a guideline:

Remember, housing should be no more than 30% of your income, so WB is doing okay!

I'm not sure that many of us live in a house that is 30% of our income, but perhaps the writer meant total wealth.

Funny how these articles never seem to mention his $11 million house in Laguna Beach, although he may have sold that by now. 

Baseball betting is definitely not helping me reach that $8 billion goal this season, with the T-Bone stakes getting burned to a crisp, and hot favourites performing lukewarmly at best. The totals systems are doing reasonably well though, but with the regular season half over, this isn't looking anything like a normal year.

As previously mentioned, I took a look at the Europa League (knock-out stages) this week and was expecting that clubs from the Big 5 countries might be poor value when playing clubs from other countries.

This turned out to be partially true, but the return from backing the 'Big' team was 6.18 units from 156 matches (ROI 4%).

The value in this 'Round-of-32' First Leg is to back the outsider, remembering that in football betting the outsider can be the Draw.  

Across 271 matches (an odd number because Feyenoord were kicked out in 2007 and Tottenham Hotspur were awarded a bye), blindly backing the outsider would have returned more than 6%, a number that leaps to 19% when backing the outsider in 'Big 5 v other' matches.

In First Leg matches between Big clubs, back the Away for an ROI of 21%.

In the Second Leg, results vary depending on the First Leg of course, but backing the outsider when the Second Leg Home team lost the first game by three or fewer goals, has an ROI of 17% from 101 matches.

I'll look at other rounds and scenarios later, but there definitely seem to be some weaknesses in these markets. As a reminder, for the Europa League I'm using the average prices from Odds Portal adjusted to a standard 103% overround, so these numbers can usually be beaten.

Community Shield

Going back to 2005, Liverpool are the second shortest price (using Pinnacle) to win the season opening FA Community Shield today against Arsenal.

Only Manchester United at 1.49 v Wigan Athletic in 2013 have been shorter.

Previous results, with the favourite listed as the Home team:

Odds-on favourites don't have a great record, with three of the six previous such teams failing to win. Once again a sample size of 16 isn't enough data, but certainly backing underdogs doesn't appear to be the best bet in these games. 

In matches between Big 6 clubs, well, that's basically all of them...

Of the three non-Big 6 clubs to have competed, two (Wigan and Portsmouth) will play each other in League One this season, with Portsmouth still waiting for their Wembley date for the EFL Trophy Final of last season against Salford City. 

Boycott Day Two and Europa League

The NHL, and better late than never, did finally decide to join the protests against racial injustice in the US.

The NHL drew criticism for not joining the NBA, WNBA, MLS and some MLB teams in suspending competitions or practices on Wednesday, before the player-led Hockey Diversity Alliance asked the NHL to push pause on games Thursday.

Play-off games were postponed last night and tonight while seven MLB games were also called off, as were all the NBA play-off games and WNBA games, but some semblance of normality may return tonight.

The spare time has not been totally wasted, as I've been working through some data from the Europa League, a competition I've never been too interested in before, at least not until it reaches the final stages. Matches between the likes of FK Anzi Makhackala and Metalist Kharkiv don't really set my pulse racing but I'm interested in seeing if some of the trends from the Champions League in the earlier knock-out stages are visible here too, but still a bit more work to do. I'm on track to finish it before the Round-of-32 in February, although Xmas being less than four months away is a reminder of how fast this strange year is going.

In my first post of 2018 I wrote that the better place for investing was the US:

In more traditional financial markets, once again the main US benchmark index outperformed the UK's FTSE100. Only 4 times in the last 24 years has the FTSE prevailed, and the disaster that is Brexit means the US and Overseas markets are where most of my investments will again be in 2018.

With the FTSE 100 closing below 6,000 last night, here's a comparison of two indexes since the 2008 crash:

The two have never before (at least since 1992) been so disparate and hopefully some of you at least diversified to include US funds in your portfolios. The FTSE 250 is up 184% since 2008, much better than the narrower FTSE 100 and its 35% gain, but still lower than the S&P 500's 286%. 

