Perverted Enthusiasm

We have a new entrant in the Friendly Tipster Competition. Geoff has submitted the required paper work, backgrounds checks are complete, and here are his Draw selections for this weekend:

Barnet v Macclesfield Town (3.6), Bolton Wanderers v Everton (3.5), Atalanta v Napoli (3.3), Hertha Berlin v Bayer Leverkeusen (3.6), Liverpool v Manchester City (3.5), Swansea City v Aston Villa (3.5), Siena v Internazionale (3.4). The prices are as of the time of writing. Other matches with no firm prices were Stockport County v Southport, Livingston v Ross County, Airdrie v Arbroath and Start v Tromso. I'll check those matches closer to kick-off for prices although I have no idea what the liquidity is on non-league, Scottish or Norwegian games! In the interests of time, I may at some point have to limit both the number of selections allowed, and the leagues from which selections can be made, but for now I'll leave it as it is.

You'll all be interested to know that Sunday's Liverpool v Manchester City is a meeting of the joint leaders in the EPL Elo ratings. Liverpool's move to the top is clearly not all down to results, but the supporting numbers suggest that the results will come. I have them priced at 2.75 and they are currently trading around the 2.93 mark, while I have Manchester City at 2.71 which is bang on where the market has them. The draw looks a tad short.

The dice have been thrown again to select three random draw picks, and they are Athletic Bilbao v Granada (4.6), Stoke City v Blackburn Rovers (3.75) and Nuremberg v Kaiserslautern (3.55).

Letters to the Editor

Devilonline asks: "How can I view XX draws tips please?" and the answer is that these are available on a subscription basis, and anyone interested can e-mail me for details at calciocassini @ aol.com - after removing the spaces of course. Historical results can be found at Gold All Over, and if you are already a subscriber, please check your e-mail. Last week we had one subscriber miss the Friday night winner.

Here's another letter to the editor, or more precisely an article by Brian Glanville, presumably a southerner, in the Football League Review of March 1969. Older readers may remember that several clubs would attach these to the programmes back in those days, and they are interesting, and often amusing, to look back on.

"I have before me yet another report of a squalid incident of violence by football fans. This time the culprits were supporters of Exeter City, whose crowd, ironically, was awarded last November's John White Football League Supporters' Award for sportsmanship."

 And later

"The cult of teenaged violence in, and outside, the football stadia seemed to begin, like so much else, in the North, and it wasn't long before it had spread South. In his excellent, diverting book The Soccer Syndrome, John Moynihan humorously bewailed the fact that you couldn't imagine a Chelsea fan with the sheer, perverted enthusiasm to uproot a lavatory bowl from a supporters' train. Well, you can now."

I'm guessing the book was out of date not long after publication, and the police inquiry into the uprooted lavatory bowl was stopped as "they had nothing to go on".

Finally, it's quiz time. If Player A has a higher batting average than Player B in 2009, again in 2010, and again in 2011, will Player A always have the highest batting average when the three years totals are combined?

There's a poll for you to cast your vote.

Match Postponed (Attempted Suicide)

The weekend's football is now wrapped up, and the numbers have been updated.

The Random Draws enter the 'Friendly Table' in last place with an ROI of -100% after three selections, (hard to be worse than that), and the Green Pullover's Draw selections drop from second to third spot after two winners from eleven selections wasn't good enough. Griff's five selections from the EPL produced no winners, while Football Elite found one winner from two selections, with a third selection being postponed (Koln v Mainz '05) postponed as "the referee tried to commit suicide a couple of hours before the game!"

Most inconsiderate of him. Pete Nordsted's Game Of Two Halves system found one winner from three, for a small profit, but with two 0-0 results from two selections, both the XX Draw Selections were winners as draws and as Under selections moving their ROIs to 31% and 14% respectively.

A look back at a couple of comments, one from Betslayer who corrected me on my statement "What I said was that in the world of sports, we all see the game unfolding at the same time and was contrasting this to the world of finance, where we don't"

Just to slightly pick you up on the below, its not true that we all get to watch the game at the same time...doing a time trial last night on the Bundesliga game on ESPN it was at least 10 seconds behind live through cable....about 6 seconds through a dish.....cable now getting unuseable for sports trading/inrunning! Great Blog, loving your work :-)

Well, yes, but I didn't mean it literally as in the exact same second - as the rules on Betfair state

The extent of any such delay may vary, depending on the set-up through which they are receiving pictures or data.

