Why Can't We All Get On?

Another comment from Tony Stephens, this one suggesting that regulators could take a leaf from Australia’s books:

In Australia I don't believe they just accepted a licensed bookmaker picking and choosing who they take bets from. As I understand it there is a minimum liability that must be accepted. Without researching it too much I would say someone had a look at their original model and then changed it for some reason. Why should we just accept the current model in the UK? 

I’m not Australian, but I don’t believe anything good has come out of that country since the stump-jump plough in 1876. 

Maybe Tony Popovich and Mile Jedinak are exceptions.

Taking a lead on gambling from a country where there are an estimated 400 gambling related suicides a year might not be the best idea though. 

I’m not familiar with if or how such an arrangement has been implemented there, but the idea of a private entity being told how to run their business is troubling.

Who is this ‘someone’ who had a look at the bookmaker’s original model and then changed it? The business model is proprietary – it belongs to the business. If they want to change their model, great, but businesses are in business for the benefit of their owners and shareholders, not for the customer. They are not charities, and they certainly don't exist for a customer to exploit. 

It is for management to decide who they enter into transactions with. There should be laws preventing businesses from discriminating against customers based on race, colour, gender, language, disability, religion, sexual orientation etc. but not laws or rules forcing an enterprise into entering loss-making deals.

Tony asks - why should we accept the right of a business to choose how they do business? 

Well, because it is THEIR business. We can accept it or ignore it.

This may come as a surprise, but the right to bet is NOT a fundamental human right. I checked with the UN.

In some jurisdictions, betting is illegal. Maybe we should simply be grateful we have other options?

If you don't like a company's business model, don't do business with them.


Casinos have long been able to bar players who appear to have a positive expected value and incidentally, tell other casinos about him. A positive expected value to the customer means a negative expected value to the casino. That’s not a viable business model.

Why should the approach of bookmakers / sportsbooks be any different?

Should a bookmaker be mandated to accept a bet on the next Crystal Palace manager? What if the shop is in South Norwood, and the punter is Steve Parish and he wants to bet £5 million?

This example highlights that many markets are vulnerable to insider information. A bookmaker has to be able to deal with this risk, and part of their risk management strategy is closing or limiting accounts.

I agree that the idea of not being able to bet a small sum on a highly liquid event is ridiculous and makes a sportsbook look silly, but ultimately it is, and should be, the bookmaker’s decision how much risk they want to take on.

Other leisure businesses such as pubs and restaurants have always had the right to refuse service. I don’t see why a bookmaker should be any different.

Punters might take a different view if bookmakers had the right to knock on your door and tell you that you had to take a position on the 2:30 at Fontwell.

If your accounts are closed or restricted, deal with it. 

If an insurance company doesn’t want to insure you because you’re a terrible driver, and quotes you an exorbitant premium, you shop around. 

If the all-you-can-eat buffet denies you service because you’re Joey Chestnut or Anita, bad luck. There are other eating options, and you’re not going to starve to death.

Think of having your account closed as a compliment. It means they think you might know what you are doing. And if your accounts are not closed or restricted after a few weeks? Ask yourself what that is saying about you.

For more on this topic, and on Ben Affleck before he was caught up in the Harvey Weinstein scandal, check out my thoughts on this from three and a half years ago.  

And in 2012 I wrote:

Las Vegas casinos don't add Blackjack tables to provide more opportunities to gamblers. They are there to generate another income stream, and as with successful sports bettors, successful Blackjack players will find it hard to play. I'm not saying that short-term, the bookies can't be beaten, just that bookies are bad losers, and winning money from them long-term is not realistic.

An edge with no place to use it is pretty much worthless. The ability to ‘get on’ is an essential piece of the puzzle. You might be the world's number one expert on synchronised swimming, but try making much money from it.

And in 2013:

I don’t have a problem with this. Bookmakers have every right to do business with whoever they want, and successful punters have to accept this. They are not utility companies denying us water. They are businesses there to make money, and if they identify accounts that are likely to be (for the bookie) losing accounts, then they will.

It would be nice for bookmakers to be a little more transparent on this topic, but they won’t be for obvious business reasons. When having an unrestricted account at a bookies is seen as the mark of a loser, why would they advertise along the lines of "Losers Welcome".

Having accounts closed is why I had nothing to do with betting for many years. There was no point knowing the combination to the safe if I couldn’t get through the front door.

It was only the arrival of Betfair that let me in again to play, and while Betfair do not (at least for the time being) close accounts, I have certainly run into their equivalent of having my account limited being hit first by the 20% Premium Charge, and currently the 50% Super Premium Charge. As a result, my activities are now much reduced. It’s hard to stay under the radar when you win consistently, and it would not be a surprise to see Betfair and other exchanges close accounts or raise their charges even higher. And if the front door closes again, I’ll move on with my life.

