Rounding Down

I mentioned the over-round earlier today, and for the last three EPL seasons, not one match, using Pinnacle's Closing Prices, has had an over-round of 103% or higher. 

The worst 11 matches were all between September and December of 2013, and last season's average was 102%, with a worst of 102.99% (Southampton v Manchester United - an end of season Wednesday night re-arranged fixture) and a best of 101.7% (Manchester City v Swansea City).

These numbers are of course, historically low. 

Going back to the 2000-01 season, the average over-round for the season with William Hill was 112.53%, with Ladbrokes 111.07% (from the 325 matches with prices available) and if you were able to back at the best odds across the board, you were still up against an average over-round of 107.55%. 

Good luck to anyone trying to beat those prices consistently.

Roll the clock forward to today, and the 'over'-round at the maximum prices last season was as low as 88.2% (another end of season game, Hull City's 1:7 thrashing at home to Tottenham Hotspur). 

In only 20 of the 380 games last season was a sub 100% over-round not possible. Hard to lose money when you look at it like this.

Pinnacle's model has at least had some effect on the traditional bookmakers, although they are still generally poor value, not to mention their short-sighted policies of limiting and closing accounts.

Ladbrokes last season still had an average over-round of 104.9%, while William Hill was at 104.7%, Bet365 was at 102.9%, with BetVictor a creditable 102.8% if you can keep an account open with them.

I also took a final pre-season look at the League Two and National Leagues making a few updates to ensure I was being consistent. 

One of the challenges with the much appreciated data at Football-Data.co.uk is that for various reasons, it's not always complete. 

For example, last season's National League had five matches missing Pinnacle prices completely. 

I took the decision to ignore these matches, but where Pinnacle Interim Prices OR Closing prices were available, I assumed no price movement and used the available prices to fill in the blanks. 

Not ideal, but here are the last five seasons Away results from League Two and the National Leagues.