An index is comprised of stocks in various sectors, and as with sports investing, when you look below the surface, you find differences.

In the same way that, for example, backing the favourite in every Champions League knock-out stage game is profitable (ROI 6.9%), certain categories of matches are more profitable than others.

With indexes, even with the recent overall strength, sectors such as banking, energy and transportation are under-performing. Opportunities? I think so. I'm already invested in Lloyds Banking Group (a little prematurely perhaps) and watching others. 

NBA : No Basketball Again

If the 2019-20 NBA season wasn't already strange enough, three game 5 matches were last night postponed after players refused to play in protest at the latest police shooting of a 29 year old black man. Seven times. In the back. The victim, Jacob Blake, survived, but is paralysed from the waist down.

The postponements were triggered by the Milwaukee Bucks (from Wisconsin where the shooting occurred) who refused to come out of the locker room for their game against the Orlando Magic. To their credit, the Magic said they would not accept a walkover, and the league quickly postponed all three games scheduled, the other two being the Oklahoma City Thunder v Houston Rockets and the Portland Trail Blazers v Los Angeles Lakers games. Both Los Angeles teams (Lakers and Clippers) have now "voted" to stop the season, but other teams are not aligned, so how this will play out remains to be seen. Voted is in quotes because some reports consider this to have been a "poll" rather than an official vote.

Three MLB games were also postponed "to draw attention to the issues of racial injustice and systemic oppression." The games were the Milwaukee Brewers v Cincinnati Reds, Seattle Mariners v San Diego Padres and Los Angles Dodgers v San Francisco Giants. Only about 8% of MLB players are black, a number that has declined in recent years, but the Seattle Mariners have more than any other club.

Three WNBA games were also postponed last night as were five of six scheduled MLS games, but the 97% white NHL went ahead with its play-off games with a rather weak "moment of reflection in the effort to end racism and fight for social injustice". 

Investment life outside of sports goes on meanwhile with Telsa soaring past $2,250 today after closing at a new all-time high yesterday after CEO Elon Musk hinted that the company may be able to double the density of its batteries in three to four years. On September 22nd, the company holds a "Battery Day" about which there is much speculation.

The company now has a market capitalisation of $400 million, which is double what it was just two months ago. One of my better investments. 

Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives reiterated his Neutral rating and $1,900 price target for Tesla, but raised his bull-case scenario target from $2,500 to $3,500.

Another individual thinks it'll more likely be somewhat lower:

“In a nutshell, Tesla is essentially a busted growth story. I know that sounds crazy to people looking at the stock,” Gordon Johnson, CEO and founder of GLJ Research, told Yahoo Finance’s the First Trade.

Johnson has an $87 price target on the stock by the end of next year. (You read that correctly.)

Which would make it one of my worse investments, but for now, I'm happy to let this one run.

With just three trading days to go this month, and today looking good (Tesla close to $2,300) I'm in good shape for my second best month ever, behind April of this year.    

UEFA : Updated European Favourite Analysis

One win for the favourite and a rare win for an underdog in the two European football finals from the weekend but no large profits.

Depending on when you backed Bayern Munich, you may even have made a small loss with the price on Bayern Munich shortening to odds-on in some places, although Pinnacle closed at around 2.02 and 2.14 was the price I took on Betfair.

Here are the numbers updated, and not a pretty sight for those who prefer the underdog in finals:

There were 76 knock-out round matches, fewer than the usual 90 owing to the change in format to single elimination in later rounds due to the pandemic. 

In the Champions League since 2004, the ROI when backing the favourite is 3.6% which increases to 7.8% in Big-5 matches.  

Backing the favourite in every knock-out match this season (Champions League and Europa League) had an ROI of 20.2%, and in Big-5 matches, of 40%. (Big-5 in this context means matches featuring clubs from England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain). There were no intra-league matches this season, and you shouldn't need to be told that one season is a small sample size, so don't expect those 20% / 40% returns every year.

