Strikeout

Danny Murphy is back, missing the point of a well known saying in baseball:

"On any day any team can beat any other".

Yes but so what? You can say the same about any sport, in fact that's why we watch it. It really is the most ridiculous platitude.

The question is not can team A beat team B but are the odds for doing so better than the bookmaker's assessment.

Yes, taken literally Tahiti could beat Spain at football, but in baseball, MLB teams do not start at 1.0x.

On any given day anything can happen. That's one of the rare true clichés about baseball. On any given day any team can beat any other team 11-0. The same does not happen in any other major sport.

The point I am making Danny is that the shortest of favourites in baseball is priced longer than you would find in other sport. I'm sorry you missed the point, but you cannot say the same about any sport. That really is the most ridiculous comment! We watched Spain v Tahiti to see how many Spain would win by, not to see who would win. Just this week Akurba FC COULD have beaten Plateau United Feeders but they happened to lose 0-79. Babayaro FC COULD have beaten Police Machine but unluckily lost 0-67*

Thanks for the lesson on value though. That'll be very useful as I try to get my head around sports betting.

Fizzer555 knows his baseball, and actually contributed something sensible:

Ed Smith in his new book "Luck' (well worth a read) describes how some sports are similar to Chess (like Tennis) where the better player/team usually wins whilst other are more like Backgammon (especially Baseball) where there is a much higher level of chance involved but where skill wins through over time.

I know from my own betting I am much better at baseball than sports such as tennis. First of all, I enjoy baseball more, I get into the detail of it more, and I like the mix of skill and luck involved and accept it in my betting patterns.

Re divisional away dogs, I think there is a slight benefit vs non-divisional away dogs but, as you suggest, it needs other filters before it is profitable.

Running the numbers from 1999 onwards (not a best fit start point, just when I have data from) the win-loss results are:-

All div away dogs (W-L) 4059-5609 42.0%
All non div away dogs 5198-7752 40.1%

A lot of that difference, however, disappears when you look by price band

Price band +100 to+125
Div away dogs 2059-2466 45.5%
Non-div away dogs 1380-1682 45.1%
Price band +126 or more
Div away dogs 2000-3413 38.9%
Non-div away dogs 3818-6070 38.6%

Some good stuff in there - note to self "check out the book mentioned" - and totally agree that baseball is a fascinating game once you get into it, and it is precisely the relatively large element of luck that makes it a more even game on any day, but in the long run, the cream rises to the top.

Danny's continued his comment with:

Looking at Pete's post to me he seems in grave danger of falling into the data mining/backfitting trap.

It would be interesting to compare Pete's results to the PECOTA 2013 season forecasts, it might give some guidance through the fog.

Pete - do you know a lot about Baseball or did you get interested thinking you could make money from betting on the games?

I have an explanation for the triple XXX - Pete must have been using Bingo and Adster's 'draw inflation tool'.

To which always the gentleman Peter replied:

Danny,

Thank you for your input it is very much appreciated.

It would be fair to say that I am no baseball expert. My interest in the sport came about a few years ago when I read on this blog that any team could beat any other team.

As I enjoy building and testing systems I then went about compiling my own simple rating system and I came to the conclusion that there was simply no real value to be had backing the short priced home favourites.

Over the coming years this then became more sophisticated to the point where I now use a reliable rating system against various US bookmakers odds. Over the past few seasons simply opposing the home favourite that showed a negative rating has yielded some very good profits.

However even this is now showing a loss of around 20 pts to level stakes.

During last season various rules were developed and I am very wary of your comment regarding Data mining / Back fitting trap and I am just wondering whether some of the rules I have been utilising may have fallen into this trap.

Incidentally where we have backed the strong odds on favourite who is negatively rated away from home this has shown a good profit and I believe the reason for the disparity will be the superior quality pitcher employed.

I need to take a step back over the break next week and look at this all logically because I still believe with a disciplined common sense approach there is good money to be made from this sport. I am just confused by this run which in truth is freakish.

Regarding the XX Draws for some reason I have in my mind the xXx logo of the Vin Diesel (pictured), Ice Cube Films.

With close to 2,500 regular season games each year, with an abundance of statistics from each, there is certainly plenty of data to sift through. Compare this number with the 380 EPL games each year, or the NFL's 256 regular season games.

* There are reports that suspicious betting patterns on these games were observed. Surely a team called Police Machine couldn't be involved in anything untoward? Incidentally, Ian Erskine tipped these two as lay the draw selections; my only regret was locking in profits at 1-0 in both matches. I feel like I gave some value away. Oh well - 72 goals in the second half takes some doing. Neither game qualified as an XX Draw selection.

Betfair Sportsbook

A great post on the Betfair Forum from a Frog2 on Betfair's evolution and its new, rather soft, Sportsbook:

I think its fair to say that the current fixed odds website is very very poor. It is characterised by terrible prices and terrible limits. It has joined the current fad of being a soft bookie - i.e. refusing bets to anyone who has a clue. In short it is a pathetic offering and if it was launched without the Betfair name it would not last five minutes.

Betfair is struggling to find its identity. In the early years it was all about 'winners welcome', 'sharp minds betfair'. When they took over Flutter they stressed that the merged markets would mean more liquidity and thus higher limits for customers. They developed the technology to match more bets that than all the European exchanges put together.

Then what did they do? They started looking for soft targets. They branched out into games and poker. At the time it was all still person to person. I remember one of the founders telling me they were not being greedy and they were sticking to their p2p principles. Then came the casino. The p2p games were replaced by ones run by Betfair themselves. The crossmatcher came in - to this day I still dont know if it gets to beat the clock inrunning to match bets.

This was still not enough. They have since walked further from the starting point. They introduced the Premium Charge. Uproar at 20%. But really this would only affect traders, cheats and extremely good position gamblers. Then it went up to 40% and 60%. Now 40% gets all good big players. Arbers - gone. Decent position gamblers who have a long term return of over 3% on stakes - gone or slowly moving. The consequences of the Premium Charge are huge.

Then there are the data charges and bet placement charges. Great in theory. But a 1000 bets an hour max? Try pricing up and adjusting books for 30 races or football matches a day (with all their secondary markets) with that. You cannot. So early markets are no more.