It would seem that this topic isn't a new one.  

Golden Abs

Scanning through the blogs on my blog roll, and I find out that someone is making some money from my systems. 

Geoff over at Fulltimebetting wrote a post titled Hidden Gold which included these lines:

The always excellent Green All Over blog consistently has little nuggets that can deliver gold but like Mr Cassini is always saying ” an edge shared is an edge halved”. His baseball systems have constantly delivered and the last time I looked they had produced approx 90 points profit so far this season.

To achieve this profit you would have had to spend some considerable time reading through his blog, found the suitable sites to find the bets and stats, and then checked daily to see if there were any qualifiers, and then, and only then, finally place the Bets .

And of course some days there wouldn't have been any qualifiers!

If you need to bet every day, you have a problem! 

The 2017 regular baseball season was about as perfect as they come. No big draw-downs, and I'm glad someone else was able to make money.

The point of Geoff's post, which you should read in full, is that there are no short cuts to success, nor are there any to six-pack abs apparently.

With 90 points in Geoff's bank, he's probably not too disappointed that the post-season isn't going quite so well. A win for the Overs last night in the Washington Nationals v Chicago Cubs game, but no play in the UMPO which still has some ground to make up to be profitable this year.

We did have another winner in the NFL Small Road Dog's system last night, with the Philadelphia Eagles getting 3 points at the Carolina Panthers and winning by five. Probably five more selections to come this weekend.    

Staying Humble

My recent Gambling With Mathematics post mentioned that the top Video Poker machines at the Mandalay Bay pay out up to 99.17%. The source of that number in the New Yorker Magazine Article was Anthony Curtis, a former professional gambler who is now the owner and publisher of Las Vegas Advisor, and the blog has now corrected that 99.17% figure up to 99.58%. 

The first published comment on that most makes for scary reading, and if Mrs Cassini ever reads it, my sports investing days are at an end. Part of the comment by a Captain Jack reads:   

There is a natural progression towards sociopathic behavior that comes from making money in a casino environment. You’re making your money by beating inefficiencies in the casino…who in turn is making their revenue from the stupidity of the gambling masses. You begin to get a sense of superiority above your fellow casino patrons. You begin to lose empathy. You employ deception to get what you want. You become immune to taking risks. You become emotionally disconnected from the world around you. All of these are personality traits of sociopathic behavior.

Crikey. That's a little depressing. Perhaps what will save us from such a fate is that our advantage is not gained in a casino environment but in private, with the losing masses nowhere to be seen. Our senses of superiority are hopefully kept in check.

Another piece of good news is that Captain Jack's numbers did not go unchallenged:

Captain Jack’s speculation that 38-76% of advantage gamblers are sociopaths (his figures, not mine). I mean..come ON!

According to my wife's copy of Martha Stout's 2005 book "The Sociopath Next Door", an odd wedding gift for her from my in-laws, it is 4% of the population who are sociopaths. 

Disturbingly high still, but fortunately I am completely normal.

If you're interested in a far more serious article about mental health, check out this extraordinary, and quite frightening, article in Vanity Fair.

From Bar To Street To Bookie

Tony Stephens had some thoughts on the 'bashing the bookie' theme writing:

Initially I did think the same as Steve. However, you do see profit statements from the big bookies saying things along the lines of profits are down due to unfavourable sports results. Surely profits could only be down due to less turnover if they were properly bookmaking with balanced books. What I don't get with the "bookmakers" and what I think should be looked into is why customer A can't get £10 on selection 1 but customer B can have whatever they want at the same point in time.

When a bookmaker reports a large loss, it's usually worth far more to them in publicity than the loss itself. Some of you may recall the events of January 2014 which prompted a Press Release from William Hill:

Online Sportsbook has continued to show strong wagering growth, up 48% in the first two weeks of 2014. However, football results in week 2 were highly unfavourable with an unusually high number of odds-on favourites winning. Driven by the impact of this on our otherwise very attractive accumulator business, we recorded a £13m loss in the week. There is no certainty that we can recoup this shortfall to internal expectations but based on previous experience of such customer-friendly outcomes, such as 'Dettori Day' in 1996, we anticipate a positive benefit from increased customer confidence, particularly with so much of the season ahead and with the 2014 World Cup to come.

In that one Press Release we learn that yes, a freak set of results, from events in-play simultaneously, meant that they were unable to balance their books, but note the expected "positive benefit" resulting from this beating. A £13m loss sounds like a lot of money, but no mention of how many million they profit in a typical week. 

As for Customer A and Customer B being treated differently, bookmaking is a business, and like any business, bookmakers can choose who they do business with. 

Similar to how pubs can choose to serve or not serve you, usually based on your past behaviour, it's the same with a bookmaker, and in the same way that local pub managers exchange information about certain customers, so do bookmakers.

