Table Updates

A write up to follow, but the latest FTL table as we head into another international break is shown below. As always, please let me know if I have missed anything or got my numbers wrong and I will double check them. All selections are up to date through Sunday night. The NHL got under way this week, and the NBA pre-season started on Saturday.

John Walsh's NFL picks:

John Walsh's NHL picks:

NBA Tips:

More Omelettes

Official prices are still awaited, but it looks like The Football Analyst's fortunes have turned finding seven winners from eleven selections, with Blackburn Rovers to win at Wigan Athletic today the twelfth selection.

The Cassini Value selections saw one winner from two selections for a small profit, and another selection today.

No selections this week from Emp, (which has saved me about an hour in updates) and Skeeve is probably looking at a small loss when the prices are confirmed. Several others have selections today, so I'll do the write up when the table is updated, but Punters' Friend will probably now be in last place after selecting ten draws and not finding any.  A little unlucky with a couple of late goals, but two winners from the last 24 shows how easily long losing runs can happen when you play with the draw.

Forza Fizzer found two winners from seven for a small loss, but the Bundeslayga had a good weekend finding winning lays of Stuttgart and a very short priced Wolfsburg.

Peter Nordsted's official account bets continue to struggle. Of the ten settled on Saturday, Peter had just one winner, (Over 2.5 Cardiff City v Newcastle United). I highlighted the problem with putting all your eggs in one basket last week, but again Pete went in big again with three bets on Overs in the Hull City v Aston Villa game (an XX Draw selection incidentally, so Unders was the play here) and three points bet on the Unders in the Liverpool v Crystal Palace game. The results were 0-0 and 3-1 respectively, a significant contribution to the current total of -13.79 points.

Football Elite has four selections this weekend, one winner from two so far for a small profit.

The NBA has finally returned, with pre-season 'friendlies' and the opening game coming from Turkey. Most readers will be more familiar with the football version of Fenerbahçe, but their Euroleague basketball siblings had the honour of hosting the Oklahoma City Thunder in the opening game. Fenerbahçe started well, leading by nine in the second quarter before the Thunder, more specifically Kevin Durant, took over and the Thunder rolled to an easy win.

Derrick Rose returned after missing the entire 2012-13 season with a torn ACL, playing for the Chicago Bulls at the Indian Pacers. Without him last season, the Bulls still progressed to the Eastern Conference semi-finals (i.e the quarter-finals in English parlance) and they are rated behind only Miami Heat in the East this season.

Pre-season games offer some good opportunities for in-play trading, with many people seeming to think the games will be played as if they were regular season games. They won't be. Starters will be rested and while some coaches want to win more than others, everyone knows that the games are not about winning, but about getting onto shape for an NBA season after a few months away. If you have to bet pre-game, bet on the underdog. With no form, home teams not playing at home (e.g. the Lakers last night played in Ontario - not the Canadian one though, so it was almost a home game!).

I'm not sure why anyone would seriously suggest a bet on Over / Unders without any current data to base a decision on, but that's what NBA Tips, "the UK's leading free tipping site" did. (Their claim, not mine by the way).

A total of 158 points (82-76 Bulls win) meant the bet lost by some considerable distance. It would be nice to see some data to back up these recommendations - perhaps how many points the true Totals Line should be, or what price the actual line should be. 

Their analysis of the expected number of wins for each team in the regular season also leaves something to be desired. The number of games in a full season is usually 1,230. Last season it was one game less due to the Boston bombing and the season before it was less due to the strike, but 1,230 games is usually the total.

So how the combined expected total wins of the teams from the two experts comes to 1,283 and 1,222 is a little concerning. It will be interesting to follow their selections as the season picks up.

Opposites Subtract

Peter Nordsted did stop by (I told you he would) to offer his explanation for the differing recommendations on various web sites / emails. I can’t say he has really cleared things up for me though. Peter wrote:

To clear this up I do freelance writing for Matchbook where I am asked to concentrate on the Top televised matches for the Premier League and Champions League and I am asked to do a write up and finish with a recommended trade for that game.

The analysis I provide for Matchbook is based on a statistical view point but also contains my own subjective opinion.

The selections that are produced for Premier Betting are based on a situational model that has proved profitable over the past few seasons and contains no subjective opinion of my own whatsoever.

Indeed some of the selections go completely against my personal thoughts with the Everton v Newcastle game being a point in case.

For example 2 weeks ago the model as well as the Drawmaster (which is based on a similar model) suggested backing the draw in the Everton v West Brom game whereas my personal opinion would not have been to take this position on.

From an investment point of view I invest in the Premier Betting selections along with other selections in different leagues which the model suggests.

In the previous 2 seasons all of the Premier Betting picks were based on myself and Danny’s personal opinion but we decided that we wanted to share part of our profitable portfolio with members and this is how will go going forward.

I hope this clears matters up and just to reiterate although I co-head Premier Betting none of the selections given by Premier Betting contain any subjective opinion.

This approach has highs and lows and we will only be judged by results by the performance at the end of the season come what may.

So in summary, the Matchbook reviews are based on a statistical viewpoint but additionally contain Pete’s subjective opinion, whereas Premier Betting selections are based on a situational model that has proved profitable over the past few seasons and contains no subjectivity whatsoever. For the sake of clarity, no subjectivity whatsoever means totally objective.

So far so good, but Pete says that “in the previous two seasons all of the Premier Betting selections were based on myself [Pete’s] and Danny’s personal opinion” – in other words, the objective Premier Betting selections this season is new – they are an untried and unproven technique. The subjective element of the past two seasons has been removed.

Why would a proven winning formula be changed? Looking at this logically, with the assumption that the intent is to improve the returns on the Premier Betting Account bets, as the previous two Premier Betting seasons were profitable, the inference is that the subjective component was reducing profits which by extension, leads to the conclusion that Matchbook readers receiving this subjective advice are receiving advice that if acted upon, will cost them money.

If the subjective element is discredited, then is it reasonable and fair to make recommendations based on this?

The argument could be made that Peter’s members pay more and deserve a higher quality product, but I’m not sure the tipping industry ombudsman would necessarily view recommending an opposing position to others as ethical behaviour.

Imagine a financial advisor telling one client that he should buy shares in Company A based on excellent data, but telling another client that he should sell Company A shares because “I have a bad feeling about this one” even though following the numbers has a better track record than his feelings.

