The European football season is now in the books, and the screenshot above shows the final strike rates for the Strong Draw system across all leagues individually and in total. Ligue 1 (37%) finished slightly ahead of the Bundesliga (37%), with the EPL (36%) close behind in third. La Liga (33%) and Serie A (31%) were the 'worst' of the leagues. It is a very selective system, with just 157 picks over the season, and the 55 winners means a strike rate of 35%.
I monitored the selections that fell just short of the 'Strong' rating, and while their inclusion did slightly reduce the strike rate overall, it wasn't by a huge amount, and the extra bets (50) would have boosted the bottom line. The results with these included is shown below in yellow:
As I mentioned before, I only started keeping an accurate record of the prices in 2011, where the average price was 3.44, an implied probability of 0.291. Only La Liga fell below this number when the 'weaker' draws were included - disappointing, but with just 9 selections, hardly anything to worry about.With the Spanish play-offs not concluding until June 19th, I have a few days to decide how to merge the promoted teams into the spreadsheet. It will probably be along the lines of assigning promoted teams the average for the bottom half of the league (excluding relegated teams) with a small adjustment based on finishing position, e.g. QPR will start the season with slightly more points than Norwich City and Swansea City. Assigning the league average is too generous - the gulf between the top league and the second tier appears as great in France, Germany, Italy and Spain as it is in England with at least one promoted team going straight back down in each country.
With regards to the Spanish non-quite-so-strong draws, remember you are working with a very small saple size which makes an anomoly far more likely. 1 from 9 this time could easily be outweighed by 5 or 6 from 9 next time I'd keep tracking them and if you post up your not-quite-so-strong draws next season I'll probably back them.
ReplyDeleteRegarding how to deal with newly promoted teams, I am planning on dealing with it by using the bottom 8 average in the EPL, and then not touching any bets it throws up for the first month to allow it to settle slightly.
Thanks Pete - 1 from 9 in Spain, but France went 4 from 7 so yes, in a small sample these things will happen. I'm with you on the newly promoted teams. I have them 'on probation' until they have played six games and settled in.
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