Really Close, Close And The Difference

I almost got a speeding ticket today. After seeing the below Tweet from A Lucky A Day, I spun my car around and raced home to open an account with Marathonbet:

Of course, all was not what it seemed, and a request for clarification revealed that the reference was actually not to draw odds, but to the odds on a 'tie' in gold 2 ball betting, a bet I haven't paid much attention to. I was under the impression that these bets were usually TNB, as in tie no bet, but apparently some books offer the tie.

Such a move would increase the over-round by a full percentage point, so I'm not sure whether the move has been balanced by improved prices on the individuals.

Unlike the golf 2 ball bet, the Draw in football, when the two teams are close, is something I do pay attention to. My reviews of the Draw in various leagues over the summer, looking at the six completed seasons from 2012-18, made frequent references to the 'differences' between teams. In fact, my current 

all-time most popular post looked at this topic in some detail back in January 2018, while a follow up post on the topic was published in June, and included this:

I mentioned in the January post the idea of calculating the difference between the teams by simply using the odds (Pinnacle's Closing Prices), and using that as your selection criteria.

For example, in matches where the teams win probabilities are close, i.e. the difference is less than 25%, backing the Draw is +78.91 points from 393 matches which is an ROI of 20.1%.

Note that these probabilities are after I have removed Pinnacle's over-round to come up with the 'true' probabilities for each outcome.

The definition of 'close' is subjective, but in the English Premier League, most matches are not close. More than half (51%) of matches see one team with a win probability 60% or higher than their opponent. 73% of these are a Big 6 v Little 14 match, and are best avoided from a Draw backing perspective.

For 'really close' EPL games, again subjectively those where the difference is less than 5%, Pinnacle's Draw price ranged from 2.92 to 3.75, two numbers which are most definitely not close.

Overall the ROIs at this level are great for the Draw, 32.3% for all matches, and 36% for Little 14 matches, but when a price of over 3.5 is available, the ROI is 180%. That is not a typo, although you'll need patience as these opportunities are few and far between with just nine qualifiers in six seasons. 

What you can do is set up your spreadsheet to adjust your stake for such opportunities, as rare as they might be.

Incidentally, the Championship has more such 'really close' matches (28) and the ROI for Draws offered at this seemingly generous level is 40%.