While we are in the business world, Emp commented that:

I don't think that's particularly irregular. Hedge fund managers often have different strategies and services for different clients and those different strategies are often diametrically opposite (that's what a hedge is in the first place).

Even football tipsters often have a bewildering array of differentiated systems, and none of this can or should be construed to mean that the operator can't have a different opinion. It's perfectly normal when you sign up for a non-discretionary service provided by person X for the service to recommend bets that X doesn't agree with. If someone else want's X's subjective opinion and that happens to be diametrically opposed to his system I don't think that's unethical or a conflict of interest.

Yes, hedge fund managers do offer different strategies, and thus advice, for different clients, but that is because not all clients have the same risk tolerance or the same amount of money to risk. When their investments are “diametrically opposite”, it is because they have locked in a profit whatever happens – which is not the same as suggesting to back overs at 1.91 and unders at 2.05. Do the maths. A hedge fund would look to back at a total book of less than 100%, not greater.

On this aspect, Anonymous commented:

Emp that may well be so, but we're talking about a 2 man band here not a multinational company. If my model told me one thing and I was writing an article I would not give the opposite to what people had paid for......especially when the free advice wins whilst the paid for is trounced. Terrible PR, almost Ratner like!

The Account Bets are not free advice, and speaking personally, anyone subscribed to the XX Draws service gets selections that are generated objectively. I have no personal opinion of them, I’m simply the messenger. If my opinion was worth anything, I could save myself a huge amount of time each week, and just pull winners out of my ears on a Thursday morning, but I learned long ago that that method doesn’t work for me. Aside from the draws, the Cassini Value selections are also objective, and while an element of subjectivity may cause me to adjust my stake (including down to zero) if say a star player is out, or there has been a managerial change or some other game-changer, the selection is still that so far as the records are concerned.

What about Emp’s closing line? If someone else wants X’s subjective opinion and that happens to be diametrically opposed to his system I don’t think that’s unethical or a conflict of interest.

But what if you know for sure (as shown above) that your subjective opinion isn’t very good and leads to losses? Is it then ethical to continue to tell some people that they should make bets that you know are long-term losers? Pete confirmed that the bets he places are the Account Bets, so you could argue there is some hypocrisy here. “In my opinion you should do this, but I am actually doing the opposite myself”.

So far as Anonymous is concerned, he has this to say on Peter's response::

Well first things first that clears up nothing. The explanation makes as much sense as having different selections for paying and non-paying viewers. If Matchbook are happy to just have subjective views that's one thing, but why would you have them in the first place, if you have a successful situational model for paying subscribers (are you not convinced of its worth?)....ignoring your own businesses advice is pretty damning evidence of its quality.

Matchbook just want eyeballs and to maybe drum up a little interest on the game featured (the Top televised matches for the Premier League and Champions League), and bring in a little business. They have no interest in the quality of any recommendations. I doubt that many people read such write-ups and blindly go out and follow the summary recommended bet, but I could be wrong.

Now I hasten to add that I have 'known' Peter for a very long time, and in my opinion he is a genuine and hard-working person. I don't necessarily agree with some of his ideas, but if we all agreed on everything all the time, it would be a boring world with little value to be found, and the bottom line is that I believe Pete means well, but when the web gets a little tangled with conflicting recommendations, it's perfect that Analytical Spider crawls down the drainpipe to offer this comment: 

Interesting one this. I kind of agree with Emp but I definitely have some issues with Pete's response. I've constructed different models that have proven over a long period of time to be profitable and yet, because of the different criteria used they will - very occasionally - offer opposing outcomes as value bets.

I like Pete and don't think it's an integrity issue as has been alleged but surely amongst the biggest gambling follies is going with subjective judgement bets. Unless you're betting on niche markets or lesser known markets I find it highly unlikely there are many if any serious bettors betting weekly on the big leagues, using their opinion and making long term profits. I've never met or heard of any and I've met a few having been a full-time trader/gambler for 10 years.

Given Pete's apparently got a successful data based strategy I find it a little strange he'd even want to offer subjective opinion (certainly on one like an over/under market in the prem).

Personally I've found the longer you're successful at betting the more you realise how fallible opinion is (certain markets/situations excluded) and I'd tend to agree with the above comment that it doesn't reflect well on the quality of his model.

The model Pete uses is a topic for another day, but I have serious doubts over how reliable a generic comparison of Category B teams v Category D teams can be.

September Struggles

The changing on the month to October didn't bring about any change in The Football Analyst's fortunes. Four midweek selections all lost, including Ipswich Town to win at Derby County, a game they led 4-1 at half-time before Derby came back for the draw.

Punters' Friend, Forza Fizzer and Emp all had selections too, but nothing startling, as my Dad likes to say, and no changes in places. Graeme does slip even further adrift at the bottom though, (now -20.44 points) and his current liability to anyone finishing ahead of him at the end of the season is currently £325. Last month, TFA fan Mark commented:

Followed Graeme's soccer bets for a long time and I would take 1.5 on him topping this league at the end of season. Any takers?

If there are any takers, I am happy to act as a go between, but Mark may be having second thoughts about that price by now. The saving grace for Graeme is that no one else is exactly setting the football tipping world alight this season, and Graeme himself had this to say before dropping another 4 points last night:

Based on the games I’ve rated so far this season, Homes are in profit (10%), Draws are losing (-20%) and Aways are losing (-20%). Overall, a loss of 25%+ if backing 1pt on every outcome of every game I’ve rated. Long-term, my data suggests you lose 5% backing each outcome on average although over a few hundred bets, it does vary wildly. Can’t recall too many times in the time I’ve been doing this where I’ve seen a bias towards homes as much as this (seen a few times where there has been a big bias towards Aways or Draws in a sample of a few hundred bets) but it is really skewing my P&L for all my systems. Home value bets had a great month in my rating algorithms (algorithm 3 got 20 from 27 correct on Homes!) but Aways have had their worst ever month. Aways make up 75% of my overall bet volume as it’s always much easier to find better value on Aways in my rating algorithms.

Early days though and things should turn around. Not sure I’d be pricing myself at 1.50 to win the FTL league even if someone else thought I was a value bet then. I’ve surely drifted out to something much bigger! Getting towards my sort of value price now I would suggest. ;)

September's totals were disappointing for the big-hitters in the FTL.