It's just how it is, and I'm not sure who is supposed to look into it, or what they are supposed to do about it. The business has decided they don't want you as a customer, so you deal with it. Take it as a compliment. Open an account with a market maker who doesn't ban winners. They may want 60% of your winnings, but I think I've mentioned that topic before and I'd hate to repeat myself.

All The Best And Goodbye

Albufeira Steve commented on my previous post:

I don't normally disagree with you but... In an ideal world what you say is true but the days of bookmakers being able to make a balanced book online are well and truly over. Exchanges lowering margins to almost nothing and price comparison sites have seen to that. They can only take money online if they offer top price. They now have to rely on having efficient prices to make a profit. A casino model rather than a bookmaking one. With a bookmaking model it does not matter if sharp punters win as they will be paid by the losers, but with an efficient price model you can not allow sharp punters to take all your profits before prices become efficient, hence the staking restrictions and closing of accounts of those that try. Bookmaking is now much more of a battle between bookmaker and the sharp punter than it used to be, and the closure of accounts is testament to that.

I'm not sure Steve and I actually disagree on too much. I'm sure that sportsbooks don't always have a perfectly balanced book, and sometimes have some exposure, which is what I meant by saying that they avoid taking:

unnecessary risk by voluntarily going in-play with an unbalanced book.

However, by definition, online sports books with a centralised database are in a very good position to manage these risks by simply denying a bet that might tilt the book too much one way. Pinnacle manage this by having limits, and the problem of gamblers being limited or closed is one that is constantly being discussed. 

Exchanges have certainly made traditional bookmakers more competitive as has the arrival of the new business model typified by Pinnacle.

I do disagree with Steve on his statement that online books "can only take money online if they offer top price". 

Cheapest isn't always best, and not all punters have access to all prices. 

1.99 on an exchange looks good, but factor in 5%+ commission, and it's not so good.

It might be worth dropping a point or two just to avoid being seen as a best-price punter, and keep your accounts open for longer. 

There's also the question about trustworthiness and stability with some books, and a punter might well take a worse price with a book he trusts. 

Regardless, each bookmaker will be trying to balance their book for each event and punters seen as cherry-picking prices or arbing will soon find their betting options limited, i.e. take all the best prices, and it's goodbye. 

The old-school model books don't want customers who appear to know what they are doing, whether they are winners or not, and frequently taking best prices is a fast road to account closure. 

Fortunately the exchanges don't care and nor do the likes of Pinnacle, so while your options for entering a market might be somewhat limited, you are still in competition with other punters, not the market maker itself, because it is the weight of customers money in the market that ultimately determines the prices, not what some corporate odds-setters think they should be.

Short Of A Full Stack

The Tweet from Pinnacle reads:

“Learn how to beat the bookies in the Over/Under goals markets when betting on soccer”.

Admittedly, Pinnacle do have some pretty good articles, but this “beat / bash / clobber the bookies” narrative from people who know better, not only Pinnacle, is completely misleading and suggests the targets for such features are the less sophisticated reader.

Modern day sportsbooks operate in a similar way to actuaries, an actuary being defined as “a business professional in the insurance and assurance industries who deals with the measurement and management of risk and uncertainty”.

Actuaries must possess skills in mathematics, finance, analysis and have business knowledge and if you are serious about betting for a profit, you should have these skills too - ideally using them for your full-time career and for your part-time betting hobby.

“Bookmakers do not generally attempt to make money from the bets themselves but rather by acting as market makers and profiting from the event regardless of the outcome”.

While the “us” versus “them” theme may be something the bookies would like you to believe, make no mistake about it - gambling is not a contest between you and the bookmaker. 

It is a contest between you other gamblers, and to win in the long-term, you not only need to beat other punters, but you need to beat them by a big enough margin to cover the market maker’s costs.

Sportsbooks are not in the business of competing with the punter. They merely facilitate the ability (sometimes) for punters to invest their money in exchange for a fee , e.g. commission or vigorish. 

Bookmakers will adjust the odds or the lines based on the money coming in to the market. If their opening (soft) prices, typically only available to small limits and known sharp players, attract more money on one side than the other, the sportsbook will adjust the odds and attempt to reduce any liability. Limits will increase as the ‘true’ probabilities become firmer, and the event start time approaches.

This is a very logical and sensible business model. What would not be logical and sensible would be for a business to take unnecessary risk by voluntarily going in-play with an unbalanced book.

As a result, the implied probabilities derived from closing prices are typically a highly accurate measure of the true probabilities of an outcome. If they are not, then there is an opportunity for the sharp player.

Somewhat related to this is a pet peeve of mine, which is the habit of some sportsbooks to make public the “BetShare” for certain markets. Again, this is totally misleading in that it is useless information.

The “BetShare” simply gives the percentage of bettors (not money) per outcome. An extreme example to highlight the pointlessness of this is where 99 bettors each back an outcome with a £1, while one bettor lumps on £1,000.

