Tuesday, 7 February 2012

Follow The Twit

Cassini apostles, I mean followers, on Twitter, (and who is not on Twitter in 2012?), will have done well yesterday on the Liverpool v Tottenham Hotspur match. Liverpool were too short at odds-on, (I had them priced at 2.12) and the Under 2.5 goals price was tipped up as value at 2.1, (I had this priced at 1.72) a price which almost immediately began shortening to odds-on, which prompted my observations that a) my Tweets move the market (which was a joke) and b) that the draw price hadn't dropped as it should have (which was no joke, but an opportunity). Why the draw price stayed constant is strange - compare this to the Swansea City v Arsenal game of three weeks ago when the Under 2.5 goals price dropped from 2.0 to 1.79 at kick-off, and the draw price, quite reasonably, dropped from 3.85 to about 3.45 before kick-off. I added a back of Spurs (+0.5,+1.0) on the Asian Handicap at 1.82 and then sat back to watch another wonderful 0-0.

Loudsight commented on my last post:
Interesting thoughts and they got me thinking about a really curious phenomenon I often observe towards the end of an event on Betfair. The odds of the unlikely and sometimes impossible events go all the way out to 1000 and the other side of that event become available to lay at 1.01. For example with the score at 0-0 in the 90th minute of a football match you'll often see certain scores available to back at odds of 1000. My question to you here is why would anyone back 3-0 at odds of 1000 in this scenario. Under what circumstances could there be value at that price? As I mentioned above I see this quite often so there must be some logic to it but I have to say I haven't figured out what possible motivation there could be for taking either sides of that bet. Any ideas? Maybe there's some long term value in backing an improbable event at 1000 or laying it at 1000.
Three goals after the 90th minute do happen, although at less than 1 in 1,000 games, so laying at this price would be a profitable long-term strategy. For the bet to be value, the only scenario I can think of is if the backer is confident that there will be more time added on than typical. Just last season, there was the 90+10' goal scored by Liverpool's Dirk Kuyt to equalise the 90+8'Robin van Persie goal for Arsenal in a 1-1 draw, and more famously perhaps, Manchester United's two injury time goals to beat Bayern Munich in the 1999 Champions League Final (with the Bayern ribbons already tied to the trophy!).
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4 comments:

  1. Mark Iverson7 February 2012 at 09:45

    In reply to Loudsight...

    From my records I have 692 matches where the 1st goal was scored by the home team in the 81st minute or later. Only 3 of these went onto be 3-0 (0.43%) so this would indicate an implied price of 1.004 even after the first goal was scored.

    Not a direct comparison, but you can see how the chances of the home side scoring all 3 goals from 90 min point onwards should/would be much lower.

    For what it's worth, 560 of the 692 went on to stay 1-0 (80.92%).

    All the best,

    Mark

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  2. SJ7 February 2012 at 18:39

    Having read this article I took my first brave steps into the world of @s, #s and tweets and after struggling to find your messages without registering I have to confess to still not appreciating the service. Still, I'll plough on and immerse myself eventually I'm sure.

    In backing up Marks' thoughts, but without the aid of any football statistics, I should have thought that just like the man who gets his 1.01 lay into a market first, the first to get his 1000 lay in first probably has a massive edge that only grows as time progresses. Good work if you have a spare couple of hundred grand and a well programmed bot.

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  3. gundulf7 February 2012 at 20:43

    Unless my maths is completely up the spout, from Mark's figures laying U1.5 at 90 mins would be profitable and some! (Assuming 1.01 or 1.02)

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  4. gundulf7 February 2012 at 22:50

    I've just realised that Mark's stats are from the 80th minute rather than the 90th! So please ignore the above comment unless you can lay sub 1.2 at 80 mins... which I would think you probably could in most matches...

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