Any event where court-siding is possible is one where a TV viewer will always be at a disadvantage, but if you are trading 'fastest finger', if you are behind, it won't take long to see that. Besides, an edge built on speed is only an edge until someone else gets their 'pictures or data' from the same source as you.

Tradeshark had a valid point on the sports v financials debate with this comment

Point taken although I would have thought the people with real prior knowledge of the figures wouldn't be wasting their time using 20 quid stakes on Betfair

That would probably not be the best use of valuable information!

Purple Patch

Very pleasing to see that the XX Draw Selections finished the weekend with a 100% strike rate when Fiorentina and AC Milan played out another perfect draw after trading at 3.6. Seven 0-0s from the last 26 now, and another win for the Unders. Opening these selections up to subscribers has changed how I view these results. The added responsibility makes the winners that much sweeter.

There are still a couple of matches still to be played from the selections of others this weekend, and I will update the numbers after Monday's matches. 

The random draw selections unsurprisingly went 0-3, but Chelsea v Liverpool pick came close with the draw-breaker coming late.

Rolling On

Another winner last night for the XX Draw Selections, as Toulouse and Lille played out un draw parfait (0-0), meaning another win for the Unders on these selections too. A great start to the weekend, and that is now six 0-0s in the last 25 picks, and the ROI on the season after 55 selections now stands at 26.8%.

Griff's expecting plenty of draws in the EPL this weekend, going for no less than half the card:

and the Green Pullover has even more selections with draws selected in the games at Swansea City (3.4), Middlesbrough (3.6), Reading (3.5), Watford (3.4), Millwall (3.75), AFC Wimbledon (3.6), Bradford City (3.55), Parma (3.25), Villareal (3.45), Valencia (4.4) and Racing Santander (3.35).

I mentioned previously that I would, at random (by throwing a die), come up with three matches each weekend from the Top5 leagues, just for fun and to see how they measure up with other picks, and this weekend's completely random selections are Chelsea v Liverpool (3.7), Juventus v Palermo (4.6) and Stoke City v QPR (3.75). Against the odds, given that there are 49 matches to choose from, but the Chelsea v Liverpool game actually came up twice during this selection process. Make of that what you will, but I had to have a cheeky tenner on it after that. Even stranger, this is one of the EPL games NOT on Griff's or Green Pullover's lists.

jokerjoe had this comment on my advice to get over any ideas about trading the financial markets from your living room yesterday.

Nonsense. Trading pure news even in the sporting arena is a tough game requiring speed. Secondly long-term stock investing is not all that, there can be decades without growth. And finally day-trading is not about trading news. Trading on all timescales is similar, the one advantage with day-trading is being able to read order-flow better though there is less liquidity and smaller ranges.

I'm not sure which piece of my post the 'nonsense' was directed at, but let's take a look at jokerjoe's comment.

To address the first part - "Trading pure news even in the sporting arena is a tough game requiring speed" - I never said that trading pure news wasn't a tough game. What I said was that in the world of sports, we all see the game unfolding at the same time and was contrasting this to the world of finance, where we don't. Thus sports at least offer you the same opportunity to profit as everyone else. Whether or not an individual is able to profit from that opportunity is a different matter. Some people are just better than others at being able to make the most of opportunities. And yes, speed is always of the essence when it comes to opportunities - the older the news becomes, the more people know, and the more that news is factored into the price. The point is that events in sports are pure news, events in finance are not. The release of unemployment figures may be news to the living room trader, but as I explained yesterday, the process of compiling those figures involves many hands and eyes.

Jokerjoe's then dismisses long-term stock investing as being "not all that, there can be decades without growth". The term 'long-term' when applied to investing perhaps needs to be defined. For me it is 20 years plus, and over a 20 year period, stocks have always had a minimum of a 2.4% annual return. That's the minimum, after selecting the worst possible 20 years from the last 140 years. So saying that long-term stock investing "is not all that" is wrong if we agree on that definition of long-term. Three, five or ten years is not long-term. I would be interested to know where jokerjoe invests for the long-term. I hope it's not in bonds, because "stocks have also outperformed bonds — the current investment of choice for risk-averse investors — nearly 100% of the time over 20-year periods since 1871, a Vanguard study found". Of course there have been periods with poor returns, lost decades even, but long-term, the strategy of consistently investing in stocks is hard to beat.

jokerjoe finishes with "And finally day-trading is not about trading news. Trading on all timescales is similar, the one advantage with day-trading is being able to read order-flow better though there is less liquidity and smaller ranges". I never actually said that day-trading was about trading news. What I actually wrote was that day-trading from your living room trying to beat insiders just isn't viable, and the evidence supports that statement. For example:

There have been many studies that have concluded that most day traders lose money, but there have also been studies that documented successful trading by day traders. The data currently available seems to imply the following results:

· The majority of new day traders probably do lose money.