So what started as the perfect limit order book market has evolved into a monster. It has not been helped by the lack of regulation by Betfair itself. Instead of the Premium Charge why did they not look to level the playing field? Encourage people to leave offers up rather than take them with commission rebates. Get rid of obviously unfair markets like inplay horses until real time streams are available. Not allow connections to bet on here. The list is endless.

Betfair could have hired someone who has experience of running a real exchange to run the company. Prices and policies and new markets would have been completely different. Maybe LMAX would not have failed if this was the case. But we now have an out and out industry man at the helm hired out of another soft bookie. So what can we expect going forward?

I would have liked to have seen a lot more thought going into the sportsbook. There are some bookmakers that do actually take bets and offer sharp lines using a proper dealer market. If Betfair had gone down that route I could see the point of it. If they could have offered decent prices to a fixed amount to everyone and adjust the lines if they believe a sharp has just placed a bet they could have had a winning product. The UK is crying out for this. Surely a crack trading team is capable of building the software to do this.

A rubbish sportsbook is a bad fit for the exchange. They need a fair limit decent price one. Lower margin yes but much much higher volume.

Baseball Division v Overall

I mentioned the torrid run that Peter Nordsted was experiencing in baseball a few days ago, and Peter has replied with his usual attention to detail. I'll have more to say on this tomorrow, but for now I'll just reproduce his comment in full:

Yes we are enduring only what can be described as a horrible run in the baseball. At one stage during late May we were +15 pts Level staking and +22 points Fixed profit staking only to be now -30 pts Level and -22 pts Fixed.

I am away for a few days now so do not have the exact figures to hand on the Win / Loss ratio but it is freakish and I have never experienced anything like this during my time at looking on the baseball.

The idea of my basic strategy started around 4 years ago when I basically opposed the home favourite that I perceived did not offer value and this has worked very well over the past couple of seasons. Indeed the idea started whilst reading this blog and you highlighted that in baseball on any day any team can beat any other.

Obviously the system has grown and become a little more sophisticated. However the key point is that you have to be consistent and disciplined in how you compile and make your selections when comparing the ratings to the bookmakers lines. This consistency should hopefully lead to finding profitable trends and my next task will be to break this down into home and away selections and possibly concentrate exclusively on one or the other.

My mind-set is that I have to get this right as I look on this strategy as part of my future pension plan and through patience and discipline I will get it right.

Unfortunately when building anything it takes time what worked last season may not work this season and it is a case of looking for the consistencies.

Another thing I tend to do is not put all my eggs in one basket I have a set bank for each sport and are then spreading my risk. I also invest in the stock market and I have been derided for this before but whenever I make any financial commitment I always discuss it first with my wife.

Although we sometimes have disagreements in what shares to place our money, sports wise she just lets me get on with it however we first agree to how much we are willing to place into the venture and she periodically likes to know how the investment is going.

Now this means that for me personally my mind is free to follow the system as it should be without concern knowing that we have agreed to risk a certain amount of money on this venture and we may lose all of our capital.

I believe this is so important in order to follow a system through you should always be correctly capitalised with money that is used for no other purpose and if more people followed this simple rule then more would be successful long term.

This is a great blog Cassini and I look forward to profiting from your excellent XXX draw system this season.

Thanks to Peter for his kind words at the end there. Peter received the XX Draws last season, so he should know what they are called, so where the extra X came from I am not sure. For some reason that third X makes them sound a little porny. 

Something for Peter to ponder as he enjoys his few days away. If you haven't already, take a look at the results when backing divisional road 'dogs. With teams in the same division playing each other so often, it is likely that familiarity levels the playing field, because players are much more familiar with the opposing pitcher. Avoid 'dogs on a losing streak. They are not due a win!

There are six divisions in baseball, and if you exclude teams that are 10 or more games back, the weakest team's record in each intra-division game is (by division and overall):

Four of the six teams have a winning record versus divisional opponents, and only the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have a worse intra-division record than overall record - nothing to get too excited about, but a look behind the numbers can often reveal small edges. 

Not to rub it in for Peter, but baseball has been quite good for me personally so far this season, with my profits already at 77% (there's those sevens again) of last season's total, and we're not yet at the All-Star break, with about 56% of the regular season gone.  I certainly have no plans for baseball betting to supplement my pension, but torrid runs aside, (they happen) a sensible strategy with a disciplined approach can generate a little extra money.

As Peter said, "on any day any team can beat any other". In the past five full seasons, even the best team (New York Yankees in 2009) lost 32.4% of their regular season games. 

Murray Sevens

Seven Up

77 years since a British Gentlemen's Singles Winner at Wimbledon.

Wins on 7/7.

In his 7th Grand Slam Final.

Versus Novak Djokovic going for his 7th Grand Slam title.

Dating Kim Sears since 2006 - 7 years.

Last British Singles Winner at Wimbledon - Virginia Wade in 1977.

I suggest he stays away from the craps table for a while.

Behind The Numbers In Baseball

Fizzer555 left this quality comment on my post concerning the price reportedly offered for a no-hitter in baseball. The relevant part of the original post was this:

With close to a full slate of baseball games played pretty much every day for six months from early April to late September, the chances that any one day will see a no-hitter are pretty slim - let's say 1.7% of days, 57-1 at the least.

The odds offered by William Hill (US) (no affiliation)? 40-1, and apparently one Las Vegas bettor had $400 on such an outcome yesterday.

Fizzer's comment on this was:

That punter who bet on a no-hitter may actually have felt 40/1 was good odds last night, but lucked in by getting Homer Bailey's no-no.

Some great match ups last night with ace pitchers facing weak teams: -

Medlen against Miami
Price against Houston
Strasburg vs Milwaukee
Lackey vs San Diego

Then add in Kershaw was starting against the Rockies and in the LAA/STL game either Lynn could have a great night against an LAA team that can really suck some nights, or Weaver can have some big nights and STL are in the doldrums.

So personally I think 40/1 last night was probably value.

An interesting point - not all nights in the MLB are equal. What is also interesting is whether the recent glut of  no-hitters is a blip or has the underlying probability changed for some reason.

In the three years 2010 to 2012, there have been 16 no-hitters, in the ten years preceding, there were a total of 15.

