March Review Review

I was reading TFA Graeme's March 2015 review, and a couple of things grabbed my attention. As FTL followers will know, Draw based entries in general this season are down:

On his domestic (UK) Draws Systems, Graeme writes:

Difficult to explain what has happened apart from blame it on the underlying results. The draw strike rate is the lowest it has been since I started betting on footie and therefore, I would expect the Draw systems to make a loss over the season when the strike rate is so low but maybe not to this extent.

The Draw strike rate in England this season is indeed down on the previous 5 and 10 year averages:

The EPL numbers are in line with the averages, but Draws in the 'Lower Four' divisions are significantly fewer than the historical averages.

For the Euro Draws, Graeme uses the same top leagues that I follow, i.e. those in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

One piece of work I’m going to do in the Summer is calculate the returns from laying the draw (I’ll look at ditching the H/A or staking 0.5pts on H/A) in these systems this season. Of course, it could just be the case that these systems have suffered from enormous variance and we’ll see a correction next season but I’m obviously not going to have these systems in the service next season in their present guise.

I wonder what formula Graeme will be using to calculate the returns for the Lays?

For the top leagues, overall the Draws are hitting at their long-term (10 year) average, but there are some wild swings on the individual leagues.

As mentioned, the EPL is steady, but Serie A is having a very unusual season. Home wins are at their lowest, while Draws are at a high with the trend towards more Away wins in recent years also continuing.

Conversely in Ligue 1, the Draws are at a record low, the result of Away wins being at a high, and Home wins close to a High. Something has to give!

In La Liga, Away wins are also at a record high, with Draws slightly down, while in the always contrary Bundesliga, Away wins are at their lowest since 2005-06, with Draws benefiting.

Speaking of Germany, I had a nice (positive) email from Konfus: 

Thank you for your blog. I really enjoy reading your posts. I like the mixture of your writing style and the betting insights, both of which I (German betting newbie) can profit from.

Your last posts made me write this EMail (, together with the endorphines from my biggest - lic - daily profit of 55.55% from twelve league one and two bets today. Sometimes I love variance).

So thank you for your battle with statistics. Thank you for pointing out that a successful bettor has to be a generalist.

By generalist, Konfus means that to be successful in betting, you need to have several modest competencies rather than one area of specialist expertise.