TFA lost 16.44, Premier Betting lost 6.40, Football Elite dropped 3.02 and Skeeve lost 0.98.

Having a good month were the XX Draws Under 2.5 which gained 2.08, Peter Nordsted's Drawmaster up 3.14, the new Cassini Value Selections +3.16 and the XX Draws up 7.58 which was despite losing the first eight bets of the month. Like Danish bacon, draws can be streaky. They are having a decent run right now with 16 winners (+15.58) from the last 39 games, which sounds good, but they are still in the red overall which is a little embarrassing.

Red All Under

I mentioned yesterday that Peter Nordsted was in very heavily on the Unders in the Everton v Newcastle United game, recommending account bets on the Under 1.5, Under 2.5, Under 3.5 and also on the Draw, which of course goes hand-in-hand with Unders.

And the Draw was also one of Pete's Drawmaster selections, so I was therefore a little puzzled to see Peter say on Twitter on Monday:

Now it is of course certainly quite possible for the draw and for the home win to be value, but it is strange to recommend one bet in one place and another bet from the same market (Match Odds) in another.

The answer to this puzzle is certainly not in the price movement. Everton tightened quite considerably during the day, coming in from the 1.68 or so I recommended the bet at, to around 1.6 just before kick-off, so to jump horses from the drifting draw to shortening Everton wouldn’t make any sense.

Anyway, I’d moved on with my life, at least until Anonymous mentioned in a comment that:

If you look at Pete’s Matchbook advice in the Everton game that he says “over 2.5 goals offers value at 1.91” so bizarre that he should advise clients to back unders. Perhaps it’s an error and it was backing Overs in all…. which would make a huge difference to the table. That’s the only explanation as otherwise all credibility would be lost.

The plot thickens, as my Dad likes to say, and unfortunately, error is not the explanation. Each individual price on the under 1.5, 2.5 and 3.5 bets was listed complete with bookmaker and besides, if Overs was the intended bet, then the draw is not going to be value.

So unlike the Draw / Everton split, where both could be value as I said, here we have specific directly opposite suggestions of value - Over 2.5 goals at 1.91 in one place (Matchbook) and Under 2.5 goals at 2.05 in another (Account Bets). With a slight over-round on those prices, they cannot both be value. It's unfortunate, but mathematics and probability don’t work that way.

It’s not the first time that conflicting advice has come from Peter. Some of you on Twitter may have seen and recall a three-way conversation between Peter (@petenordsted), Richard Allen (@Reeshah_uk) and myself (@calciocassini) back in June, where Richard Tweeted about an MLS prediction of Pete’s:

I helpfully chimed in with the following, rather succinct and logical, contributions:

Pete stops by and reads this blog, so hopefully he will have an explanation, and this confusion will be over.

Or under.

Scrambled Eggs

Another weekend over, but the fun continues with midweek matches and selections from at least Emp in play.

The table has a familiar look about it, with the XX Draws at the top, albeit the Under 2.5 option. Eight winners from the twelve weekend selections was enough to lift them to the top. The XX Draws themselves had a good weekend for the second week running, with six winners and an 8.84 point profit. Still in the red after a slow start, and at one time down by 17.85 points, the current loss of 2.27 is almost pleasing. The Cassini Value selections are new this week, ineligible for prize money, but as I mentioned last week, I have been sending these out to XX Draw subscribers as a bonus, and with five winners from six, we're off to a good start, but too early to take the ROI seriously.

Emp added Everton to his weekend selections, and reduced his loss on the weekend a little, and Webbo made a big move in points, if not in places. Rubicon ended the weekend up exactly one point, but a disastrous weekend for Peter Nordsted's Premier Betting service compounded by his expectation of a low scoring game tonight between Everton and Newcastle United, which saw an EPL home team score three in the first half for the first time this season. With selections in the Under 1.5, Under 2.5 and Under 3.5, Peter was putting a lot of eggs into the unders basket, and unfortunately it was dropped. The Premier Betting Official Selections (leaders last week) were down by 11.34 points, and the FTL selections lost 6.02 points and both fall sharply in the rankings to 15th and 13th respectively.

As always, please point out any errors or omissions, and I will review and correct them as necessary.

BTTS, Win To Nil, And Clean Sheets

I had an email from Tony, who wrote:

It's always interesting to see your line on a game.

I'm assuming this comes from your ELO methods and certainly picks up on the fact Everton now haven't conceded a home league goal in 636 minutes.

My own line, which is 'not active' as its based on insufficient games this season has Everton at 1.77 and the under/over at 2.08/1.93

It made me think you might see value in the both teams to score market.

My line for that is 1.93 which is where the market is - your model has a higher Everton likely score so your chances of Newcastle being zero must be higher.

First of all, to clarify - it is Elo, not ELO. Elo is not an initialism. Elo ratings are named after Arpad Elo, a chess master who come up with the basic idea for the United States Chess Federation to improve upon the Harkness rating system they formerly employed.

The Both Teams To Score market is simply another derivative of the goal expectancy values. As I have write before, if your estimate of these numbers is more accurate than the market's, then there are multiple ways to profit. If your estimate is lower, then there is obviously going to be value in the Unders markets, and in all of them, not just the Under 1.5 and the Under 3.5, but also there will be value on the draw and on Both Teams Not To Score, as well as several Correct Scores and assorted other related bets.

In my opinion, too many people complicate their betting unnecessarily. If you expect less goals than the market, back the Under at whatever level your risk tolerance is best suited. If you like short losing runs, back the Under 3.5 or Under 4.5. If you're comfortable with longer losing runs, bet at the Under 2.5 level, and if you like the longer prices and can tolerate the associated even longer losing runs, back the Under 1.5 or even the 0-0. They all offer value, if your expectations are correct.

As well as the Both Teams To Score market (essentially a double bet - you are betting using tonight's game as an example, on Everton scoring [Yes or No] and on Newcastle United scoring [Yes or No]), there are also markets such as Everton Win To Nil, (another double - Everton have to score, Newcastle United have to not score), and Newcastle United Clean Sheet? (i.e. Everton not to score), but the point is that all these markets are determined by the goal expectancies.

On the subject of Doubles, I mentioned on September 9th that:

Skeeve maintains his first place, but worth mentioning is the bad luck he has had with his official double bets, having had six all so far come up empty, or rather come up with one winner and one loser. If your double is going to lose, at least the selections could have the decency of both losing or both winning!