Speaking of LAA - which is the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim - some of you may have caught the end of their game versus the Boston Red Sox this morning. With the Red Sox up 7-3 in the bottom of the ninth, with two outs and a man on first, some £67k traded at 1.01 on the Red Sox to win. Arguably a value bet as 'The Book' has the true probability given this game-state at 0.005 (200-1). Unfortunately for the 1.01 backers, the Angels came back to tie the game up with the help of a hit batter, and a costly error, before winning in extra innings. Sometimes it may not be much comfort to know that you had value on your side.

And the answer to my "Only one MLB team has never thrown a no-hitter" is the San Diego Padres. The team with the most? 

Seminars And Pareto

Right. Quit job, plunge in. Easy!

The famous Ian Erskine stopped by, fresh off the first (I believe) of his workshops, to comment on the 'Millionaire Mindset' debate, and some of my comments on this yesterday. Ian has interacted with a lot more bettors and traders than I have, and is far better qualified to speak on many of these topics, and he has also won a lot more than me!

Very nice to be discussed on your blog and if I may I will just clarify a couple of points for the benefit of the inquisitive minds on the seminar subject.

I totally agree with Danny that this blog (which is the only betting blog I do visit daily) has plenty of information from which people would/could benefit from. My point to Danny would be, just like in betting itself who would have the discipline to go back through posts, make notes and then act on them. I think the answer would be not many.

We completed the first day of the first seminar yesterday to 18 people and again I totally agree that it is not the seminars that are the key to the success but what people do after them. In the room we had varying levels of bettor and only one person who was a winner to the extent of a 5 figure sum. As you would except most were losers.

What I would say in response to Danny is that a) some people may not be as advanced as he is and would like to learn and stop their losses and b) people learn in different ways. I myself learn more visually. Seeing things brings some clarity where reading things takes a while for things to go into my meagre brain.

The overwhelming response in the room is exactly as Cassini states - negative. Even with the winner the general view was one of hoping to win. I don't hope I win, I expect to win and over time know I will win.

We covered many aspects of betting, explaining basics such as odds and percentages, huge amount of time on mindset and thought processes, and demonstrations on poor habits such as trading positions when it makes no financial sense to do so.

Will anyone become a millionaire- I can't say as that is down to them, that was my goal when I set out and I firmly believe if you aim high, even if you miss you will most likely do better than someone who aims low and has no ambition.

I certainly think yesterday we addressed and provided answers to poor thought processes and understanding of what it takes to win long term. I built relationships with people that I know will turn to me for help in the future and will receive it as I appreciate their commitment in paying £395 for one day on what was a new experiment and experience for me.

Whilst on that figure as the topic of profit on seminars is mentioned and people think all the money goes in the hosts pocket. The costs to run this seminar properly are considerable.

The fee was set fairly high to meet these costs but also to dissuade people who may be curious to see what it is all about rather than actually really want to be there. I enjoy working with people who want to learn. It was and never will be about huge profits as the £395 or £595 will not change my life, it may well change the life of the person paying it though.

Is it value? Only if people use what they learned, but as an example we had a young lad in the room yesterday as a case study of what can be achieved. When this lad got in touch with me a couple of years ago, he gambled 18-20 hours a day, chased losses. He owed the world, was trying to live on £20 a week and lived in a dingy flat without even a small fridge to put milk in etc. That is a true story.

Yesterday that same lad logged in live in the room to show his Betfair account and profit in June alone of over £6000. He now wins four figures monthly, every month.

I will take credit for it as I showed him processes and what to do right, rather than what he was doing. His success though can only be accredited to himself as he made decisions to change his life and the way he looked at betting. He grafted, read, studied and now benefits. So it is possible and that gives me huge satisfaction. I love winners and winning, but some are destined to always lose.

I enjoy betting, talking about betting and happen to be good at it. I enjoy helping people who want to learn and my time and circumstances allow me to do so. From there people can be as cynical as they wish, it won't change my life a jot.

Unfortunately as Cassini also states, people (I find particularly in England) love to knock winners and successful people. This is all out of envy and inexplicable to me but that is the world we live in.

Whilst not wanting to boost Cassini's already inflated ego, I read this blog as I respect the author, I respect his achievements and I am never big headed enough to think I cannot learn something new at any time and I myself have taken things from here in the past and looked to see if they would/could aid me. I also enjoy the nature and humour of the writing along the way.

At least someone gets my humour, often self defecating and as I have said before, not to be taken too seriously. Who knows - one day I might take my own show on the road, Cassini And Friends, complete with heavy hors d'oeuvres, port and fine cheeses afterwards. The only problem is that I don't have too many friends. Bring your partners though. Mrs. Cassini will be delivering a short talk (in American, but translators will be available) on the important role partners play in trading. For example, do not hear swearing, banging and heavy breathing and then cheerily ask "How's it going, pardner?"

Snooker Trader, (Danny in disguise), suggested that his suggestion that 80% of this blog was bullshit was an example of the Pareto Principle. Well possibly, but with 92.521% of statistics like this being made up, and the quality percentage of the blog a lot closer to this number than 20%, I shall politely disagree.

The final comment so far, is again from Danny, although I suspect he may have been drinking while commenting:

Cass I was only having a larf, was just tryng to show I am reading the back entries with my poorly devised pareto pun. Your powers of estimation are a bit off btw as it's more like a 4-5 day job, although as you know by now I am a slow learner.

Liked the Millionaire Mindset pic, this mindset topic is an interesting one. I read somewhere that traders who are over confident are more likely to do well than those who aren't, until a black swan wipes their bankroll out at least.

From what I've seen of trading it's the over confidence that kills so many of the novices, so many go over the barricades armed with nothing more than a few strats bought from the system sellers. You could argue my negativity has saved me a fortune! Last night I had a eureka moment - doing nothing will put me in the top 94 per cent of traders. I've still got skin in the game as they say, If I read all the posts here and work hard I might just have a chance of making it. Don't write me off just yet!

Oh and btw it's a triffic blog innit! Think you must have had a serious mindset on last night.
COME ON MUZZA!!!

