FTL Update 22.March

No Monday matches for a change, so an earlier update than usual. Highlights from the weekend were that no less than four entries dropped into the red this week, leaving just 12 remaining in profit, and we have another change at the top. The Erskine Cup semi-finals went to form, and overall the entries combined lost 29.15 points, making March the worst month of the season.

First the league, and with just the dozen entries in profit, I'll lump them all together.

Randolph was the big points winner of the week going 12 for 12 and making 6.74 points. He won his Erskine Cup semi-final, as did Gecko, who takes over from BettingTools.co.uk in first place after making 0.83 points. On another tough weekend for draws (10 in the 49 Big Five matches) the biggest loser was XX Draws which lost 9.77 points and Trend to end who lost 7.00 points. Club Havana made 5.42 points and climbed three places as did the idle Betcast thanks to the woes of others. Gecko, Mortimer and BettingTools.co.uk are the March leaders.

The group down by less than 10 points is:

The only winner here was TFA_Raz, who made 2.65 points and climbed four places, while Football Elite fell seven places after losing 6.34 points but remain top of the Bounty Boys. Jamie A lost points, but moved up two places.

The rest of the table looks like this:

Rubicon was the big winner in this group winning on 7 of his 8 EPL selections, and made 3.99 points. Drawmaster made 0.30 points profit and moved up two places, while TFA Euro Draws and @ValueBankFooty also made small profits. Mountain Mouse was the biggest loser followed by Talkies Tips (down 5.37) who along with XX Unders, was eliminated from the Erskine Cup.

March isn't over yet, although with the International Break there will be less activity next weekend (I plan my holidays around the FTL you'll be pleased to hear), but here are the results by month - a steady decline is rather noticeable:

I would have expected the opposite with models absorbing promoted teams and improving as the season goes on, but that appears not to be the case. A reminder if anyone needs it, that profits can turn into losses, and vice versa, and even a season is a small sample size.  

The Erskine Cup played out as below, with the Final between the current 1st and 3rd placed 'teams' in the league. For a competition with a large element of randomness, the cream certainly rose to the top for the final:

The 'portfolio' numbers continue to decline:

Cassini drops into the red overall, and there were losses for the Bounty Boys. Football Elite has a Bounty liability of £425 closely followed by Skeeve (£475). Skeeve's official bets were profitable, but because there are limitations on what prices are available in the Football Data statistics, (i.e. no handicap prices), FTL Skeeve has to settle for straight wins at shorter prices rather than the actual -1.5 or whatever in his official bets. Football Investor (£500) was taken ill, while TFA's Draws (£500) dropped three more points.