In the long run, it makes no difference if you back selections in singles or doubles. Two selections can both win, both lose, or win one and lose the other. On a coin toss, you will win 3 units one time in four, and lose one unit the other three times and thus break even. You might as well just back them in singles so far as I am concerned, and doing just that, Skeeve would be up by approximately 1.57 points rather than down by 7.81. I say approximately because I use the Pinnacle closing prices while the Official bets are recorded earlier by Skeeve. While such a discrepancy is unlikely to last, (a couple of doubles coming in will soon reduce that difference), I'm not sure the irritation of one winner / one loser splits is a price worth paying for the rarer longer priced winning double. Again, it's all down to risk tolerance. If you can detach yourself from the short-term and see the big picture, then it makes no difference as I said, but if you prefer a smoother ride, then singles are the way to go.

FTL, NFL And Un-BIRGing

I won't publish the latest FTL table until tonight's Everton v Newcastle United game is in the books, as a few people have selections. 

Premier Betting, Rubicon and Webbo all have selections, as do I with another Cassini Value Selection, although their 100% winning came to end at four selections, but the 'all selections end in 2-0' run continued as Getafe beat the value winning by that score at Espanyol.

Here's a quick run down of those entries who are done for the weekend. 

Emp's 23 selections included 10 winners, but a small loss of 1.93 points overall.

Skeeve found two winners from four selections, but made a small loss on the weekend, and Forza Fizzer continued his recent slump with two more losing selections. 

After two profitable weekends backing draws, Punters' Friend Neil came down to earth with a bump finding just one this weekend from 12 selections and a record 8.22 point loss. It rather highlights the challenge with backing draws - two weeks ago, it seemed like the Holy Grail when he found five draws from nine selections, but then you get weekends like this one where almost nothing goes your way. 

Football Elite found one winner from three selections, a lay of Monaco which wasn't enough to make a profit with the weekend resulting in a 0.67 loss. 

Fedslam made a little under 3 points on the back of Aston Villa's win over Manchester City, and Skeeve's Official bets made a 2 point loss. 

The two Bundeslayga selections came up with one winner for a small profit on the weekend, and Scatter Gun found three winners from his standard ten, but for a small loss.

And then there's The Football Analyst, for whom the good news was that he managed to improve on last week's loss of 5.31 points. The bad news was that it was by just one-hundredth of a point in a loss of 5.30 points. I'm sure 

I'll cover the 'live' entries later tonight or tomorrow. 

To the NFL now, and a much better weekend for John Walsh's selections up 4.26 points with seven winners and two losses.

Overall an excellent set of results, but that last loss hurt. With a lot of money looking to back the New England Patriots at 1.01 too early in my opinion, (as I often comment on), I gave up a lot of traded profit laying it. The Falcons came close to taking the game to overtime, but came up one touchdown short. It was high drama at Cassini HQ, and although I evened things up slightly and made £300 before commission, it felt like a loss. 

The regular baseball season ended yesterday, but there is plenty of drama still to come with a tiebreaker game tonight between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Texas Rangers. After that, there are wild-card games on Tuesday and Wednesday before the play-off series begin on Thursday (American League) and Friday (National League). Liquidity has been rather poor of late, well, all season really, but it is a good trading sport when there is some money around. Plenty of pauses and win probabilities for every game state based on well over a hundred years of data.

Finally, I mentioned BIRGing a few days ago, something we all do to some extent or another, but an odd choice of words from Ian Holloway after Crystal Palace's latest defeat shows that perhaps he is attempting to do quite the opposite:

"We need to dig in and find ourselves. I won't keep them [Palace] up if we keep making mistakes. We need to be more clinical and stop making errors."

Them!

Suicide, Skipping And Tissues

A couple of comments on the last couple of posts to address. Emp is suicidal after failing to include West Bromwich Albion to win at Manchester United this afternoon, writing:

And I now feel like killing myself- Forgot to mention my last pick WBA to win against United, and they lead with 20 mins to go......

Indeed, they did, and that's how it stayed. I mentioned yesterday how your mind sees an event differently depending on where your money is, an similarly I'll bet there was part of Emp wishing that Manchester United would score. Anyone following a system will know that on occasion, it is simply not possible to get the bet placed. If the selection wins, it's annoying because you missed out. If the selection loses, you breathe a sigh of relief and thank fortune for getting the loser out of the way at no cost. This is understandable, but if your system has a positive edge, (and if it doesn't, why are you following it?), over time missing out on bets will cost you whatever the ROI is.

Anonymous was unclear on the selections listed.

Are those all home wins, draws away wins?
I get the Swindon Town @ bit but the others aren't clear

When the selection is listed as Braintree Town v Alfreton for example, the selection is Braintree Town, with the versus Alfreton added for clarification. In other words, the selection is the team first mentioned  unless specified otherwise.

The Football Analyst had three winners from twelve selections, but until the prices are available I won't know whether these would have been profitable to follow or not. I'll summarise after the weekend is over. One person who did have West Bromwich Albion to win is Webbo, a result that will certainly help his numbers.

One oddity from Peter Nordsted's Account Bet selections this weekend was the selection of  Over 1.5 and Over 3.5 goals in the Hull City v West Ham United game. What puzzles me is why the Over 2.5 goals is omitted. If the expected goals exceeds the market's expectation, then every Over.5 goals market should be value. The logic of skipping the 2.5 goals market escapes me. In the event, Overs was not a winner with just one goal (a penalty) being scored. Incidentally, I had the Under 2.5 goals priced at 1.65 for this game, which leads me to a question I was posed by email by an XX Draws subscriber on a bonus selection I had made. 

Fascinating..just what I have been waiting for...you have 'Selection' at 1.83 whereas Ian at FTS has them at 2.69! and has them as a lay bet at 1.78 accordingly.

I have queried his ratings before on individual ratings that seem blatantly wrong but he won't have it.

Any thoughts?

All I can say is that I have my football pricing spreadsheet, or model sounds better, and it is improving all the time as more and more data is entered. I can't speak for how Ian prices up matches, or indeed if he does at all. Many tipsters seem to offer a selection as value, yet fail to suggest how they come to this conclusion. No model is 'correct', but some are better than others, and looking at a small sample is meaningless. However, if Ian consistently prices a team at 2.69 and I have the same team at 1.68 (not 1.83 as stated in the email by the way), then clearly one model needs some adjustment.