I wouldn't recommend any trader being OVER confident, nor do I encourage the use of the glottal stop when commenting. Confidence is good, over-confidence can lead to big losses. Anyone who buys a strategy should feel their way very gently in the markets and build up slowly if it works. The point is that unless Betfair ceases to exist - which would be something of a black swan event (although since it has been mentioned, it wouldn't be a true black swan event) - there is no hurry to apply any  sustainable money-making strategies.

It's the 'get-rich-quick' mentality that makes some people happier to deposit £1,000 and start playing with £100 stakes than deposit a hundred and play with £2 stakes. What's the hurry? Most sports have seasons lasting for at least a few months, and if you have a system that only works on say World Cup Finals, you probably need to find an edge somewhere else to pay your bills during the other 47 months of the cycle.

And don't get me started on the rush to quit your full-time job before fully evaluating your realistic returns from sports investing.

And after 77 years, we finally have a gentlemen's singles winner at Wimbledon. Nice to know that sport can still be exciting without significant betting. Will they be renaming Henman Hill Murray Mound now?

Millionaire Mindset

Danny Boy Murphy has yet more questions, but the answers to all can be found either in this blog or the XX Draws prospectus, and many of his questions are based on nothing more than a vivid imagination. I do not pay 60% in Super Premium Charges for example, and some of the assumptions about Elo ratings show either that he has not read much of what I have previously written or that what he has read has either been misunderstood or failed to sink in.

In a second comment though, he does make me realise how valuable a resource this blog is:

Cassini (or perhaps Ian) - why should I pay for Ian's course when everything needed for the 'Millionaire Mindset' is available for free on this terrific blog?

If you do delve on here there are a lot of nuggets to be had (not to be confused with the Nugget Crew). Eighty percent is complete bull**** of course but the remaining twenty is gold.

I suggest, and apologies to Ian here, that Danny and others save their money by skipping Ian's workshop, and take two days out of your lives to read through this blog from Day One. There certainly are some gold nuggets contained within. Please use the "Green Fees Optional" Donate button with a suggested donation amount of £195. Thank you in advance.

Danny continues:

I wonder what Thomas Bayes would make of Ian's course? What is the probabilistic chance Ian can give me the 'Millionaire Mindset' I so crave?

From the evidence I have seen so far, I would have to say that the chances are slim to none. Making money from sports investing requires first and foremost discipline, be that in your approach to research, your staking methods, or your reaction to wins and losses. The people I know who have achieved some success in this field all seem to have this quality.

Peter Nordsted is very diligent with his activities, taking a very professional approach. Ian Erskine has a disciplined approach both to his betting and his members, and not everyone could organise a workshop tour.

The other thing is that successful people tend to be more positive. You could argue that it's a lot easier to be positive when you have achieved some success, however modest, but I think that earned success (as opposed to winning the lottery for example) is often the result of a positive attitude rather than the cause.

I'm not sure I understand fully the negative attitude that so many people seem to have towards others who manage to be relatively successful.

Envy is obviously part of it, (I am a little envious of Ian's £1.4million for example), but I would rather use that envy in a positive way, a benchmark for what can be achieved, and as an incentive to keep moving forward and improving my strategies, than use it in a negative way, by spending hours writing comments suggesting the numbers are made up, that Elo ratings don't work, that workshops are a waste of time etc.

Not picking on Danny specifically, since there are many others like him, but I think that until your attitude changes from negative to positive, you will never have the mindset needed to be successful.

The anonymous nature of blog comments and forum postings is also a factor, and you see this negative effect on the latter all the time. If two people post opposing views on an outcome, the losing prediction is derided and ridiculed far more than the successful one is lauded. It's human nature I guess, but whether you agree with the strategies of the likes of Peter or Ian, you should at least learn something about the process they follow to get there, and from their attitudes to adversity.

There's Nothing Easy Here

For example, and I hope Peter won't mind me mentioning this, but right now his baseball system is having a torrid time.

Peter wrote:

Once again this spell does not seem to shake off.

I am now looking at Grading the sides similar to what I do at Premier Betting and adding some more information to the spreadsheet to see if any further trends can be found.

I want to explore every avenue as I have never experienced a run like this in a sport that has only 2 outcomes.

Now personally, and I have told Peter this, I don't agree that baseball teams can be graded in the same way as football teams can, because of the importance of the starting pitcher, but the point I want to make is that when facing adversity, Peter first of all accepts the bad run, and secondly explains constructively what he plans to do about it.

Another example is Danny's comment above about the worth of this blog - "Eighty percent is complete bull**** of course but the remaining twenty is gold".

That may be meant as a derisory comment but there have been 1,560 posts since day one which means that even by Danny's negative calculation some 312 are gold. I'll take that. Of course, I suspect that the 80% number was made up on the spot, as are 97.312% of such quoted statistics...

Benford's Law Update

The last Benford update was almost two years ago, and since the topic came up, it seemed as good a time as any to update the numbers.

After 2,520 active days on Betfair since 1/1/2006 (what a life), the numbers look like this:

The numbers as of 2009 and 2011 are left in as a reference, and not too much has changed in two years. The 1 has gone up a little, and now occurs slightly more often than it should, but the 2 shows up slightly less than expected. No digit is more than 1% off - and overall they match pretty closely.

The scariest part of this exercise was probably that I have totalled just 222 days of being completely idle in seven and a half years, although activity varies from one punt to several hours of trading.

If anyone else wants to try this, I feel very sorry for you, but Excel does makes it easy, and heaven forbid you have a few negatives in your spreadsheet, the below formula accounts for that and generates the Benford number for you.

E29 is the cell you are targeting:

Banging On

I missed this comment from Jimbo on the topic of account preservation, and I agree with almost everything he writes, except for the apostrophe in SBOs...

The 6 points that that your friend Mr Murphy made about account preservation may well have something there. His 6 points would keep accounts open.

However if I would give 6 points on how not to bet on sports and how to lose money long term then that would be them. 

Find the firms who continually give good odds and continually take those bets. The likes of your Pinnacles and SBO's of this world, or an Exchange.

Why complicate your betting merely to delay the inevitable with firms who will stop you if you have an edge? Just does not make sense. You place the bets YOU want, at the odds YOU want and the stake YOU want. If not how can possibly expect to profit long term?

