Silva Linings Sportsbook

Failing to respect the fact that this is a family blog, James can't resist lowering the tone to gutter level commenting:

Riding for Ireland. Mrs Cassini will be pleased.

Does she stretch out to a length too?

As a civilised gentleman, I have no idea to what James may be referring and will move on.

Miguel Rodrigues commented on Marco Silva, specifically that he:

...is a wonderful coach,why he is not at Palace is something I don't understand, he is not money driven whatsoever.

If you could enlighten me why that deal was broke that will be perfect

Have a nice day

Given where Silva ended up, I don't think money was the issue, although I'd question whether money really is a non-issue for him, or indeed most people.

My personal feeling is that he didn't yet feel ready for a job at a big club, hence the rumoured talks with the likes of Southampton and Porto, before ending up at Watford...

On to more serious betting related comments, and a couple from SportsPickSystem, starting with this one about my observations on returns from backing Home teams in December:

Last season was very special. Backing home teams in December
2012: -13.35
2013: -14.32
2014: -33.23
2015: + 6.38

Possibly an interesting trend that began in 2015 and continued in 2016, but unfortunately the comment doesn't reference the  league or leagues producing those returns. I'd be extremely wary of any system built around a single calendar month, even if it has been profitable for two seasons.

Also related to Homes, Geoff at Fulltimebettingblog.com had a post on the topic, referencing this blog:

Quick comment to make on always excellent Green All Over blog and in particular one of the stats that was on that post.

“Surely a much catchier lede would have been that backing all Homes in England’s top three leagues last season would have been up by:”

“How far back you want to go looking for trends is up to the individual. Personally, I think two or three seasons is good,”

Certainly thought provoking so I spent a bit of time doing exactly that and found that while those figures were indeed correct ( and why would they not be when they have been extracted from the brilliant http://www.football-data.co.uk/data.php site)

The second comment on the problems of fluctuating prices was this one:

One way to mitigate the dynamic lines issue is to set yourself strict rules. For instance to determine if a MLB team is an underdog, the team needs to be priced at least at 2.000 (+100) at Pinnacle even if you don't play at that bookmaker. I choose Pinnacle because it's the sharpest book on the market which make it a good reference for odds.

BTW do you take the bookmaker margin when calculating the Implied Probabilities?

As readers will know, Pinnacle are my go-to book, as they are the most efficient in the business (as the comment says), and with their business model, no serious punter is unable to place bets with them. 

However, even if you always use the same sportsbook for your selections, that still doesn't solve the problem of the lines changing. For example, a team can be a qualifier at the time of the game, whereas it wasn't six hours earlier, but was 12 hours earlier, or late money can move a team so that it is no longer a qualifier although for days it looked like it would be.

The result, as I said before, is that in the real world, when for most of us with lives, it simply is not possible to wait until game time, you are sometimes on teams that are non-qualifiers, and not on teams that are. 

Sometimes these line moves will work out for you, sometimes they won't.

It's nothing to get too worked up about over the course of a season, and similarly, with the over-rounds these days as low as they are, I don't worry about the bookmakers' margins. Being consistent, i.e. having strict rules, is more important. 

As mentioned previously, I am travelling for the next couple of weeks, the first on business starting today, while the second is for a much deserved holiday, carefully timed to conclude in time for my spreadsheet's month-end updates!