It would be at best misleading to say that the BetShare for this market is 99% to 1%, and given that it is relatively rare for Pinnacle to publish BetShares, one might be excused for thinking they are looking to attract the less sophisticated follower into following the 99% and helping to balance the book.

Follow the prices if you want to see where the money is going. The outcome backed by the 1% will be the one with the shortening price in this example.

Bookmakers aren’t going to give away information with any value. If they’re promoting something, it’s for a reason. Don’t be fooled.

If you want to be profitable from betting, whether it’s in the Over / Under goals markets or whatever, you need an edge over other gamblers. The bookies prices simply reflect the opinions of the market’s participants.

As I’ve mentioned before, many participants are experts at what they are doing. Starlizard has about 200 employees — traders, software engineers and analysts — as well as paid informants around the world. They're looking for more:

“We are currently expanding and need a number of software developers and support staff with skills in C# / F# / Java / Python / Full Stack Development / DevOps"

How many people reading this think they have the skills to take on 200 highly educated individuals earning a decent salary paid from profits accrued from betting? A few Twitter accounts seem to think they do.

Of course individual sportsbooks will at different times have different liabilities to offset, and hence prices will often vary a little, and by taking advantage of the best prices, you’ll put yourself in a good position in the short-term, but as many of us know, if you look like you know what you’re doing, you’ll soon be banned or limited.

Will you find the edge you need to be profitable long-term from a Twitter account?

Ask yourself this - if someone finds a hidden trove of gold, how likely is it that they’ll leave it there, go home, and then tell everyone where this gold is hidden?

Based on what I read on Twitter, it’s apparent some people think this is quite normal behaviour, handing over their money to a complete stranger. That is delusional. The account selling tips almost certainly knows no more than you do.

In the rare instance that he may have exclusive inside information, he has either already backed the value out of it, and the information is thus worthless, or he hasn’t, which means he has no confidence in it, so why should you?

Gambling With Mathematics

The mass shooting in Las Vegas earlier this month was perpetrated by an individual who described himself in legal documents as "the biggest video poker player in the world". 

The documents were filed in a deposition for a (lost) lawsuit against the Cosmopolitan detail him betting (not losing) $1 million a night.

His younger brother Eric described the killer as a "gambler who used mathematics".

That he was wealthy, a multi-millionaire, appears to have been the result of his business acumen rather than his gambling, a hobby he took up with some intensity in retirement.

A recent article in The New Yorker Magazine had this quote:

If all this guy did was play video poker, he was not a ‘poker player.’ He’s just gambling.” He went on, “There’s a small chance that Paddock played the percentages very well and eked out a small edge, but it’s very doubtful. That takes a lot of skill and time, and only playing one particular kind of video-poker machine. To make money playing video poker, it takes a lot of luck.”

It also teases us with this:

“Video poker is well known for attracting people who have compulsive gambling problems,” he told me. “It’s almost the perfect gambling game. But it also has the property of being able to be beaten. So it attracts a lot of very intelligent people.”

In the early days of Video Poker, there's evidence that some machines paid up to 103%, but edges like that don't last for long and the top machines at Mandalay Bay reportedly pay out up to 99.17%.

The key for the killer was probably that from time to time, casinos offer promotions that can reduce that already miniscule house edge still further, and the comps casinos hand out can make the game a relatively cheap hobby, if not a big earner.

“If you get close to 100 percent — that’s where he gambled,” Eric Paddock said. “It’s not just the machine. It’s the comps, it’s the room. It’s the 50-year-old port that costs $500 a glass. You add all that stuff together and his net is better than 100 percent.”

The mention of APs (Advantage Players) reminded me of the "luckiest" woman in the world, Joan Ginther who won millions in the Texas State lottery, not once or twice like normal people, but on FOUR separate occasions. 

A pure coincidence of course that it turned out she was a former professor at, and had a PhD in statistics from, Stanford University.

Small Dogs and UMPO Weekend Update

Another profitable weekend overall for anyone following the Small 'Dogs. The College Puppies had a second consecutive losing weekend, while the grown-ups narrowly missed out on a clean sweep with four of the five selections winning straight up.

Not such good news from the MLB play-offs where favourites continued to dominate.

The above includes the final game this evening of the Boston Red Sox v Houston Astros series. Three more games tonight.

Flawed Process

Lambretta at the Thoughts of a football trader blog posted the following today:

Read an excellent post on twitter from a financial trader earlier.

There were a few elements to it but, much like the books it referred to, it focused upon process over profit.