It really should go without saying. The hard work in successful sports betting starts after that.
I'm going for a lie down.

Account preservation in itself is pointless. There's no point having an account if you can't use it as you want.

Exchange Lay

There's an interesting article on the subject Why The Bookie Is NOT Your Friend from the Secret Betting Club today, including a reference to Ray Winstone's half-time tips.

Take for example, Bet365 and their in-play adverts featuring Ray Winstone. At Half-time during live football matches, Ray regularly pipes up with a suggested bet for you to ‘have a bang on’.

Sadly as this Daily Mirror article outlines, these bets are less bang and most bust with just 1 in 25 actually going on to win. No doubt the Bet365 coffers have been suitably swollen by this stat!

His one winner - Napoli’s Edinson Cavani would score the next goal in an Italian league game against Internazionale - came in at a whopping 7/2, a price that, and I haven't run the numbers so I can't be sure, possibly doesn't quite cover the 24 losses.

Jill commented:

£595 a lot? I thought your ELO ratings were making you fortunes?

Have you considered the horses, I see Jack's doing a 2 day course for a bargain £695.

It's a lot for something I don't need, and it's Elo, not ELO, ratings. Jack and Jill - nice, but no, I have no interest in horses. Far too many people know far more than I will ever know about that dying sport, and it's hard to see where I might ever gain an edge. Details on this course are in the comment for anyone interested, and I have no affiliation with Jack or Jill.

Anonymous asks:

How much money do you think tipsters make from running seminars?

I'm not sure what tipsters run seminars - it seems to me that it would be more something for traders to do, although the golden years would appear to be in the past for full-time trading.

The Jack and Chuck (whom I had never previously heard of) course on horse racing is limited to 25 people, which if filled would bring in a little over £17k from which you would deduct the not insignificant running costs - hotel, conference room etc.

No idea how many seats Ian will fill at his workshops, but there's a significant investment of time in coordinating these things, so don't think it is all profit. Again, I have no affiliation with Ian, but his Day One only option looks the most interesting, with a number of topics on the schedule that too many people seem to struggle with.

Perhaps anyone attending any of these workshops / seminars could stop by and provide some feedback.

Speaking of Ian, he had this to say on Affiliategate tonight:

I think the Affiliategate scandal is now done. The loss of integrity through having a direct relationship with a sponsor is the key issue; the fact that they look tacky is very much a secondary issue.

I hate Russian Dolls, they're so full of themselves - Stephen Fry

Serious Questions

A few more comments on the past couple of posts, and first this clarification from Secret Betting Club:

I would like to clarify the comment that claims that the Secret Betting Club endorses GYTO.

SBC have never reviewed GYTO, let alone endorsed them. The person who left this comment clearly is not an SBC member and is woefully mis-informed.

I think that's clear enough.

Danny then left a second comment on the Most Bookmakers Don't Like Winners post which made me think that perhaps he is not well, but a later comment we shall get to did reveal that this wasn't a serious. Danny has too much time on his hands. He should try maintaining Elo based ratings on a few sports - that's fill up his spare time!

While we're on the subject of limited possibilities, what news of our old friend the ELO ratings? I do believe it is some months since they graced these pages and they appear to have faded like some old Dire Straits chord.

As I understand it they started with chess - if I beat you I 'own you' as the kids round here say and I get your points. Something like that. Then throw in some shots on target, shots and goals and weight it (I once read that hitting the post is not a shot on target!). Then if you are still awake it spits out a WDL number and you rush off to Betfair in your case to bet accordingly.

So how did the ELO ratings perform? Is it a case of 'this time this year we're millionaires Rodney!' Or did they hit a bum note and you quietly Jonjo Shelved them?

Cassini I'm going to steal your thunder. The only explanation must he this - Pinnacle, on hearing of your fabled 1980's exploits against the London bookmaking trade, have LIMITED YOU!

The Elo (not ELO) ratings are alive and well and being used for a number of sports, but I have no idea what a WDL number is unless it's a poor way of saying that you can use Elo ratings to calculate probabilities for various outcomes. The latest Elo effort is baseball, and still a work in progress, but you enter the team's last few results, the opponents, the starting pitcher's ERA and it spits out an estimated price which can then be compared to Betfair or wherever you place your baseball bets to identify value. (The advantage of Betfair is that you can bet bigger and trade out either to lock in profits or reduce your losses). Here's one from a game last night which suggested the Los Angeles Dodgers were 10% value at 2.21.

Unfortunately the Dodgers lost on this occasion, but not before taking a lead and allowing me to lock in a profit on both sides.

With the importance of the starting pitcher, baseball is a hard game to use Elo ratings for, but a winning streak like the Dodgers were on means that the 'body' of the team is performing well, with the rotating starting pitcher perhaps being seen as the 'head', and as I mentioned in a couple of posts in April, odds can be out of line once the starting pitcher is out of the game. 

As Danny well knows, the football Elo ratings are very much alive and well and are the heart of the XX Draws which generated 158 winners (draws) from 517 bets last season (implied odds of 3.27, for an ROI of 8.57% and 44.3 points.

Someone asked me for a breakdown by month of the 2012-13 season, and while I haven't drilled down by league, here they are:

The May / June losses may well be due to the end of season games not being played as truly as they might have been, but this wasn't seen in 2011-12. One might also expect August to be a tricky month with the ratings yet to settle down, but while the profit wasn't much, at least it was a profit. December (the busiest month) was the worst month; in fact December through March showed a loss in total, so the profits came in the three months of October, November and April. 

Back to comments now, and here's yet another one from Danny:

Serious questions for once:

1) How are Nate Silver's ELO Baseball ratings performing?

I have no idea - I have my own baseball ratings. How are Nate Silver's Elo (not ELO) Baseball ratings performing? Do you have Internet access?

2) Looking at Chelsea QPR last season - with the benefit of hindsight the result was a total outlier and there were clues at the time such as QPR having no shots and little possession. Do results such as this throw the ELO ratings right out as I believe the weak team would get a lot of points from the strong team?