In my opinion, the only way that you can make the statement that something is value is to price it up yourself, and be able to support your opinion with data. If you are consistently wrong, then you need to revisit your spreadsheet / model and make some changes. Ultimately all prices come down to the goal expectancies - if your expectation of goals is consistently too high for example, then you need to see why and fix it. Maybe it is too high for some leagues and not for others. Again, keeping records is essential.

For example, for tomorrow's Stoke City v Norwich City match, I have the following:

H: 2.11   D: 3.56   A: 4.07   U: 1.85   O: 2.18

As XX Draw subscribers can confirm, when I mention a team as value, I give the price that I think they should be priced at. The four selections so far have been at 1.7 (my price 1.6), 2.12 (1.82), 1.68 (1.52) and 2.03 (1.77). 

I could be wrong, and stand to be corrected, but the feeling I get is that among the FTL tipsters, only The Football Analyst keeps detailed statistics and prices up matches like I do. Skeeve uses his knowledge of the leagues he covers to form his opinions, while Matt at Football Elite looks for strengths or trends that may have been missed by the market (although this strategy may be less effective in recent seasons than it was once). Peter Nordsted looks at a more broader set of historical statistics such as how teams from one category have fared when playing teams from another.

There's no right or wrong approach - just whatever works for you. I lean towards objectivity and an emphasis on data, but the weakness here is that it doesn't account for 'soft' issues such as changes in manager or injuries or suspensions etc. Others lean towards studying line ups and a detailed knowledge of their league with merely a nod towards data. The overall total from the FTL shows how difficult it is to get ahead in football betting, and how people approach solving this puzzle is interesting. 

Late Selections

The Football Analyst's selections for this weekend are:

Braintree Town v Alfreton
FC Halifax Town v Chester
Hydea @ Lincoln City
Ipswich Town v Brighton and Hove Albion
Swindon Town @ Preston North End
AFC Wimbledon @ Cheltenham Town
Bury @ Dagenham and Redbridge
Yorquay United @ Newport County
Morecambe @ Northampton Town
Accrington Stanley @ Plymouth Argyle
Hibernian @ Inverness Caledonian Thistle
Partick Thistle @ St Johnstone

Emp had some late additions:

Back Arsenal @ Swansea City
Back Manchester City v Aston Villa
Back Cardiff City v Fulham
Back West Ham United v Hull City
Back Crystal Palace v Southampton
Back Liverpool vs Sunderland

Tips And Counterbets

The only profitable non-service in the FTL currently is Emp, and his selections, and there are a few of them, are here (additional punctuation on the Bundelsiga selections provided by Emp, not myself, and note that the Borussia Moenchengladbach bet already lost last night):

Championship
Lay Nottingham Forest v Derby County
Back Bolton Wanderers v Yeovil Town
Back Burnley v Charlton Athletic
Back Brighton and Hove Albion at Ipswich Town
Back Barnsley at Leicester City
Lay Millwall v Leeds United
Back Queens Park Rangers v Middlesborough
Back Reading v Birmingham City
Lay Sheffield Wednesday v Doncaster Rovers
Back Watford v Wigan Athletic

Bundesliga
Back Borussia Moengladbach at Augsburg
Back Freiburg at Borussia Dortmund (!)
Lay Hertha Berlin v Mainz '05
Lay Hoffenheim v Schalke '04
Back Hannover '96 at Bayer Leverkusen (??!)
Back Eintracht Frankfurt v Hamburg
Lay Werder Bremen v Nuremberg

Nothing received from Fedslam or indeed The Football Analyst yet. There were a few selections from the FTL in play last night. Skeeve selected Kidderminster Harriers (v Aldershot Town) but the game ended 0-0.

Football Elite went for Augsburg (v Borussia Moenchengladbach) but that ended in a draw 2-2, as did the XX Draw selection from La Liga of Real Valladolid v Malaga. I'll take the win, but as I have written before, 2-2 draws are too fortuitous to take any pride in.

A few posts ago, I suggested that the better a trader, the closer their long-term average win size was to their average loss size. The discussion continues on the Betfair Forum, although disappointingly not too many people are either willing or able to offer their numbers.

U.A. wrote:

You state that "When you watch enough games, you develop a sense for when the price is wrong". You also state that "I suspect that I cut my winners too short and let my losers run too long".

Why do you think that you can sense a price that is wrong when you place your original bet but not when you place your counterbet? Especially if you conducting a large number of trades on a game. Or do you feel that even though the price is wrong you just can't help but place the counterbet. I find this concept particularly interesting in light of the fact that you don't trade football and that you are referring to markets where there isn't a sudden massive price change. I.e. there shouldn't be the fear of something like a goal which would mean a big price change and consequently a big loss.

It's an interesting question, and my answer was that it's:

Because I am not totally detached when it comes to trading. When I am out of a market, with no exposure, it's relatively easy to identify a price that is wrong and enter the market, and if I enter with a small stake, it is easy to override the emotion of fear and exit at the right time.

What often happens is that in the heat of battle, there's no time to calculate Kelly, so I end up with a higher risk than I am comfortable with. As I mentioned in my rather amusing When Bets Go Wild post of June 2011, I know I'm in too deep when my breathing changes. It's a combination of risk and value, so a larger amount my not trigger the feeling of panic if the value is that much greater. In these circumstances, the overriding emotion is fear, so the tendency is to at least look to reduce the exposure somewhat, even if this is at the cost of giving up some value.

As I wrote in December 2011, [Prospect Theory], quoting from a study by Tversky and Khaneman, who "found that contrary to expected utility theory, people placed different weights on gains and losses and on different ranges of probability. They found that individuals are much more distressed by prospective losses than they are happy by equivalent gains. Some economists have concluded that investors typically consider the loss of $1 dollar twice as painful as the pleasure received from a $1 gain. They also found that individuals will respond differently to equivalent situations depending on whether it is presented in the context of losses or gains."

The last piece is interesting. Depending on where your money is, you see games very differently. If you want a team to score a basket with five seconds left, your thoughts during the time-out tend towards the improbability of it. "They're never going to score", but when you are on the other side of the same game, your mind keeps telling you that there is no way they can fail to score. That time-out gives too much time for thinking, and the cost of giving up a little value but guaranteeing a profit either way can often seem worth it. In a way, this trading out at a less than optimal price is adjusting the risk to a more Kelly like level, but there's a 'peace of mind' factor in play too.