We hear it constantly but how, even though we've read the books and tried to drum the concept into our heads, do we abide by this rule? Well, picture yourself as the crop farmer. Year in year out, season after season, the farmer goes through the process. He cannot control the outcome. All he can do is give himself the best chance of seeing a good crop. He does not dream of a bumper harvest, does not picture himself in a brand new tractor. What he does is follow the process, knowing that, based on thousands of years of farming knowledge, this process offers the best opportunity of having a good year. The weather can write off the entire crop, parasites can could ravage everything but he cannot do anything about these aspects. All he can do is give himself the best chance.

And so it is with us, too. Process, process, process.

Well, not exactly. In fact, quite the opposite.

The problem with this philosophy and specifically this example, is that while we all understand weather is by nature unpredictable and will vary from year to year, an event such as climate change means that the thousands of years of farming knowledge are now rendered all but irrelevant. 

The farmer's assumption that the underlying environment is unchanged is flawed. He can stick with his process all he likes but it's doomed to failure.

The process will no longer lead to long-term success. Farmer Giles needs to adapt.

While betting markets haven't been around for thousands of years, they too change, often overnight, and a punter must likewise adapt or fail. Strategies don't last for ever. 

Adopting the farmer's mentality of "well it used to work, so I'll just keep on doing it" is simply a recipe for disaster. 

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"

Whether or not Einstein actually came up with that quote - he probably didn't - it's certainly true. 

Traders must always be aware that change is inevitable, and must constantly watch the markets they are betting or trading in. 

Process, process, process yes, but the process has to evolve. 

Persisting Edges

Unknown writes:

I am a big fan of you blog and your systems and would like to thank you for sharing your knowledge but I have one question that keeps bugging me:

Why do your systems and edge based on relatively simple technical analysis still work if the market and players in it are so smart and efficient?

Buchdal's system based on favorite/longshot bias seems to be alive and well even after a decade of being practically in the open so why haven't the betting market adapted to it and killed its edge by now?

Really appreciate any help and your opinion and thank you in advance

Thanks for the compliment and the question.

There is no single market for sports betting, and my intent in mentioning some ideas here is to point readers towards those markets that are currently inefficient. 

The reason why some markets are inefficient can only be that the square money exceeds the sharp money. With sportsbooks risk averse, the lines for such matches are consequently incorrect.

Why these inefficiencies continue for sometimes many years is indeed very strange. Perhaps the liquidity isn't there to interest big players?

As relatively small as these markets might be compared to say the English Premier League, the markets I highlight should be more efficient, but clearly they are not.

Small Road 'Dogs in College Football should not be profitable in 14 of the last 17 seasons. In Conference games, they should not have an ROI of over 15% since 2005. 

Small Road 'Dogs in the NFL should not be profitable in 10 of the last 11 seasons. In Division games, they should not have an ROI of over 13% since 2005.

Home advantage is much talked about in sports, but in many, it is declining. Improved officiating and an increase in reviews have helped with this.

After years when backing Road favourites in College Football was throwing away your money, small Road Favourites were profitable in 2010 and four of the six season since, with an ROI of 7.5%. 

One can only assume that most money is unaware of the shift and continues to over-estimate home advantage. 

Backing hot favourites in MLB should not show a return of 8.9% for the last six seasons.

Here it's possible that after many years of a reverse-longshot bias in baseball, the majority of bettors are unaware that the tide has turned. Or perhaps they are worried the tide has crested and about to begin ebbing back to its long established norm. It well may, but at some point you have to make the move from watcher to swimmer. 

It's in the less popular sports are where inefficiencies are more likely to persist.

In my opinion, there's no point in the serious sports bettor looking at the Premier League and other top level football for value. It's delusional to think that in the long term you can beat the likes of Starlizard and its army of quants and informants.

So the systems I talk about here tend to be from the lower leagues of football, or from niche sports. At some point in the probably not too distant future, these edges will also be gone, but for now, enjoy them.

One exception is the Bundeslayga, which ironically is one example of a system that does appear to have lost its edge after several years of profit, but the surprise is not that the edge has gone, but that it lasted as long as it did.

MLB Data Revolution

The basic UMPO System suffered losses in the first two games yesterday with American League East rivals Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees both beaten.

The New York Yankees had an 8:3 lead after five innings, but lost in 13 innings. 

When post season games go into extra innings, the value is on the underdog as you might expect in what is essentially a 50 / 50 situation. I've explained before that the favourite is decided by the starting pitchers, and it would be rare for a starting pitcher to still be playing in the tenth innings.  

The MLB database I use only goes back to the 2004 season, so the sample size for play-off extra innings games is naturally small, but of the 36 games to date with an odds-against underdog, the split is now 18:18.

The Chicago Cubs were the first UMPO winner of the season in the day's third game, before the hot favourite Los Angeles Dodgers took care of the Arizona Diamondbacks with no trouble, helped by a four run lead after the first innings.

We may well be into a new era for baseball. The basic UMPO is improved by ignoring bigger 'dogs, and my suspicion, backed up by the improved performance of shorties in the regular season, is that this will now be the case in the post season. More to come on this topic.   