I'm not sure what you man by 'clues at the time'. In the game in question, Queens Park Rangers had eight shots, five of which were on target. Possession in itself is meaningless without knowing a lot more about the type of possession. Minds far sharper than mine have looked at this, but here's a summary on this topic from the excellent The Power of Goals blog:

However, it is increasingly becoming apparent that the relationship between possession and wins is far from straightforward. In this post I outlined an earlier view that possession merely tells you how long teams spent trying to do certain things on the pitch. It doesn't tell you what those actions were, it doesn't tell you how successfully the actions were translated into really important things, such as goals and it doesn't tell you how effectively each side carried out those tasks. Game states, tactical approaches and relative skill levels between the sides and of course randomness, decide match outcomes and how these are played out on the day decide the largely secondary statistical measure that is recorded as possession.

Results like this do not throw a good Elo (not ELO) rating system out because they use more than just the final result to determine the post-game ratings adjustment, so along with the margin of victory, various weightings are assigned to the data. Chelsea had almost three times as many shots as QPR (23), had more shots on target than QPR (11) and out-cornered (I made that word up) QPR by 14-2. While the relationship between corners and goals is unproven, they likely reflect 'pressure'. Chelsea did have a 58:42 edge on possession for the record.

I use an even more lopsided example from the EPL in 2010-2011 in my 'prospectus' - the match between Birmingham City and Chelsea.

Chelsea had 24 shots to Birmingham City’s 1. Chelsea had 9 shots on target to Birmingham’s 1. Chelsea were awarded 14 corners to Birmingham’s 2, yet the result was a 1-0 win for Birmingham. It is my opinion that by including more statistics than simply goals, more accurate ratings are achieved. Birmingham did not deserve to receive a big boost to their ratings that day as the overall statistics did not merit that.

The low scoring nature of football means that such results will happen from time to time, but by
including more data than simply goals scored, the impact of a freak result is less dramatic, and I would suggest, more relevant to the ratings.

I have seen nothing since I wrote those words to change my mind.

3) What are your thoughts about the STL interview with "professional gambler" Ian Erskine? I was wondering if you could run that clever number checking technique you wrote about once that checks the integrity of numbers (you see I do occasionally pay attention). His declared earnings are £1,423,678, quite an unusual figure in itself! 4) For £595 he will give me the "Millionaire Mindset" and six cups of coffee. Is this VALUE???

I personally know little about Ian Erskine other than that he seems to be a genuine guy who has done very well for himself, in part due to his 'Lay The Draw' system which I have commented on many times before, and even Ian concedes that the glory days have now gone, and that "the margins are tighter", but also from successfully marketing himself and his product. What I do agree with Ian on is that attitude / mindset is all important. One of the things I believe he has said, is that you can teach a system to a group of people, but when they go to apply it, some fail and others succeed. He says in the interview mentioned:

Most are looking to get rich quick and think it is easy.

And:

I think discipline and mindset are my greatest assets. I accept the fact you have losing days since I keep records and play the game long term. Most people give things a week or less and then move on. I cover this with an example in the seminars of where I carried on this year using a particular method and it has netted me in excess of 40k in 6 months, someone I know had exactly the same information and gave up after 2 weeks in January when the weather was iffy so racing was a bit inconsistent. Most people have no discipline, can’t ride out losses and manage their money abominably when they do bet.

I think this is very true. I don't think many people start investing in the traditional financial markets and expect to get rich overnight, but sports investors have a tendency to be impatient, and give up on a system after a few losses, and jump on to something else. For some reason a betting method generating "only" 5% ROI is considered a waste of time, yet a return of that size in interest on a bank account would be jumped at.

If someone has made £1.4 million in 7 years from betting, then they clearly have done something right.

The integrity of numbers check that Danny mentions is Benford numbers which I wrote about back in March 2009. Unfortunately they don't work on one total, but you need a number of individual and independent totals such as daily, weekly or monthly to determine their legitimacy. 1423678 has no repeating digits, (6% probability), and only one digit lower than the preceding one, but it's hardly enough evidence to question its accuracy. My grand total at the end of June 2008 had all seven digits unique, although sadly for me, two of the seven were behind the decimal point! 7821936 to be precise so it's not that unlikely. Since I went to eight digits in late 2008, this has yet to occur, with the probability 1.8%. In the post linked to above, I ran my own daily P/L numbers in 2009, and then again in 2011 and they came out pretty close to those expected.

Idle moments are rare these days, but it might be time for another update on these.

Would I pay £595 to attend the FTS Roadshow? No, the value is not there for me. While not in Ian's professional league, I don't think I do so badly as an amateur with a professional approach, i.e. the right mindset.

£595 is a lot of money for me, but it may well be money very well spent for someone who needs an example of what is possible with a disciplined approach. My concern though is that as soon as the show is over, many people will again give up at the first setback and revert to their old, losing habits.

Ian certainly isn't perfect though - he supports Tottenham Hotspur for one thing, (prepare for an opening day loss Ian) and overuses the word 'gubbed' in his Tweets!

Account Closures

With an average daily visitor count a little over 350 these days, a little controversy is clearly good for business - except that I have no affiliate links so the soaring hit count is of academic interest only.

It also makes posting a lot easier, with comments often generating the next post, which generates comments and repeat. Danny did come back with a comment, and here it is, broken down with my replies to each part.

You like to act as judge and jury over the bookmaking industry yet as I understand it your sole experience is a couple of closed accounts with Coral and Ladbrokes circa 1983!

I don't think expressing an opinion based on the evidence available is in any way acting as judge and jury, and my experience goes a lot further than two closed accounts. Their closure was a turning point though, and although I had others at that time, they have long been dormant since, as I wrote yesterday, I moved on from gambling. One account I had was with a local firm called Surrey Racing who I don't think even exist any more, absorbed by SkyBet. Perhaps I should apply for reinstatement! I am also well aware that the online account business is a lot different than it was 22 years or so ago, and I doubt that it is any more winner friendly now than it was then.

While we are on the subject of ancient history, how exactly did you cane the bookies with your 'system', which was apparently something to do with a dodgy 1970's soft rock band? In those days you could barely bet singles anyway so how did you do it?

This is where Danny crosses the line. There is nothing dodgy about ELO (Electric Light Orchestra), one of the finest bands of all-time and still a top play on my iPhone / iPod, and as this post in 2012 said, "I'm sick of people comparing Jeff Lynne to God - he may be the almighty but he'll never be Jeff Lynne".