· At some firms a very high percentage of day traders lose money.

· However, there is some evidence that a majority of (surviving) day traders at some firms are profitable and many traders generate tremendous returns on their money.

· Industry commentators also suggested in the past that day-traders using software at home are much less successful than those trading at professional day trading firms.

Note that the profitable day-traders are not self-employed and working from their living rooms while on a break from trading sports. They are full-time professionals employed by a firm, and I stand by my statement that "day-trading from your living room trying to beat insiders just isn't viable".

Finally, updates to this blog may be a little infrequent for the next week or so. I am off to Las Vegas to roll the dice for a couple of days, before spending some time with Mrs. Cassini's family for the Thanksgiving holiday later in the week, but I will be keeping up with the XX Draws, accepting donations, adding new subscribers, and updating my numbers and the blog when I can. It may be a while before Green Pullover's selections are finally updated though - eleven!

Shark Infested Waters

The perfect example of why one should stay away from trying to trade the financial markets is written about today on TradeShark's Tennis Trading blog.

One thing I have learned today though is that I need to find a website or forum or something that gives a heads up of what significant financial news is due out each day.

Here's a newsflash - news you read is not news.

What the shrewdies knew was that the unemployment figures were out at 10am and they were shite. By the time this information flashed up on the website I was using it was too late and the stake was lost. £50.

Of course it was too late! Unemployment figures, or any economic statistics for that matter, do not suddenly appear out of thin air for all to see at the same time. Many hands are involved in compiling them, and lots of eyes see them before they are released. Why try to compete when the odds are so stacked against you? I'm not saying that you shouldn't invest in the stock market, long-term you certainly should, but as many found out to their cost about ten years ago, day-trading from your living room trying to beat insiders just isn't viable.

This highlights the beauty of betting in-play on sports - excepting the occasional fix of course. It's a fair game. What you see with your own eyes really is news, and the prize goes to those who can best use that news.

Invisible And Illogical

No theme to this post really - just random observations, betting and non-betting. I have fixed the error with the link to the recommended video on trading I mentioned a few days ago. It's here for those who don't feel like hunting for it.

Next up, does anyone in 2011 really still think it's clever to not wear a seat belt? No names, but someone whose blog I link to seems to think so. There's a wealth of data out there about how many lives are saved each year by wearing them, and even if one is too stupid to understand those stats, as one wise commenter wrote, the more serious your injuries are, the more cost to the taxpayer.

When individuals don't wear seat belts, these costs increase considerably because the injuries are more serious.

A quick search on who the retards are who still don't buckle up, and I found this:

The most likely candidates for not wearing seatbelts are males between the ages of 17 and 25. Even the most expansive of educational programs are not helping to convince these drivers to think of safety first. The most likely reason is the natural inclination for people of that age group to think of themselves as invisible.

I think the word is 'invincible', but anyway, our invisible friend fits the demographic:

im 24 years old, left school without any qualifacations of value..

With three errors in nine words there, I can see why English was a Fail, but if you are into statistics, as anyone serious about betting on the exchange must be, the stats on seat belts (and crash helmets for that matter) tell you just one thing. Sometimes it pays to follow the crowd - wear them. Not too mention the fine that's just money down the drain. There was another statistic about car accidents that alarmed me when I first saw it some while back:

It is also a fact that 80% of accidents involving a fatality occur less that 25 miles from home.

What a wake-up call finding that out was - in fact, it was one big reason why I moved away.

A 'Buzzer' on the Betfair Forum is also statistically challenged, writing that:

Two or three kids a wife and a mortgage means you need around 5k a month for an average standard of living.

Say that again. £5k a month is hardly 'average'! As I wrote here in March this year, the latest figures show that the median weekly pay for full-time employees in the UK in the year to April 2010 was £499, so a £5k monthly income would be well ahead of 'average'.