The second was a revelation born of a statistic that only recently came into existence—the launch angle. Radar and camera measurements of the angle at which balls leave the bat have shown that the optimal swing angle looks more like an uppercut than many hitters preferred. Hitters, in turn, have started swinging for the fences in droves. Home runs this season reached a record level.

The record number of home runs this season, and three 100+ teams certainly hint at that, and this article from the Wall Street Journal looks at the (negative) impact on the game of the "data revolution".

Over Analysis

Tony Stephens is becoming quite a regular contributor to this blog, contributions always appreciated of course. He responds to my last post where I clarified my thoughts on what technical analysis means in regard to my public systems.

Tony writes:

Yes you have already calculated the historic prices were not correct as your system is looking at historic win / loss % v historic implied probabilities. So you continue to do this or you wouldn't know when to stop following it. If the current market structure was such that there was £5bn available to back and less than a £1k available to lay your system could still be telling you to back. Would technical data not relate more to what's actually happening in the current market, in terms of prices and volumes etc, and what chance of success you might have when similar market structures have occurred previously?

Tony's first sentence is correct - a technical analysis of the historical prices have indicated an area where a market may be inefficient. Tony is also correct that knowing the inefficiency will correct itself probably sooner rather than later, it is important to keep tracking results.

I think Tony is suggesting in his next sentences that I perform this further analysis each time a system throws up a new selection, which is incorrect.

I do not look at the 'current market structure' at all. I have no idea, and no interest, in how much money is available to back or lay, because I don't use the exchanges as the source for my selections. My system simply tells me which selection to back. There is no additional analysis performed, of either a technical nature (weight of money, volume, price movement etc.) or fundamental (team line-ups, weather, injury reports etc.).

The approach Tony describes certainly falls under the heading of 'technical analysis', but technical analysis can be as simple as looking at historical prices. It's still technical analysis, just not very sophisticated technical analysis to put it mildly, but time is precious. 

This quick and unsophisticated approach isn't yet paying dividends in the MLB post-season, where all four favourites have won so far. Backing the underdog in the 'best of one' Wild Card games is historically not a profitable exercise, but we're into the best of five Division Series now. 

Simplicity, Consistency and Speed

Tony Stephens chimed in on the Fundamental Analysis v Technical Analysis debate. He writes:

If you take James' criteria you have satisfied one element in the short price fav "system" in that you are looking at market price data. You are then using historical win, draw, loss data to work out if that historic price was correct or not. For me this is weighted towards fundamental rather than technical. You are not considering any other elements of the market structure to fully qualify for the technical status ;-)

Let's review this comment. The "short price fav system" does indeed look at market price data, i.e. it looks for favourites with an implied win probability of two-thirds or greater, 1.50 or shorter in Betfair terms. That's all it does, simplicity at its most extreme. 

Where Tony is mistaken is that there is no further analysis. I don't look at any win, draw (there are rarely any draws in modern baseball), or loss data, nor do I work out if historical prices were correct (I know they weren't, or I wouldn't be following this system). 

So there is nothing fundamental here at all. The only reason I even look to see what team is playing, is because it's hard to place a bet without knowing that key piece of information.

If I were to look at the entrants and then make decisions based on the pitcher, the quarterback, the weather, the point guard, team form etc., now that would be fundamental analysis. 

I don't agree that because the system concerns itself with just one technical element, it means that the technical element it does use (i.e. market price) defies the laws of nature and becomes fundamental.

Somewhat related, and perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, but @Statsbet asked via Twitter:

Have you ever thought of adding fundamental analysis to the technical to improve selections, e.g. for the National League, using Skeeve fundamentals applied to trend technical?

Of course the idea has crossed my mind, but as I responded, in my opinion:

the benefits of a technical approach are consistency and speed, and you lose those if you start adding a fundamental filter.

It's The Hope That Kills You

For some reason, the team I have called "mine" for over 50 years, are making headlines around the world right now. 

It's to be expected from Andy Johnson's Magic Hat, but in addition, the Power of Goals blog's latest post is about Crystal Palace, and our plight has even reached Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight blog with a piece titled There's Still Hope For The Soccer Team That Can't Score. 

I can't see what the fuss is about. As some of those articles explain, it's something of a freak occurrence that our goal tally is currently a round number, but the talk of relegation is surely premature.

I mentioned in a Tweet last night that it was:

To be honest, at this point I'll settle for 17th place, but I like to dream big.

Cue hope-dasher @l1ugs:

As anyone who follows Palace knows, it's seldom easy. The Andy Johnson's Magic Hat post mentioned earlier has the title 'The Palace rollercoaster' for good reason, and the author details some of the streaks we have experienced in our four plus seasons in the Premier League.

But it's not only the recovery from 20th place in mid-January 2014 after 21 games that is encouraging.