I suspect Danny isn't quite genuine with his feigned lack of knowledge of Elo ratings, and I suspect also that he hasn't read every post of mine. This one details my 1987 purchase of a book which has proved to be worth its weight in gold. and much of my modest success (there was certainly no 'caning') in those halcyon days was down to lessons learned and applied from this book. I also made use of the Racing Post back in those days to identify the top prices, and if I had an edge I would combine those select 'super-value' bets in accumulators because as Danny said, back in those days football betting was a little different. It was for this reason that I had many more than the two accounts which were ultimately closed.

Do you personally have any online accounts or should we treat everything you say as heresay? What have you got to lose by trying it for yourself, you could go through Mark's links by way of thanks for all the readers he brings you.

The word is 'hearsay' and a lot of what I write about is necessarily hearsay, and stated as such. When I post Tweets or things that others have written, then clearly it is hearsay. It is what the word means. I could certainly try opening accounts again but from all the evidence I have seen, and there's been a lot recently, it rather suggests that I would not last long. 

Punters need the ability to bet at the best prices (assuming the 'best' price is value of course), with amounts of their choosing.

Danny then says: 

As for account preservation I can give a couple of pointers:

1) Don't open an account and make your first bet on an out of line price.

You're suggesting taking a lower price than you can get elsewhere? You think that if your opening bet is a sucker bet, that your account is then marked as "sucker" for the rest of time?

2) Stick to the big markets, mainly weekends.

Yes, those big computers simply lose track of winners when they are busy.

3) Don't hit and run.

3? I thought you said 'a couple'. Define 'hit and run'. When you have an account, you want it available when that firm offers the best price, be that daily, weekly or monthly. I'm not sure who would bet, win, withdraw and never use the account again. Most people know that withdrawals cost the company money, so common sense says to leave the money there for next time.

4) Mix up your betting.

Fine if you have an edge in many sports / markets, but not a good idea if you specialise.

5) Don't be too greedy.

Voluntarily restrict your account? Throw Kelly out of the window? Wow.

6) When the inevitable happens accept it with good grace.

Agreed. The bookie has no obligation to enter into a bet with you.

Listen the bookies are small potatoes compared to what you do but it doesn't mean they are all useless.

Bookies are full-time. I am part-time. They are not all useless since they generally make rather large profits. I am just trying to make a profit. 

So not a lot of practical advice there on account preservation. Clearly many of these steps will help preserve your account, but I was rather looking for ways of doing it while still being able to actually use the account. Restricting yourself by 'not being greedy' and putting on 10p will work but kind of misses the point of having the account.

I did find this article which is well written and may be more useful if this is a concern for you, but there is no easy way of staying under the radar long-term if you are consistently winning. The article includes this statement:

It seems the noose is tightening on winning punters, bookmakers are trying to save pennies like all businesses and it seems they are getting ever more intolerant of the odd winning account. It seems unfair, and basically it is. Here is an industry that sells itself on taking bets, and on the promise that you have sporting chance of winning, yet real winners are locked out. It’s spoken about hardly at all in the media, who rely very much on bookmaker advertising for revenue. But bookmakers are culling anyone that even smells like a winning punter with what seems like ever increasing regularity.

And finally, Al writes:

No comment from SBC about their glowing endorsement of bookie sponsored GYTO?

Since I have nothing to do with the Secret Betting Club or Get Your Tips Out, I can't comment on this other to say that I had never heard of the latter, but I did take a look at the GYTO site and saw articles openly sponsored by bookies, and of course those tacky banner adverts. Not for me thank you. No idea what SBC's relationship is with GYTO.

A final comment on the book I mentioned yesterday by Joseph Buchdahl. Having read the book, I was a little surprised to read in the article on Most Bookmakers Don't Like Winners that he says this:

Furthermore, my professionalism extends to theoretical betting analysis only; this is not the same thing as being a successful forecaster of betting outcomes. I may understand the mechanics of a betting market but I am largely clueless when it comes to serious match prediction other than how to design a rating system. My profits from sports betting run to 4 figures only, several orders of magnitude less than the best professional punters in the industry.

Most Bookmakers Do Not Like Winners by Joseph Buchdahl

I mentioned the links that Jamie sent me last night, and have read the article titled "Most Bookmakers Do Not Like Winners".

It's in two parts, and written by Joseph Buchdahl, who some of you may know as author of Fixed Odds Sports Betting - Statistical Forecasting And Risk Management. I have the book myself.

It's mostly a personal story of his attempts to open and use online bookmaking accounts - specifically Corbettsports and Meridianbet, neither with much success for reasons discussed here over the past few days.

Joseph suggests that bookmakers who don't like winners are missing a trick and that the more enduring business model will be that epitomised by the likes of Pinnacle Sports.

He concludes with these words:

Bookmakers, naturally, will always be able to fall back on the argument that whilst betting requires the consent of two parties, it remains their right not to accept a bet if they choose. In the meantime, therefore, it is essential that customers continue to vote with their feet. Bookmakers like Meridianbet and Corbettsports have no place in the world of online sports betting, and the sooner such brands can be consigned to the scrap heap of history where they belong, the better. If punters refuse to bet at all with such bookmakers it will only be a matter of time before they fold and disappear. Low turnover brands and those who despise winners are of little use to the sophisticated sports bettor, other than to make a quick buck before the predictable restrictions are imposed. If you're not being restricted then it probably means that you are losing money, and if you're not losing it yet, "Egobet" believes you soon will be.

Egobet are the bookies known to close or restrict winning accounts very quickly, e.g. Stan James.

Note that final sentence - If you're not being restricted then it probably means that you are losing money, and if you're not losing it yet, "Egobet" believes you soon will be.

The article in full is here - Part One and Part Two. Worth a read, and if I hear from Danny on the topic of account preservation, I will let you know.

Risible

Just to wrap up the Affiligate scandal, or rather non-scandal - Al posted an apology in a comment that he may well have missed the affiliate links on Mark’s blog due to something called Ad Block Plus and is now on his way to Specsavers, Hopefully we are all good now.

