Spam And Prices

I may have to reconsider this blog's position on comments. As many of you know, posting comments has always been wide open, but of late I seem to be getting spam along the lines of  

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It is interesting to read that you like to bet on the "Draw" in football matches.I like betting on football but i always back a football team to win.I like getting the odds in my favour though by using a bookmakers free bet bonus to bet with though!

Fascinating stuff (not), and all the above in the last week or so. It's becoming a daily annoyance, so if I have to tighten the restriction on comments, I hope you will understand that it has nothing to do with attempting to limit the exchange of thoughts, opinions and ideas, but a necessary step. One might hope that Google's anti-spam filters would be a little more robust, because the other side of the coin is that I find some genuine comments in my spam folder.

WhyAlwaysMe enjoyed my Sinking Below post, writing "Superb post Cassini and really informative". I can't help but agree.

He then follows up with the following (posted three times, no doubt because it vanished into the aforementioned spam folder):

I too am interested in your XX Draws project but am struggling to get a handle on your data.

Do you have an average back price for the draw over the 1175 selections please? I looked in the prospectus and found a figure of 3.45 over 361 selections.

Also taking the 3.45 for a minute, is that a bookie's price or Betfair? If it is the latter is it adjusted for the 5% commission? I don't see Betfair as a viable betting proposition unless you plan to trade, if the 3.45 is not adjusted for comm the margins become wafer thin.

I am impressed by the detail and seriousness with which you approach xx Draws, however my concern is are you really beating the market? Your 3.11 break even price suggests that you are which is good going for sure. However if the 3.45 is pre commission it does look a bit tight. It would be good to clarify too if these prices are near kick off one's or early prices.

Thanks for the great blog Cassini.

As I have noted before, I started recording the draw prices on January 1, 2011, and as explained in the prospectus, projections for results prior to this date are purely that - projections. There are no guarantees, but the draw price is historically very robust, and the more data I collect moving forward, the more accurate the numbers become that I can back-fit.

The prices are taken from Betfair, primarily because it's convenient, and the draw price is usually as good as the best bookie price. Not always though, and the other issue is that the draw price often moves between my recording it and kick-off. Today's QPR v Fulham game for example saw me record a price of 3.6, while Peter Nordsted found 3.68 available at Pinnacle. One 'problem' with using Betfair prices though, is that they fluctuate. Again looking at today's matches, and the Norwich City v Wigan Athletic game was a Football Elite selection with a best price of 2.25 with Bet Victor as of Friday. Two days earlier, and Neil had picked the same selection at 2.29. Early on Saturday, and Norwich could be backed at 2.4, as I tipped in my previous post. Now that the game is in the books, I can probably reveal that FE stated in his comments:

I didn’t expect to be having this one as I assumed Norwich would be around the 1.9 – 2.0 mark I have them at but 2.2+ looks worth taking IMO both in terms of current form and long term trends.

As I mentioned yesterday, I had Norwich priced at 1.97, so the 2.4 was very surprising to me also, with its 21.8% edge.

No one includes commission for comparative purposes for the simple reason that not everyone is on the same commission rate, but yes, if you are on 5% commission, you need 3.22 to get that net 3.11. The individual needs to factor in whatever your personal rate is, and you also need to consider whether you can get your bets in early and wait to get filled, or you only bet just before kick-off and have to take what is there. In my prospectus, I emphasise the importance of getting the best price possible, because at the prices draws trade at, there's a big difference between backing at 3.45 or one tick higher at 3.5.

When it comes to football betting, margins are going to be thin, and ROIs are going to be low. There's no get-rich-quick formula, but if you have a selection process that has just a small ROI and plenty of selections, your bank will grow slowly but surely.

Another older comment that I haven't responded to was this one from Danny Murphy in November:

Great blog Cassini. One thing I have wondered with your XX selections is this - are they all equal as regards testing? Has XX Extended U1.5 been tested over a few hundred trials for example?

In the prospectus I could see the historical XX draw stats but I am not so clear on the records of the other categories.

As you commented above it's very hard to make money betting on football and perhaps your table is a good illustration of that.

The U1.5, U3.5 and Half-Time 0-0 (HT00) markets are all new this season, and have not been tested over hundreds of trials. My theory was that if the U2.5 and Match Odds draw (MOX) markets are profitable, then these should also be profitable, but I am not finding this to be necessarily true, although the sample size is still small. One concern is that these are far more illiquid markets than the popular U2.5 and MOX markets, but even so, it's quite bizarre that the Extended selections occupy four of the top seven spots in the table, yet the fifth market - U1.5 - languishes in 29th place. The FTL table does show this and other discrepancies, but over time with more selections, I still expect the Classic, Extended and Bundesliga bets to cluster closer together, with the thinner markets trailing the more liquid ones.

The Extended HT00 results illustrate the importance of not jumping to conclusions too early. After 58 selections, this category showed a profit of 27.76 points (47.86%), yet the next 29 selections yielded just one winner. At the time of writing, 137 selections, the ROI is down to the 5% level, which is far more sustainable. Don't try this bet in the higher scoring Bundesliga though - 32 selections, 6 winners and an ROI of -38.59%!