Drawing Breath

So far so good for anyone applying the Elimination Match Draw System to the Euro 2024 tournament with two winners from the six games so far at 'official' odds of 4.33 (England v Slovakia) and 5.25 (Portugal v Slovenia) although as is often the case, these prices were easily beatable and were backed personally at 4.5 and 5.4 on Betfair (with the 2% commission rate making the odds an effective 4.43 and 5.312 respectively.)

Prior to these two results, no Draw priced at greater than 4.09 in Euros Knockout Stages had ever won, so these weren't the likeliest of matches to produce winners, but they all count.  

These tournaments have such a small sample size that although I suspect long-term the ROIs might be higher from the "more competitive" matches, so far there's not a lot of evidence for this. 

Going into the tournament, the ROI on Draws in ALL Euro elimination games was 40%, a number rising to 45% in only those games with no odds-on team, but after six more games this week, the numbers are now 42% and 36% respectively. 

For the Copa América, the numbers are 44% and 34% but to reiterate, when we're talking about such relatively small sample sizes, one or two results can change these numbers in a hurry. 

Unfortunately, I shall be away from my computer for the next two weeks so there will be no daily updates as the Euros and Copa América tournaments reach their conclusions but I'll be home on the 18th July, all being well, and there will be plenty to catch up on. 

Baseball will have had it's All-Star Break, so there will two and a half seasons worth of data with the universal Designated Hitter rule in place, which is a decent number of games given how many games a season are played. This rule was in place in 2020 too, but with a shortened season, an unusual fixture arrangement due to COVID, and the fact that it was at the time just a temporary change, I'm inclined to exclude these games from any analysis. 

I plan to work on the new version of the Sacred Manuscript through that first weekend back home and should have it available by Monday 22nd July. 

The England Quarter-Final will be kicking off in the middle of my niece's wedding reception, which wasn't the best planning on her part, but I suspect I won't be the only person with an interest in the game, and the Semi-Finals will be while I am in Fort William, with Thursday 11th July now looking the most likely day for my long anticipated hike up Ben Nevis with the current weather forecast not looking like it'll be all sunshine and blue skies. 

Enjoy the Summer.