Fizzer555 had this to say:

The bit in Affiligate I haven't got my head round is Mark's comment that "the banners are just there to make the site look pretty and fill some space."

Well, most people would say that these affiliate banners make a site look tacky.

I manage a website for a non-league football team and I'm constantly being approached to put these banners up on our site, but if you look around at all the teams that do, they really detract from the look and feel of the site.

The defence that they don't earn any money doesn't mean that they were not originally put there to try to make some money.

It reminds me of when I noticed my neighbour's builder was creating an arched gateway leading on to my drive. When I confronted my neighbour about it he said he wanted it to look pretty and he never intended to use it - it was just an ornamental gateway! - Try telling that to your kids. Once confronted, he decided he didn't want to spend the money on an ornamental gateway after all.

I tend to agree with all that.

Sent via email from Jamie, and intentionally not as a comment, was an interesting link to articles on how bookies treat winners. Too much to review in this already full post, but I shall publish the links and comments shortly. Thanks Jamie.

And then we have Danny back, claiming to know me better than myself. He writes that my claim to have gone back in when Betfair arrived is risible. I can only repeat what I have written before, (Danny must have missed my story), and say that after my bookie accounts were closed down, I did not bother with gambling any more. Betting was a world that I shut myself off from. I saw the writing on the wall, and decided to steer my interest in probability and statistics in other directions – trading shares and options for example.

Here is Danny's comment in full - facts have not been verified:

Your remark 'it was only the arrival of Betfair that let me in again to play' is just so risible. You like to characterise yourself as a Patrick Veitch like figure, a punter so dangerous bookies throughout the world wouldn't entertain his business.

It's so obvious you have no idea what you are talking about because at the time you are referring to, the early 2000's, the bookie scene was a goldmine for those with the knowledge (not me sadly). Just because you didn't work it out and become a part of it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Someone with your skills and abilities would have made a lot of quick easy money. People did.

Before 2006 there were good amounts to be made from US facing bookies and then there was a slew of European outfits.

I understand you enjoy Betfair and were in it for the challenge as much as the money. But the fact is there was a lot of opportunity elsewhere at the time and to deny it is factually incorrect.

You could have made a lot of money from online casinos had you got into that, I think people tended to gravitate to what they enjoyed.

Listen I could give the talk about account preservation but SBC will do a far better job than I could.

Cassini I know you reside in the suburbs but it wouldn't hurt to leave the house once in a while and visit Londinium. I don't know what the shops are like now but again a few years back it was a good opportunity. I know guys were hitting them quite hard so they did react eventually.

Naturally it's all got tougher as the betting/gaming industry has matured in recent years, with few new entrants now.

It may be hard for someone wrapped in in betting every day to understand but the point Danny is missing is that the world of betting and bookmakers was just one that just didn’t interest me at this time. With no access to inside information, (unlike Danny’s hero Patrick Veitch), I had no interest at all in betting on horse racing, and I had no interest in walking around the streets of London betting into over-rounds of 115% on other sports. I might as well have been living on the Space Station.

Danny talks of the goldmine at the bookies in the early 2000s and it may well have been for some. It was just a world that I wasn’t interested in, and not a question of not being able to work out how to profit from it. I simply had other priorities for my time and efforts. The benefits of putting in the groundwork for a career may not be immediately apparent in your 20s or 30s, but as you climb the ladder, your earlier efforts are rewarded several times over.

A second factor here was technology, or rather the lack of. I’m not sure how old Danny is, but my early Elo ratings in the 80s were all done on paper, a significant investment of time and effort.

Additionally, in the 80s I had other things going on in my personal life – young children for example.

So I had three good reasons to not bother at all with betting, and when I say that it was the advent of Betfair that opened up the window of opportunity, I should perhaps also say that advances in technology and changes in my personal life were contributing factors.

Betfair was the key though. Whereas I now had the time, and there was more data than ever, and crunching data was far easier than ever, there was still little point in having an advantage if there was nowhere to play.

Betfair was the playground I needed, and the three stars of timing, technology and a sustainable environment were aligned perfectly.

I can still picture the moment I discovered Betfair. It was a Saturday afternoon in early 2004, and I was sitting at my desk at home performing a search for something long-forgotten on Google which returned a list of links including one for ‘Betting Exchange’.

Risible or not, this was the first I had heard of the concept. As I say, I had closed myself off from the betting world, and it just didn’t interest me. The link intrigued me though and I realised almost immediately the potential of this concept, with its revolutionary in-play option. It promised to be sustainable with their ‘we welcome winners’ mantra and cautious by nature, after a few weeks of due diligence, I decided to risk a massive £100, of which £98.50 made it into my account after fees.

As I have said before many times, that remains the only deposit I have ever made into my account. It would almost certainly have been to my advantage to have been in on the ground floor of Flutter or the fledgling Betfair, but the past is gone and there’s no point in ‘what-ifs’. I simply wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I’m just grateful that I caught the wave for a few good years of opportunity, before being washed up on the beach.

Not that I am quite washed up yet, but it is getting harder and harder to make money, not helped by the punitive 50% tax. My lifetime daily average income from Betfair declines almost every day it seems, but I am grateful to at least be able to make a little extra income on the side, and I still enjoy the challenge of finding value almost as much as the money itself.

Danny talks of opportunities missed with bookmakers, and that may well be true, probably is true short-term, but consistently profitable bookie accounts are not sustainable for me, and those ‘opportunities’ had a cost which was too high. I have certainly never denied that short-term past opportunities existed.

Remember that gambling is not a full-time occupation for me. It never has been, and it never will be. It’s an interest outside of my proper job, and I can’t see that it will ever be worth my time and effort driving around the country trying to find a high street bookmaker who will take my bet.

I like my life to be simple. Click a button here or there. If / when the Betfair window of opportunity closes, I’ll move on with my life. Risible or not, this is how it was for me.

As the great Ricky Gervais might say, it’s always good to hear from people who still live with their parents, how I could have done so much better with my betting.

As for the comment that “Listen I could give the talk about account preservation but SBC will do a far better job than I could” – well if you see my post yesterday, it seems that their message is not reaching their members, so we look forward to your own contribution on this important topic. And no, I am not affiliated in any way to the SBC.