Even though this is a hobby, I don't like to lose, and while I would like to think that I am a cool detached trader, I know that I am not, and giving up a little profit to ensure a less stressful life and smooth out the ups and downs of trading seems to be worth it. In my opinion, to be able to trade optimally, you need to remove emotions from the picture, but that's easier said than done.

And incidentally, price swings can be quite extreme in sports other than football, especially later in a game. The fear of giving up a late, game-changing score, is very much alive and well in many sports.

2-0 Consistency

Last week, I decided to give away a couple of my top rated value selections from across the big five leagues to the XX Draw subscribers, and after both won, thought I would throw in some more from the midweek matches. I'm a generous chap. Another two winners midweek, but the remarkable thing about all four wins - two home, two away - is that they were all by 2-0. Boring is good. The odds on all four winning were 12.29 (Pinnacle odds) but on all four winning 2-0? High!

I'll add these into the FTL table from next week, but I won't make them eligible for prize money to give others a chance. Oh no - I'm turning into The Football Analyst! Seriously, I'm more interested in how they compare with the comparable Football Elite or Premier Betting account bets who pull from the same leagues as me.

Speaking of Football Elite, and they dropped a point as Granada went down 0-1 to Valencia. I had this as an XX Draw and was thus a little peeved to see the visitors win it in the 90+4'. Two other selections finished 2-0 (Nantes v Nice) and 1-1 (promoted Livorno v Cagliari). So three wins for the Under 2.5 selections, and Peter Nordsted's Drawmaster selection was also Livorno v Cagliari, so a little movement a the top.

Lifting Spirits

Anyone who has been a reader of this blog for the past year or so will know that I long ago highlighted the value in backing Barack Obama to win last November’s US Presidential Election. Nate Silver doesn’t get too much wrong, and some might say nor does Cassini, but there were doubters out there, Al springs to mind, who were of the opinion that Romney would win. Fortunately for the world, Al and his ilk were completely wrong, and fortunately for my trading balance, I was right.

The difference in prices between Betfair and Intrade was commented on at the time, a great arbitrage opportunity for those with an Intrade account, and one possible reason for the discrepancy is highlighted in the study reported below, with Intrade at the time being accessible to the US, while Betfair isn’t.

As the study concludes, there is a possibility that the trade was simply about "market manipulation for political purposes" and whoever lost the money really didn't care. If the losses on Intrade were matched or exceeded by profits elsewhere, then this would make sense. Lose $7 million by artificially boosting a price and attract donations of $8 million that would otherwise not have been made, and the strategy makes sense, and offers a big opportunity for those who can identify the strategy at the time. Clearly something strange was going on, and as Al showed during the days leading up to the election, any reduction in Obama’s implied probability of winning triggered (misplaced and temporary) elation.

The study suggests that “such dynamics are most likely to arise in electoral prediction markets and in sports betting”. When Crystal Palace and Watford played their £120 million play-off final last May, I wondered if the boards of both clubs had looked into hedging by having a big bet on the other team to win. It would certainly have made sense to have guaranteed something from the game (other than the relatively insignificant gate receipts which by tradition go to the losing club). A few million in the market pushing Palace’s price down to evens and the board can say to prospective season ticket holders or other investors “According to Betfair, we have a 50% chance of playing in the Premier League next season”. And with an artificially low price comes the opportunity to back or lay the hell out of it.

The study also mentions that “Some voters appear to have a preference for affiliation with a winning candidate”, BIRGing I believe it is called (Basking In Reflected Glory), and so it is with sports teams. How often this phenomenon offers a value opportunity in the betting markets these days is debatable, but occasionally it does appear that someone is willing to show their support at an unjustified level.

Here’s the article from Yahoo! in full:

Romney loss cost trader up to $7 million: Study

Mitt Romney may have taken the fall in the 2012 presidential election, but the trader who bet as much as $7 million on the Republican nominee was the one who took the hit.

An unidentified fan of the former Massachusetts governor flooded former online wagering site InTrade in the weeks before the election, wagering heavily that President Barack Obama was about to go down to defeat, according to an academic study released this month.

The consequences were twofold-an enormous loss for the wrong-way bettor, and an example of how such sites can be manipulated by one person with a clever betting strategy.

David M. Rothschild of Microsoft Research in New York and Rajiv Sethi at Barnard College believe the trader in question was using a strategy that not only sought personal gain but also looked to raise spirits.

Much of the wagering, they said, was done on Election Day "and at other critical moments of the campaign."

More plausibly, this trader could have been attempting to manipulate beliefs about the odds of victory in an attempt to boost fundraising, campaign morale, and turnout.

In all, the paper looked at a 15-day period during which 3.5 million contracts were traded between 3,200 accounts on Intrade-which has since been disbanded under regulatory pressure-and Betfair.

The sites were popular places for bettors to play the election, and the trends reflecting the probable results were cited frequently by the media:

The single largest trader was responsible for more than one-sixth of (double-counted) total volume, with more than 1.2 million contracts bought or sold in about 13,000 distinct transactions. The most frequent trader engaged in almost 34,000 transactions, accounting for more than 20 percent of (double-counted) total observations. The largest 32 traders (just 1% of the trading population) were responsible for 60% of volume, while the 32 most frequent traders accounted for 57% of transactions.

One of those traders clearly went all-in for Romney.

Trader A was responsible for one-third of the total money on Romney over the two weeks in our sample, and about a quarter over the entire cycle. The result was a loss of close to four million dollars over the two week period, and a likely loss of almost seven million overall. What could possibly have motivated this activity? Given that the trader bet on Romney and not Obama, we can rule out cross-market arbitrage with Betfair as a motivation.

This leaves three possibilities: (i) the trader was convinced that Romney was underpriced throughout the period and was expressing a price view, (ii) he was hedging an exposure held elsewhere, or (iii) he was attempting to distort prices in the market for some purpose.

Ultimately, the analysis "leaves open the possibility" that the trade was simply about "market manipulation for political purposes" and whoever lost the money really didn't care.

The trading losses, while hardly trivial, pale in comparison with the cost of contemporary political campaigns. Beliefs about the likelihood of victory are important determinants of fundraising as well as volunteer effort and morale.

