Another Angle For 2013-14

I mentioned the Favourite-Longshot bias seen in some of the top leagues in 2013-14, and here is the summary for all the leagues combined.

I divided the 1826 matches (actually 1825 because there were no Pinnacle Sports prices for the Juventus v Sassuolo game last December), and looked at each set of results in quintiles.

The bias is present, at least to some extent, in the Home selections as well as the Away selections, but seems to have taken a leave of absence with the Draws, at least with the most favoured quintile. The other four are actually in line with expectations. It appears that the missing draws have mostly come from the shortest 369 or so.

The overall numbers (not troubled by the draw, which is never going to be the favourite in a straight-played match), don't show the bias present much at all, but with the longest price being 2.85, that's not terribly surprising.

The higher priced Draws and Aways do confirm the bias, with big losses on both, but the fourth quintile of the Aways (priced between 4.3 and 6.8) shows much less of a loss than the 3rd and 5th quintiles.

It appears that what happened last season (2013-14) is that the lost shortest priced draws went to home teams, while the lost second and third quintile draws favoured the Aways.

Longer priced Home selections failed to confirm the Favourite-Longshot bias at the expense of the Draw.

I'll possibly look at a few more angles in the next week or two, but basically I've satisfied my curiosity about the XX Draw selections struggles this season, and ever the optimist, expect them to bounce back as the number of draws returns to their long-term averages.

That the less volatile Unders defied the odds and ended in profit despite the increase in goals (and decline in draws) was also a confidence booster, and speaking of which...

I was very pleased to receive a generous and quite undeserved bottle of Port from one loyal subscriber and FTL entrant this week (I'll protect his privacy). Let there be fewer goals indeed.

While the XX Draws lost 32.76 points on the season, the benchmark of all draws priced at sub 4.0 would have lost 70.88.

Overall, and in every league but France, the XX Draws beat the benchmark, by a lot in England, by a decent amount in Italy, and by smaller margins in Spain and Germany.

With the Under 2.5 goals selections, the top leagues were Germany and again the EPL.