It's that even if Palace lose game eight (H v Chelsea) after the international break, there's still plenty of points to be gained from the remaining 30 games. 

To the left are the remaining fixtures, along with last season's results against those clubs (and yes John, I know the teams / managers have changed, but when our injured players return, we should be at least as as strong as last season, and right now I need some straw to cling to, not a big bad wolf to blow it away). 

I've replaced last season's relegated trio - Hull City, Middlesbrough and Sunderland - with promoted Newcastle United, Brighton and Hove Albion and Huddersfield Town respectively).

I make that 35 points, which is very close to the probable 36 / 37 points required for safety.

On the downside, we are unlikely to pick up six points at Chelsea and v Arsenal again, (although we do average points in three Big Six fixtures each season, so we're due... ) but on the upside, ten of the losses were by one goal, and converting some of those into draws or even wins shouldn't be impossible once we find the net again. 

Even if Palace are pointless after 12 games, (be nice to have a goal by then though) there's still hope. Isn't there? 

The run from late November to Xmas looks to be vital, and if we can pick points up through the end of March, the final six games are all winnable. 

Betfair has an implied probability of about 0.62 for Palace to be relegated. Maybe I'll look at a lay after yet another Palace trip to Wembley on Guy Fawke's Day. 

I'm also old enough to clearly remember the 1973-74 season, when Palace were back in the old Division Two after finally succumbing to relegation after four seasons in Division One. 

As I wrote here, with Malcolm Allison in charge, optimism reigned.

The next season saw the introduction of three-up / three-down, and Allison promised that we would not be in Division Two for long. He was true to his word.

Palace failed to win any of their first fifteen League games, and had just two wins and eight draws by the New Year. 

Fast forward to Good Friday and after a 3:2 win at Fulham, we were looking good to stay up with just five matches remaining. 

Unfortunately we followed a defeat at Millwall the next day with a home defeat by Fulham on the Tuesday and were right back in the proverbial. 

A win at Cardiff City in the final game of the season would have sent the Bluebirds down in our place on goal average, but we could only draw 1:1, and took the newly created third relegation place.

Consecutive relegations, but a season to remember. Football used to be a lot of fun back then.   

Even The Losers

James left a comment on the Fundamental Analysis v Technical Analysis topic, which only makes his suggestion from last week (below) even more curious:

Maybe it was the Jameson kicking in after a long night of carousing, but not one of my publicly revealed systems is based on Fundamental Analysis.

James does at least now agree that Fundamental can include both public and private data, writing:

To clarify my definitions as per the book Betfair Trading Techniques...

Fundamental data is that which makes one team/competitor better than another, which can include public data such as win, draw, loss records etc. private data such as a player's current health or mindset, and even financial muscle data and use in transfer markets.

Technical data makes no consideration of teams and players and looks only at markets, prices and volume with no knowledge of to whom those figures are attached.

Hybrid strategies might calculate odds lines from fundamental data and traded optimally using technical data.

With the MLB regular season wrapping up yesterday, the final Technical-Bone, abbreviated to T-Bone, System results are in:

A small loss on the Run Line, but more than compensated for on the Straight Up bets. Hopefully some of you made some money on these this season. 

For the Short Priced Favourites (Technical) System, the final results were:

To show the trend in recent years, I have broken down the totals by four or five year periods.

The NFL Small Road 'Dogs saw one winner and one loser yesterday, although some followers like myself may well have been on the Detroit Lions bet at +2.5 which was a winner. Unfortunately for the official records, the closing line was +2 so it misses out. Still early days, but next week looks like a bumper week for selections. The 'official' results so far:

MLB 2017: Centurions and Hotties

A question from SportsPicksSystem on the UMPO System, another purely Technical Analysis system mentioned on this blog:

For UMPO, what is your criteria to consider a team to be the underdog?

Home: 1.924
Away: 1.971

Is away the underdog or just too close to call?

The UMPO link actually answers this question:

UMPO is an acronym for Underdogs MLB Play-Off and is a simple strategy which backs odds-against underdogs in the Major League Baseball Play-offs.

So when both teams are odds-on, there is no play.

The MLB regular season is over, and not only was it unusual for the record number of Home Runs I wrote about here, but 2017 was also only the fifth 162 game season in which three teams won 100 or more games. 

As I wrote in 2015, the reverse favourite-longshot bias long held to be true in baseball, ceased to exist around 2011.

Backing hot favourites in the regular season since then, hot here being defined as those with an implied probability greater than .666, is +150.84 points, from 1,284 bets, an impressive ROI of 11.74%.

2017 was the best season to date straight up, +55.70 points with another +29.49 on the Run Line. Hopefully some of you followed this system this season. It was profitable in every month for those who don't like too much volatility.

I'll review the T-Bone System in the next few days. 