Some voters appear to have a preference for affiliation with a winning candidate, and are prepared to abandon those seen as likely to lose. Turnout can also be affected by perceived candidate viability. Intrade was among the most closely watched indicators of campaign vitality, resulting in incentives for price manipulation to boost support, donations, effort and morale prior to the election and turnout while voting was in progress. The last swing state to close its polls was Colorado at 9pm ET (7 pm local time), and this is almost exactly when the floor in the Romney contract gave way.

The paper found the manipulation of the market successful at least to a point, with the trading strategy remaining intact even if Obama still won the election.

Similar strategies, Rothschild and Sethi said, could find their way into the stock market.

Such dynamics are most likely to arise in electoral prediction markets and in sports betting, but similar effects may well exist also for common stock. Especially in the case of consumer durables, attachment to products and the companies that make them is widespread. It would not be surprising if one were to find Apple or Samsung partisans among investors, just as one finds them among consumers.

Americas Cup - Round 19

Once every (usually) three, four or five years, depending on legal wrangling, I become slightly interested in sailing when the Americas Cup reaches its closing stages. This year's is proving somewhat remarkable. For the first time, the final is a best of 17, beating the previous high of best of 9 by some distance, and the USA started effectively on -2 after being caught cheating in March's warm-ups. With an 8-1 lead, New Zealand, not surprisingly, traded at 1.01 on the exchanges. At 8-2, the Kiwis were well clear in the 13th race but they failed to beat the time limit due to light winds in San Francisco Bay and the race was voided.

And now after seven straight wins, (talk about momentum), the USA team has tied the final, and set up a winner take all race today at around 9:15pm. The last time an America's Cup went to a similar outcome, was in 1983 - when the Australian challengers came from 1-3 down to 3-3 in a best of 7. I well remember laying in my sleeping bag on the floor of the living room of my granddad's North Devon bungalow watching the Australians clinch the win 4-3 and hand the USA its first loss in 132 years. It was quite exciting, but my Nan (also a Cassini) was buried the next day, and it didn't seem appropriate to talk about it too much over drinks and nibbles, but for some reason the memory of watching the sailing the night before is as strong as those of the funeral itself almost exactly 30 years on.  The USA are down to 1.31 to win, and as excited as they get about play-off game sevens, one can only imagine how crazy they must be going over a 'game' 17 (or is it 19?)

The Football Analyst picked up one winner from two last night as Braintree Town won at Wrexham. Nuneaton Town did not win the top of the table clash at Cambridge United though, and were hardly likely too with the hosts having a Crystal Palace star in the team, and one who couldn't have been Appiah to score...

No joy for anyone else (Forza Fizzer dropped on point, and Punters' Friend dropped two) and there are some matches in-play tonight for XX Draws and Football Elite. With form starting to settle down, I've started sending out a couple of bonus value selections with the XX Draws, and I probably shouldn't say this but they are currently three out of three. AS Roma, Atletico Madrid on Saturday, and Malaga last night. And one more in action tonight. No selections from Skeeve from the Conference games, and the poor start that most football tipsters are making to the season has brought these comments from my old friend Steve the Hamper Man - Warning - the below contains bad language. Do not read any further if you are under 18 or of a sensitive disposition.

Onto Soccer, what can I say. I don’t usually swear but FUCK it’s shit. The one positive if you can call it that was the fact that FB Elite didn’t make a loss. He made a whopping $650 profit. Combo FI lost $500. But it was the big two again that failed miserably. Let’s first talk about Skeeve, after just the other week saying he was going to down stakes he does quite well last week and the next week is back to full stakes and loses them all. A $4,800 loss and the excuses were inexcusable. Now he is saying that it is always the case that the first half of the season is terrible, if that’s the case then why did he not do this analysis before and realise he has no clue early in the season. We are now stuck once again with the hope of a good second half, but what happens when it ends up being as bad as the start? I don’t mind (well I do) losing the money, but I really hate the excuses. If they were valid then fair enough, but in my worthless opinion they are just crap. Really not sure what to do at the moment, but will continue to ride it out and see what happens, as always, will only stop if the bank goes to zero. Onto an even bigger loss for TFA, I have just combined all the models I follow into one as it was getting too time consuming to update them all each week. This weeks loss was over $10,000 for the second week in a row. At this rate the bank will be dead in the next month or so. Surprisingly I still have some confidence in TFA, only because I see the results and that we are betting value. Value is pointless if they all lose, but if it were for a bit of luck, I could easily be sitting on a small loss. I can see this model turning things around in quick fashion and really hope it does. If it doesn’t then I will be as harsh with TFA as I am with Skeeve. Lets hope that both perform so well over the coming months that they can tell me to shut the fuck up for writing such horrible things about them.

The life of a tipster is not an easy one. In many ways, you are only as good as your last couple of weeks. Doubts soon creep in as to whether the edge has gone, or the tipster somehow has lost his touch, however long a profitable record he may have had.

Steve is wrong with his suggestion that "value is pointless if they all lose". Value doesn't guarantee anything short-term, but if we don't have value, we are guaranteed to lose in the long run. It's someone who really doesn't understand betting who is happier with winning a fair coin toss at 1.7 than losing a coin toss at 2.3. Value IS the point.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds Graeme's numerous systems and numbering a little confusing. Fortunately, the selections for the FTL are straightforward enough, and I can just about understand those.

One obvious problem tipsters have is that their selections reveal a lot about their strategy, and opens the door to copycats. Football Elite was the inspiration for me rating the top five leagues in Europe, the same five that Matt dips into for his selections. If Matt had a few seasons of profitably backing in Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Scotland and Russia, my direction may have been different.

Emp commented that he wasn't only thinking in terms of smoothly transitioning promoted teams by ranking lower leagues, but also of being able to profit from them. He has a point. Skeeve finds value - at least after Xmas :) - in the fifth and sixth (south) levels of the English game, and as I have said before, but still done nothing about, this may well be a good league to keep ratings on and track true form. Time is a factor though. I spend long enough sitting in front of my PC updating my spreadsheet as it is. Hard to believe that the Conference is almost a quarter the way through the season as well.

Ranking Rabat Ajax

The Football Analyst lost his last bet of the weekend last night as Leyton Orient maintained their impressive 100% so the bottom of the FTL table now looks like this:

With a full slate of Conference games tonight, we may see Graeme dipping his feet in the currently icy waters again. 

