On the subject of commission, so far as I am aware, the de facto ‘industry standard’ is to exclude commission, rather than include a random value when tracking results which seems to be BigAl’s assertion. My experience is admittedly limited, as I have only ever subscribed to one service, Football Elite, but I have not seen any returns from anywhere else that include commission. Does the Racing Post deduct commission from their horse racing Tips Tables?
As I mentioned yesterday, the advantage of not including a commission is to allow readers to directly compare different systems and services with each other. If this changes, and the standard becomes to include 2%, 5% or whatever number is arbitrarily agreed upon, then I shall happily incorporate this standard amount into my numbers, but until that time I’ll continue to record the results by the same rules as everyone else.
The intent of a Tipster Table is not to show a precise return but rather to illustrate the relative merits of each contestant. When it comes to entering the results into my P&L spreadsheet, commission is, of course, included. For the XX selections, for me, the interesting part of it is how a purely mathematical (objective) approach compares with the more subjective approach of others. Having said that, I have no idea how Geoff comes up with some of his draw selections: Alfreton! Bath City! Brainree! Fascinating.
Gundulf had a post on the topic of commission too.
Also, thanks to Cloppa for pointing out, albeit with a wink, that the ROI on the Unders is actually only 13.38%, not the inflated figure of 13.4% as stated in my post - excluding commission of course. Jeez. I forget when it was, (found it - last March), but Mouldhouse pulled me up at that time for using too many decimal places relative to the number of bets. I’ll stick to my compromise idea of having two places in the records and screenshots, and one place in any text.
No selections from Geoff for this weekend. He may still be looking at the Rymans Isthmian League South for his selections this week - with Corinthian Casuals v Chipstead looking promising. Mark J has three selections:
There are no rules.
ReplyDeleteBut as someone who has previously taken delight in savaging tipster services, I thought you might actually be interested in presenting figures for your subscription service in an honest fashion with a true reflection of ROI.
Quite simply, the ROI you present it not achievable by following your bets.
A question for you re: football elite.
If they suggest 3.50 as a mimimum price for a bet, would you take 12-5 with a fixed odds firm?
Hi Cassini, I have been caclulating my results based on 5% commission but I agree that it's a better comparison not to include it. Many bookmakers are offering better prices than betfair these days especially on shorter selections so your prices might well be achievable with no commission.
ReplyDeleteIs your friendly tipster league limited to draws and unders? I wondered if you could include my premier league selections if not please? I have ben pricing up every premier league game and currently showing 17.73% ROI after 49 bets. If I take off commision it's 26.1%. There's also a Kelly stake comparison. Here's a link to my sheet in case you're interested. Premier League Selections
Just a little word for my Green Pullover blog if that's ok. Though unfortunately it's not reflected by the draws which sit 8th in your table, the blog as a whole has an roi of 5.4% to hast weekend over 599 bets.That's after commission, but that's because I wanted my blog to represent my actual profit (or loss!). Webbo is right about better prices being available other than Betfair. I've just checked and I used Betfair for less than a third of my football bets this weekend and that's mainly on the long-priced selections. Even if leaving a reasonable asking price on Betfair, better has been available elsewhere on the shorties,after commission is factored in. By the way,only had a break-even mid week on my blog but got both matches right last night including Inter losing again at long odds on, so that should help the roi. That said, I still have 29 bets to go this weekend so plenty of time for carnage yet!
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