Still no NBA any time soon, with games now cancelled through mid-December. At least the college version of the game is underway now, although until the conference games start, competitive games are few and far between. For the last two seasons, I've actually lost money on college basketball, including one £2,900 loss in 2010 that still stings. Perhaps liquidity, which traditionally lags well behind that of the pro game, will be up as NBA fans like myself try to make ends meet.

Finally, in the US, the Department of Justice has responded in a case brought by two men that the UIGEA [Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act] did not apply to poker, "as it is a game of skill". In the DoJ's reply to the court, they reference a legal citation from an 1888 case (Jack the Ripper was active and Preston North End were winning the League) and another argument used is:

that the Kenny Rogers song contains the lyrics “about knowing when to ‘hold em’ and when to ‘fold em’” because it is called “The Gambler.” They do, however, misattribute it to Willie Nelson.

You can't make this stuff up!

Self Defenestration

With no end in sight to the NBA [No Basketball Ahead] lockout, and a fast approaching "nuclear winter of the NBA", the search for a replacement source of income is becoming a little more intense. Cricket is one sport that has a few advantages, it's a year round sport with few possible outcomes for a start, but it's not a sport I enjoy watching too much, and there are too many people with more knowledge of it than me. I have tended to just have the occasional dabble when the mood takes me, which isn't often, but my mood might be changing. I found a very interesting thread on the Betfair Forum created by a 'crunchyfrog' which has been running for more than two years. The creator has kept a running total over 141 test matches of the outcomes of blindly following a betting strategy, e.g Back the Favourite or Lay the 'Dog. 

The categories should be self-explanatory, and the current standings are:

Match 142 is yet to be updated, but id South Africa's win over Australia in the First Test in Cape Town [SPs South Africa (2.86) v Australia (3.25) Draw (2.88)] and Match 143 is the in-progress India (1.57) v West Indies (13.5) Draw (3.4) Second Test in Kolkata.

Following on, while it might be considered bad form to find humour in the sorry tale of Peter Roebuck, these lines from South African cricket writer Neil Manthorp did make me laugh.

A radio station in New Zealand asked me for an interview about the man I had known for so long.

The presenter told me beforehand that NZ law precluded him from using the word ‘suicide’ in his interview. I assumed that meant it was my job to say it. “No, no – you can’t say it either,” he replied. “It’s against our law.”

It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard. It would have made Roebuck laugh out loud: “Australia and New Zealand are nanny states, I love them, but Africa is so much wilder and more free,” he told me more than once.

“After questioning by the police,” I heard myself saying, “he left his hotel room via the window, apparently without the assistance or intervention of anybody else.”

Obscure And Oblique

Peter Roebuck, the former Somerset (and Devon) Captain, died today, reportedly committing suicide in South Africa, at the age of 55. While being questioned about an alleged sexual assault, he jumped from the sixth floor of his hotel.

He was an 'odd' character, or as his own father put it:

...{Peter} is seen as "odd" in orthodox spheres, "whereas he is merely obscure and oblique".

It wasn't the first time he'd had problems with the law:

In 1999, while working as a commentator in South Africa Roebuck met three cricketers, all aged 19, and offered to coach them, inviting them to live at his home in England. He warned them beforehand that he would use corporal punishment if they failed to obey his "house rules". He caned all three men on their buttocks at different times for misbehaviour and in 2001 was given a suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to three charges of common assault. ''Obviously I misjudged the mood and that was my mistake and my responsibility, and I accept that,'' he'd said at the time.

Obscure and oblique indeed. While cricket might not be the most macho of sports, there was another, (more serious since it involved at least nine young boys), sexual scandal this week, at Penn State University, which resulted in the end of legendary American football coach Joe Paterno's 46 year reign there at the age of 84.

Self-Esteem And Routine

Before this blog turns into the dreaded P&L blog LazyTrader worries about, here's some good old trading advice. The original article on a "Daily Routine" was intended for futures traders, but with a little tweaking, I think a lot of the routine can be modified to be relevant for sports traders.