Thundering Herd Consolation

A first losing weekend of the 2017 season for the NCAAF Small Road 'Dogs System but not a disaster as it was a relatively quiet weekend.

I'm still a little confused about how this simple system could ever be considered to be based on "Fundamental Analysis".

About all I know about the entrants is that Iowa is the only state with all vowels in its name, Marshall is famous for the 1970 plane crash that killed most of the football team, and Middle Tennessee is somewhere in the middle of Tennessee. 

I think James' confusion comes from the misunderstanding that fundamental analysis is based on public data. In my view, most fundamental analysis IS based on public data, which is why it's a waste of (often a lot of) time, and doesn't give anyone an edge. 

To gain an edge, private fundamental data is essential. Hence my answers to @statsbet's Q and A:

Can your home bettor/trader beat the market long term using statistics like you see on soccerstats.com and other various websites some paid?

No. Such publicly available data, whether free or by subscription, is useless. Far more sophisticated and well-funded enterprises than an individual at home are competing in the markets, i.e. with you. They already have this data. They have already analysed it. As in the previous answer, if you assume that these professional enterprises are not donating their money to the market each day, i.e. they are net winners, how can you, sitting at home, seriously think that you can overcome this disadvantage over the long-term and make a profit?

Would you advise technical analysis or fundamental/statistical or both?

Technical analysis.

Unless you have access to private (insider) information, fundamental analysis is a waste of time. Others will always know more than you. Let all (private and publicly available) information hit the market, and then focus on a statistical analysis of the market’s estimate of probabilities. Try to understand the market sentiment behind the prices, and identify areas where the market may be vulnerable.

It looks like a quiet weekend for Technical Analysis' NFL Small Road 'Dogs System this weekend too, with just three likely selections.

Today is also the final day of the 2017 MLB regular season, with just the one T-Bone selection, which is a relief after a dreadful September for these selections. 

With the play-offs now imminent, perhaps it's a good time to dust off the Technical Analysis based UMPO System.

The low number of bets per season make for some wild ROI returns, so it's not for everyone.  

US Tennis Open Updates

With the US Tennis Open now behind us, I found time to update the numbers. 

My mother always says "Ladies first (except up a ladder)" and here the value was on the under-bitches, if you'll pardon the expression.

Backing these from the 4th Round on continued to be profitable. For the past five years, i.e. 20 Grand Slams, profits vary from 45.04 points (Pinnacle prices) to 64.01 points (best prices) from 298 matches.

As for the Men, the results were opposite, with the value on the side of the favourite.

Overall, again the last 20 Grand Slams, and the US Open is best left alone with losses of around 2.65% at Pinnacle prices on both favourites and underdogs.

As always, a big thank you to Joseph Buchdahl and his Tennis Odds, without which none of this would have been possible. 

Fundamentally Flawed

The puzzling Tweet above, apparently triggered by a delayed reading of my excellent and well worth reading Q and A with @Statsbet, before the series took a turn for the worse, appeared in my Notifications this afternoon.

I say puzzling because by James’ own definition**:

a technical trader pays no attention to the past performances of entrants, only considering price movements, market behaviour and structure.

Which is exactly what the systems mentioned on my blog do. 

For the purposes of the Q and A, I used the financial definitions for technical and fundamental analyses as my basis, although the sports and financial markets obviously have big differences.

We all may have our different takes on how these financial market terms should be interpreted when it comes to sports, but to me, fundamental analysis for sports investing means looking at the fundamentals of the individuals or teams competing in the event. So for an NBA game, I might consider injury reports, previous results, days of rest, time zones, individual match ups and so on.

I don’t do this. It might give me an edge if I were travelling with the team and knew they’d been out for a massive session the night before or that Barrow’s star striker Byron Harrison had again slipped in the shower and would be missing the next game, but I don’t have access to private information like this.

Incidentally, although James’ Tweet implies otherwise, the difference between technical analysis and fundamental analysis has nothing to do with whether the data is public or not. Or at least not that I am aware.

Under the ‘fundamental’ heading, I also include silly ideas such as looking at previous results between two clubs, or thinking that because a team has been involved in recent high scoring games, that this is significant or can give me an edge. Others, with far more resources and time than myself, will have already analysed these things far more efficiently than me and my spreadsheet ever could, and it would be delusional of me to think I could ever gain an edge this way.

By ‘technical analysis’ I mean that I look solely at market data, looking for areas where the market may be inefficient. What the sport is, who the teams are, where they play, who plays for them etc. is all irrelevant in my opinion, all a waste of time without private information. Yes, the market data is publicly available, but that doesn’t change the nature of the analysis from technical to fundamental.

Thanks to Tony Stephens for pointing out a rare typo (now corrected) in my last post:

Feeed? Is this some kind of test?

No test - just a rare error to show that I am human.

** For more on this subject, reference p4 of James Butler’s Betfair Trading Techniques.