Swanning Around

As Vagabond commented, the unpredictability of Liverpool can make it easy to look stupid when trying to identify value. While one match proves nothing, in the end Liverpool had the most comfortable of wins. The Cassini ratings came out ahead with the opinion that at 1.62 Liverpool were value, but we were all wrong on the Unders being value, and this includes Premier Betting who sent in an account bet to back the Under 2.75 Goals at 2.09.

Vagabond's comment in full was:

Interesting that the original poster felt so strongly about the Liverpool lay. They are so unpredictable that it can be easy to look stupid. To be fair the make up of the Swansea team today must have had a bearing on the end result. Does the rating system not take such things into account - I guess not.

While I am aware of some ratings systems that include individual player ratings, this is a step too far for me, and probably most people who are not betting full-time. My ratings are all statistics based, and while it would be judicious to check for any significant team news before putting betting the farm on any one bet, for most of the time it's all about the numbers. Swansea did make several changes, which makes it all the more surprising to me that Liverpool could be backed at 1.62. Punters like Omega who are basing their opinions purely on results drive the price up, which benefits those of us who look at other numbers too. Liverpool out-shot Swansea 33 to 4, a little above their average 24 shots per game at home to non-big teams, but not totally unexpected. Swansea average 10 shots away from home, but today's 4 matched their numbers at Everton and Tottenham Hotspur this season, so again not unexpected at all. I am now kicking myself for not investing more!

I usually ignore Anonymous comments, but this one was polite enough, and perhaps he's just shy:

Great blog!

Why is 1.61 a 10% edge on 1.46? Isn't this including the stake return? Looking at profit, 1.51 would be 10% value as 0.51/1 is 10% higher than 0.46/1 when considering only the winnings.

Otherwise isn't there a distortion between % value at short odds (where the stake return is a large part of the payout) and high odds (where it is minimal)?

I don't know the answer, just a query I've never really sought an answer to.

Your thoughts greatly appreciated!

My thoughts are that yes, this is a great blog. As for the edge, I look at the expected return from backing a 'true' 1.46 at 1.61.

If, and it's a big IF, the true price on Liverpool is the 1.46, this represents a probability of 68.5%. and over 1,000 bets (excluding commission) backing at this price, we would break even. We would win 685 bets for a profit of 315 points, and lose 315 bets.

If I can back this 68.5% shot at a price of 1.61 (Implied Probability 62.1%), my 1,000 bets would be up 102 points (10% of the stakes bet) - 685 bets would win for a profit of 417 points, and 315 bets would lose.

For a 10% edge, needing 1.61 on a 1.46 shot is the same as seeking 2.2 on a 2.0 shot, although 10% is an arbitrary number that works for me. The calculations above don't include commission, but of course in the real world you need to account for this. Backing true evens shots at evens isn't enough unfortunately!