• I will only trade on days when I am well rested, relaxed and not mentally distracted by matters that will divert my focus. [Common sense advice]

• I will spend at least 15 minutes relaxing to music or a form of meditation after a good nights rest before trading. [A little too new-agey mumbo-jumbo for me, but it reinforces the importance of being rested and relaxed]

• Conduct a Pre-Market Analysis myself, perform a top-down review of the major markets and develop a plan of the day. The trading day is from 9:30 a.m. (EST) to 4:15 p.m. divided into a morning session, lunch and afternoon session. [My 'trading day' will depend on what events are going at at any time]

• I do not trade for the first hour on Mondays. [Not really relevant for sports markets]

• I do not enter any new trades the last half an hour of the market hours (1545 – 1615 EST) [Again, not relevant]

• After I have met my goal or the market is closed I will log my journal and then spend quality time with my family. [Goals are counter-productive, but updating records and quality time to enjoy the rewards of your trading are both musts]

• At some point before the end of the day I will revisit the S&P trading day and back test my plan and system. [For sports traders, this means constantly keep track of what is working, and what is not working, and keep looking at new ideas]

From the same site comes the advice that you can't trade the markets with the proper mental edge if you don't have self-esteem. In a way, this ties in with my belief that the money you trade with needs to be money you don't need, and that what others think of you is irrelevant, but the article takes it a step further.

Trading the markets requires a person to be persistent and resilient. People with self-esteem don't question their ability. Despite the number of setbacks they experience, they fully believe that if they work hard enough, success is guaranteed. At their core, their self-esteem is true and unwavering. As noted self-esteem expert Dr. Nathaniel Branden observed, "When we appreciate the true nature of self-esteem, we see that it is not competitive or comparative. It is not about making myself higher by making you lower. It has nothing to do with you. It is the joy of my own being." But the competitive spirit often interferes with people's ability to maintain self-esteem. People compete with others. They compare themselves to others and only feel good when they are winners. Ironically, though, winning traders look inward, live by their own rules, and don't care how anyone else is doing. They humbly go where the markets take them and accept what they get.

"I don't define my self-worth by my net worth." Winning traders feel good about themselves no matter how much they win or lose. They feel good about themselves because they know deep down that they have value as people. They look inwardly for self-acceptance, and follow their personal values; they don't care what anyone else thinks. If you want to trade the markets with a calm, astute, mental edge, you must develop a genuine sense of self-esteem. By making sure that you live by your own values, and fully accept your limitations, you'll develop a true sense of worth that won't be easily shaken by momentary setbacks or failures.

Finally, check out this video on Why most people will never trade successfully for some useful advice.

The Gain On Spain

After-timing I know, but it wasn't a big win so indulge me a little. I let my pre-game lay of Spain run it's course today, and made a little over three figures. Once again, it paid to oppose the general feeling that seems to feel Spain simply had to show up to win. They came up short in 1588, and history repeats itself. Here are a couple of views I read earlier today from around the blog world:

Who Wants To Be A Betting Millionaire -

Can't see England getting anything from a Spanish team out to humble the hosts on their home turf. Have backed Spain (-1.0) in the asian handicap - £4 at 2.50 at paddy power.

BetsLayer

BetsLayer Acount Bets
England v Spain Spain to win (1.86)
England v Spain Both to Score Evens (2.00)

It used to be conventional wisdom that England were always priced too short, but the globalisation of the betting markets has seen an end to that. Spain at odds-on to win in England? While the market isn't usually too far wrong, I did feel that Spain's price had been driven down too low.

1000 To 1

Above is a screenshot from Thursday night's San Diego Chargers v Oakland Raiders game. Pretty good you might think, but unfortunately it didn't end so well.

The Chargers, down by a touchdown, began a drive which would have resulted in their becoming favourites at 1.65 or so had they scored a TD, and a lay of the Raiders looked like a smart move. After building a good position, I often use the strategy of laying the current favourite for the amount of profit built in to that point, so in rough figures, I was a little over £3000 green on the Chargers, and £1 (yes, seriously!) green on the Raiders when the drive fizzled out. Except that it didn't fizzle out, which would at least have given me a chance to trade out. Instead it blew up in my face with an interception, which gives no opportunity for damage control. The price of aggression I suppose.

Of course it's easy to say that I should have quit while ahead, and yes, in this instance that would have been true, but in the long run, laying the favourite whose price is too short will boost the bottom line more than walking away does. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but so long as the wins exceed the losses, keep playing the odds.

Lastly, For anyone expecting XX Draw Selections this weekend, there are none. No games, so no selections. No one missed an e-mail - I rather assumed that everyone would know it was an international weekend.

