Behind The Numbers

Three weeks of selections from the FTL entrants are updated and as always, while I have done my best to ensure total accuracy, I am human and errors are always possible. Please let me know if you see any.

As we head into the second half of the season, here are the entries in profit, now limited (in the interests of clarity and ease of update) to those eligible for prizes or professional services official results:

The big mover here is The Football Analyst who has moved into profit and trimmed his bounty liability to just £125 with only five candidates to catch.

Webbo moved up five places and into profit with a gain of 6.36 points, while Fedslam leapfrogged Skeeve to take the lead in the race for the £250 first prize after making 3.96 points. Skeeve had a quiet holiday making 0.74 points from six selections.

My prize ineligible Cassini Value Selections lead the table on strike rate, and stay third adding 2.02 points with three winners from four selections.

Hofs Hackers made 4.71 points from 23 selections to stay third in the money race, while Jamie A takes over in fourth place from Peter Nordsted's Drawmaster.

The XX Draws finally move into profit, although with just one draw in the last twelve matches, the green is smaller than it was at the turn of the year which ended with a hot spell of 15 draws from 29 selections.

Next come the entries that are in the red, but not by much:

The Bundeslayga system moved up to 11th, Fairfranco and Graham C were both inactive, and the XX Draws Under bets made a small profit over three weeks but dropped three places.

The final image shows the entries down by double figures. Some surprise names in this group perhaps, including professional services Football Elite and Premier Betting.

Forza Fizzer had a nightmare holiday with three winners from 22 selections, and while Neil leads the table in the number of selections made, the approach perhaps not coincidentally leaves him currently rock bottom.

Scatter Gun made 18 points from the 30 selections since the last update, and elevates himself out of the relegation zone. Muphy's Law lost 14.7 points from 40 matches, and Rubicon lost 12.74 from 38.
Premier Betting made 3.03 points from 22 selections although for once his official bets would have returned a higher profit being up by 7.59 on 33 selections. Both move up two places at the expense of Rubicon and Murphy's Law.

Back to the professionals, and here in one image are their results so far:

Although Football Elite ended the holiday period with two winners, overall the service had a poor time, and it is apparent from both Matt's emails and other comments around the blog world that subscriber patience with the service is running out after a second consecutive poor season. Here is one heavy-hitting subscriber's opinion:

FB Elite continues its horrendous run losing another $3,000 this week. Not even getting close to a win. Will need a miracle run for anyone to be signing up again for the service next season.

And also this previously:

May as well start with the Soccer and with what is probably the worst week ever for Football Elite. 9 losses and 1 push ($9,000 loss). It looks like Matt has received some abuse for the results this week if his email is anything to go off. I’m really pissed at myself. I was going to stop following at the end of last season as the signs were there that any edge might have been gone, but decided to go another season and halved my stakes. I really should have just stopped.

Matt concedes the possibility of the edge being lost in his last update, admitting that "However things change in football and in betting".  By way of justification that the edge remains, Matt then writes:

Average odds of the sort of sides we back are no different now than at any point in the last 15 years (a touch higher actually because of better market competition now than a few years ago) so the decision is are these sort of sides going to win less than they have previously in the future?

Matt perhaps means this as a rhetorical question, but the evidence suggests that the type of sides Matt selects are indeed winning less than they have previously. Or more specifically, the teams he opposes are losing less than they have previously. As Matt himself says, things change in football and in betting, and while it is not impossible, it seems unlikely that a basic market inefficiency would persist for seven plus seasons.

The total profit quoted since Day 1 Live is certainly impressive:

Total Since Day 1 Live (Aug 2006 – present) = + 184.06 pts (13.5% ROI)

but this total includes ante-post bets which generated more than half (37) of the 2006-07 season's 60.2 points profit, 25.5 of 2007-08's 62.26 points profit, and 9 points of profit in 2008-09 which muddies the value waters and complicates things a little. 

As best as I can tell, the basic match bets over the four seasons 2006-10 generated 105.87 points of profit, while the three seasons 2010-13 made a combined 0.41 points in profit. With this season currently significantly down, it is highly likely that the last four seasons will result in a net loss on the individual match bets and I have to say that I agree with Steve that it does appear the edge that was present in the early days has been eradicated.

Over in the NFL, John Walsh's tips are also having a torrid time this season. Here are his results since my last update:

His NHL selections are performing much better though:

An interesting change in strategy over the last three bets with a rare bet on the Totals, as well as a move towards backing the tie.