Even before the 2019-20 competitions were concluded, the 2020-21 campaigns are already underway, and I'll probably have some more stats later. 

Loss Was Almost Impossible

Another look back into the past, and here are a couple of systems for all you horse racing enthusiasts.

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that either of the two was actually profitable, and the first was one that I thought I had invented myself when I was ten years old as I wrote when setting up this blog many years ago. 

From the "About Me" section:

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. Then there was always the possibility that the winner would be returned at odds-on, meaning that the total returns would not match the outlay. Not what a ten year old wants to hear!

Far from inventing it, the idea (Martingale) had been around since 18th century France and probably prior to that. Here is an article from the Lowestoft Journal of Saturday 19th October 1907:

At Lynn County Court. on Thursday week, Henry Cozens, bill distributor, of Lynn, sued C. Wood, 148, Old-St., London, EC for the return of £1.

It appeared that plaintiff received a circular in July, entitled "Speculation on the Turf," in which he was invited to take a share of £1 in a capital of £75, in order to work a system of backing the favourites in the various races, by which system £1 per week on each £5 invested, and 4s. on each £1 was produced.

Loss was almost impossible. and profits were paid weekly. The system, one of backing all the favourites, and doubling the stakes after the loss., in order to win back losses, was explained, and plaintiff forwarded a sovereign. The average winnings were given as about £35, deductions leaving about £17 to £20 for division amongst the shareholders.

In one circular Wood set forth the winnings as amounting to 206 per cent., but as his expenses in attending a race meeting were heavy, he was able only to pay 1s on each £1 invested. His expenses were generally the heaviest item in the weekly account. He regretted that the winnings of 206 per cent were not up to the average. and hoped for better results in the following week's operations.

Then the system began to show evidences of breaking down, owing to the unfortunate circumstance that the favourites for the most part failed to win, while those which did win were at such short odds that the profits were small, and were more than swallowed up by the expenses. Wood expressed his sorrow at this, and in one communication he said he should start for Goodwood Races on the morrow, and trust to luck. Several letters passed from Wood to Cozens and ultimately be wrote that he had tried and failed.

Before that Cozens, in accordance with the terms stated in the circular. had given a week's notice for the return of £1.

His Honour gave judgment for plaintiff, with costs, but added: "Whether that judgment will bring you anything or not is another matter." (Laughter.)

More merriment in court occurred in Manchester in November 1928, as the Western News reported on another "system":

A get-rich-quick betting scheme that proved a failure was described at the Manchester Assizes yesterday, when Mr Justice Humphreys sent James Knox (31), of Liverpool, to nine months' imprisonment for three cases of fraudulent conversion.

Mr Clothier, who prosecuted, said that sums fraudulently converted were one of £25 and two of £30. Knox was a married man with five children, and claimed that he had a racing system by which sums of money could be made very quickly, and it was by that way he induced a man named McLelland to become a partner, together with two other men. When Knox explained his system to McLelland he said his secret system should bring £1 a day profit!

The secret of the system, counsel explained, was that one must either back an odds chance at five to four or an evens chance, unless one had information. (Laughter.) McLelland handed over £25 guaranteeing that he would not divulge the secret. The £25 was not be touched, and was to be refunded on dissolution of the partnership, while the profits were to be shared on an equal basis.

Mr Clothier said the system did not pay, and when McLelland asked for his money back he did not get it.

The other counts were of a similar nature.

Mr Wingate Saul Jr. (for Knox), said the man had been more fool than knave. He made nothing and paid £60 in wages, and sold part of his furniture to pay wages. The Judge described the system as a sham.

Back in 1872, the Batley Reporter and Guardian opined on gambling, writing:

Gambling is a vice of a serious character. The winner gives nothing in return for his unlawful gains, and the man who hopes by betting speculations to reap the reward which properly belongs to honest industry, commits a mistake fatal alike to his happiness and character. The perpetual feverishness, unrest, and thirst for gain possessing the gambler. must inevitably tend to destroy all that is pure and noble in his nature.