There are also a full schedule of matches in Ligue 1, Serie A and La Liga so the XX Draws selections will be in action.

Emp, no doubt feeling rather happy right now, commented on my post on subjectivity / objectivity:

Couldn't agree more Cassini. If you wait till all is clear, there is no longer a price. I think the best opportunities are when other intelligent players feel that they don't want to be involved.

Two points to note:

a) If you were rating the lower league as well, there is no problem with promoted/relegated teams as you can have a seamless transition (unless of course 500M worth of incoming transfers off-season)

b) On transfers and things like that, I think it's just not possible to know precisely what impact new signings/departures/suspensions have, given that football is so team-oriented, that I don't know any particular way to predict whether loss of cohesion offsets improved quality, what the actual quality of transferred players is; etc. I am happy to defer to stats under most circumstances.

And another note, updated table? I have a sneaking suspicion I might have catapulted close to the lead.

The sneaking suspicion was correct. At one time, I did rate all the English teams down to the Level 6 Regional Conference Leagues, but replaced those with the top leagues in France, Germany, Italy and Spain. apart from taking a huge amount of time, the rankings are always from a season of games against lower division teams, and promoted teams usually make changes to prepare, and so in my opinion they would be of limited value, and certainly not worth the effort needed to maintain them. The Euro Club Index site ranks 714 teams, from Barcelona to Malta's Rabat Ajax (Barcelona being the top rated by the way).

Not a great weekend for John Walsh's NFL tips, with just two winners from nine selections:

Empire Strikes Back

FTL As Of 22.Sep.2013

A new leader after the weekend's results, with the Premier Betting Official account bets taking over at the top, but from a prize money perspective top place currently goes to Emp.

Peter Nordsted's Official bets fared better than his FTL qualifying bets due to multiple winning bets on various unders in the Liverpool v Southampton game as well as on the Half-Time score market.

Emp had  a mere 20 bets, with 13 winners and a profit of 7.11 points, while Skeeve slipped with just one winner. The XX Draws Under bets lost 0.58 points with six winners from twelve, while Forza Fizzer split two under bets in Scotland for a small loss.

No luck for the three Drawmaster selections, but Punters' Friend moved up six places with a 1.17 point profit. Football Elite made a small profit with one winner from two, while Fedslam lost 2.81 and Rubicon lost all four.

The Bundeslayga had one winner for three, for another overall loss, while Scatter Gun had his worst weekend yet with a 4.6 point loss.

Webbo had two winners from ten, and the XX Draws picked up 1.79 points with four winners from 12 including three perfect draws. A 90th minute missed penalty by Stuttgart helped the numbers and repaid us some luck.

And last, but possibly not least by the end of today, is The Football Analyst. 3 winners and 10 losers from the 13 matches played so far, but Graeme will likely move out of last place if Brentford (currently 2.09) can beat 100% Leyton Orient in the last game of the weekend. Currently his bounty liability is £325.

As always, any errors are unintentional - just let me know and I will confirm the numbers. Happy Autumn.

Subjective Objectivity

The inclusion of Sassuolo v Internazionale in this weekend's XX Draw selections no doubt raised a few eyebrows, including my own, but an objective spreadsheet doesn't read facial expressions too well, only numbers. With the season only three games old, the numbers for promoted teams, including Sassuolo, are largely guesswork, and as mentioned by Scott in an email today:

Selections involving newly promoted teams seem intuitively flawed, although it would be interesting to see if the numbers support this.

While we won't know until a few more games have been played how bad Sassuolo are, with four losses (including today's 0-7) and one goal scored, 15 conceded, it's fair to say that they are not looking too good. They did win Serie B last season and only one Serie B champion in the last 10 years has been immediately relegated (which was Pescara last season - more on those little devils later). I see a new trend starting. With Sassuolo's home ground having a capacity of 4,000, they play at Reggiana's stadium this year so perhaps all games should be treated as away fixtures?

I had a look at last season's promoted teams and how they fared when selected, and interestingly the worst league was Serie A. Pesky Pescara were selected 13 times, and not once did they oblige with a draw. Sampdoria were also selected 13 times, drawing only twice, but Torino helped out with four draws from nine selections. Promoted teams in Serie A thus had a strike rate of 6 from 35 (17.1%) and implied odds of 5.83. Clearly we would have been better off in this league by excluding promoted teams.

At the other end of the spectrum is the English Premier league, where the promoted teams were a combined 12 from 31 - a much healthier 38.7% and implied odds of 2.58. Interesting, again one promoted team (West Ham United) failed to draw any of the eight times they were selected, although Southampton more than made up for it with 8 draws from 13.

Across all five leagues, promoted teams were selected 154 times, and 41 ended in draws (26.6%, implied odds 3.75). Based on this evidence, promoted teams probably should be excluded, but the evidence is from just one season, and I'll continue to include them this season. Perhaps with a disclaimer something like "Warning: The inclusion of newly promoted teams can damage your wealth".

Why should these fourteen or fifteen promoted teams by singled out for special treatment? The reason is that while established teams have a solid rating after at least a year and 34/38 games of adjustment, the initial point allocation is necessarily partially subjective. I wrote an article on this subject a little over a year ago for Betting Expert. This season, I had to break my rules for Monaco and make a manual adjustment, as they were clearly not a typical promoted team. At the time of writing, this decision is somewhat vindicated by the fact that Monaco sit atop the league. Given time, Monaco's ratings would adjust, but to knowingly go several matches with a clearly false rating would have been ridiculous. The problem is where to draw the line. Do I adjust Tottenham Hotspur's rating after Gareth Bale is sold, or temporarily adjust Liverpool's rating while Luis Suarez sits out his latest ban? Clearly these are factors to be taken into account before you place serious money on any game, with the spreadsheet numbers just a starting point, but for the weekend warrior, there is only so much we can do.

Several tipsters seem to be struggling this season. Some say that it is still too early, and caution needs to be paid, and there's nothing wrong with that, but the problem is that if you eliminate too much of the early season, and then start wrapping things up in February because it's near the end of the season, you end up with a couple of weeks in late December or early January when the stars are aligned and it is an auspicious time to bet. I exaggerate of course, but one downside of subjectivity is that there are too many reasons not to make a selection.