Mental Arithmetic

I am indebted to one of the FTL entrants for pointing me to a post written by Mad Jonny in which I get an honourable mention for my ground breaking work in football statistics. The heads-up was probably triggered by this:

If you are mate of Cassini who is wondering why there is a low draw production in league 2 this season then explain that the early goal in league 2 and this will lower draw production and if there are a high percentage of early goal games in league 2 then EUREKA = low draw % .

Cassini doesn't have any mates, and isn't actually wondering why there is a lower number of draws in League Two this season. He rarely bets on League Two matches, although he did make a little money on a quiet weekend for top football with the nap selection of Newport County this morning.

If Mad Jonny thinks he has uncovered a betting nugget with his revelation that more goals equals fewer draws, he's madder than we thought. More than a few posts here have discussed this subject over the years, and the truth of it should be obvious to anyone with even a basic understanding of mathematics and probability.

Unfortunately for Mad Jonny, by his own admission, this area is not one of his strengths:

...as in basics terms I am pants at Maths.

It gives 'mental arithmetic' a whole new meaning. With the use of the childish expressions 'pants', combined with writing that is mostly unintelligible, you could be forgiven for thinking Mad Jonny is about 13 years old, but this is the work of an adult, and while he appears to have rather too much time on his hands, it isn't spent proof-reading and editing his rambling posts. Is it too much to expect a blogger to read his post back to himself after writing it, to correct at least some of the spelling and grammatical errors as well as make it readable? Even the Great Cassini has the occasional error slip through, but I always take at least a cursory read back through the post before posting. Some out-takes that were left in:

An area that really interests me is SURVIVAL Analysis in the context of a football game and I think it is possible to tell when a team are going to concede and if this is possible then can the warning signals be considered and reversed in terms of a team stopping the other team from scoring such as by slowing the game down at that moment. 

I was only put off as the day was not going well and when I feel in a negative mood I like to reduce any bets to minimum as people have never won when in a bad mood.

It was not a great start to the year when @Ed_Jacks appeared and tweeted ” Hi, Jonny, are you actually betting on this stuff yourself ?” ( just 5 tweets and all to me ) and my concentration levels dropped followed by @jakemorrxs who is at Manchester University I believe asking me if I am ” mental” ( deleted but screen shots taken ) followed by his friend JACK McCabe who is studying law at Manchester University advising me that it was only “banter”

On the topic, raised above, of Mad Jonny actually betting, the suggestion that the 'advice' he offers isn't actually followed by himself, and probably not anyone else come to think of it, has merit! The evidence does appear to back up this suggestion. Someone as 'successful' as Mad Jonny would obviously not have an account at the sports-books for long, and his talk of 'a' (single) market maker suggests he's not quite grasped the concept of exchanges, and that there is no single market maker - opinions and money backing those opinions, make the market. Those who can, do; those who can't, give advice. I shall now pack my bags, and await the police, to whose attention this post will surely be drawn.

Mrs Cassini just acted as my sounding board for this post, and asked "what is wrong with him?" That's a good question, one that is being asked by more and more people each day.