Stretching The Band

On the subject of Draw seeking, Scott writes:

Have you considered the merits of allowing for the backing of a higher priced draw above 5.0 in your XX selection process?

Maybe it's just luck, but Green Pullover has really boosted his ROI with two Barcelona draws at prices of 6.50 and 9.00.

Is it something worth considering when a short priced favourite offers no value?

The XX Draws are selected based purely on ratings and as you might suspect from a system with a 34.5% (implied price 2.9) strike rate where the average price is 3.48 (implied probability 28.7%), price is not typically an issue. It would be nice if the selections were all 4.1 (the maximum that I have yet seen) but so long as they are above 2.9, we have a value selection, and unless we're in a late season Serie A game, the draw price will always be well above 2.9.

The XX Draws are those games where the expected superiority of either team is 0.1 or 0. This is admittedly a very narrow and thus selective band, but that's why it is so profitable. If I widened the band, there would be more selections of course, but the quality would start to fall. If the band were widened to include the 0.2 to -0.2 selections, the draw price needed to be profitable would rise from 2.9 to 3.33. Interestingly, if we forget all about the crazy Bundesliga once we move beyond the 0.1 band, the results are better. The 0.5 band (0.5 to -0.5), needs a draw price of just 3.15 to be profitable, 249 winners from 785 selections. Excluding the Italian games would also boost the numbers, but that's another story.

The problem with games such as Barcelona's at Athletic Bilbao last weekend is the paucity of data. Of 2,355 matches recorded, only 7 have the same profile as Barcelona's game at the weekend. Three games have been draws, which is great, but from a sample so small, it would be reckless to get too carried away. If I include matches close to that rating, I have 8 draws from 24 selections, which is promising to say the least if the draw price is over 6.0. Analysis goes on, as always.

Great Strides

A quiet weekend for the XX Draw selections, with just one match qualifying, Novaro v AS Roma. On Thursday the draw was trading at 3.65 / 3.7 on Betfair, but by Saturday had dropped as low as 3.3. I added some subscribers to the service last week, and the thought did occur to me that in a week with just one selection, more money than usual was backing this draw. However, the price did rebound as kick-off approached, and in fact I had more matched at 3.7 just before kick-off. The game was actually looking good for a long time, one of those games with 'nil nil written all over it' as they say, but after the draw price touched 1.77, two goals after 70 minutes meant the bet went down. The ROI drops to 23.15% after 54 selections.

I mentioned previously that backing the Under 2.5 goals on the XX Draw Selections is also a profitable strategy, at least the ROI on this increased to 12.1% with the Under coming in at 2.0. I have added these selections to the comparison table above.

Although I clearly explained in the 'prospectus' that XX Draw selections were dependent on the numbers alone, and that some weeks might see no selections, other weeks several, I did feel bad about just having the one pick, so I added four matches that came close to qualifying. Newcastle United v Everton was close, Bolton Wanderers v Stoke City wasn't, but two winners were found in Real Mallorca v Sevilla and Bordeaux v Paris St Germain.

Green Pullover found another Barcelona draw at a good price (6.5), as well as a winner with Rennes v Valenciennes. Two from five is not too shabby, and he consolidates second place with an ROI of 19.6%.

Peter Nordsted's pursuit of games with the same number of goals in both halves continued, and showed a profit on the weekend with one winner from three.

Not such good news from Griff or Football Elite this weekend. Griff dropped to 6th place in the table with two more losses but still a small sample. Football Elite had a poor weekend with just one winner (2.08) from four selections, and the ROI on this season falls to just 3.12% from 25 selections.

I came across an interesting idea on the Betfair forum where one poster (MaryChain) randomly picks three matches a week, randomly selects Home, Away or a Draw bet on each, and randomly stakes £10, £20 or £50. His random selections are showing a decent profit on the season! From next week, I am going to do something similar, and select three matches from the five leagues I follow and track the outcome of the draw. Theoretical backing only, just another method to measure our systems against.

I'm not into horse racing as anyone reading this blog knows, but it's hard not to notice when a horse starts a race at 1.04. Unbeaten in 15 races, Black Caviar duly won again, rather comfortably in my non-expert opinion. Apparently, her invincibility could be down to mathematics. Australia's Channel 7 reported that per stride, she covers 11 metres, compared with the 'average' horse's 9 metres, and at Flemington, there were no pesky corners to negotiate.

I must work on increasing my stride when I run. It's certainly true that my 100 metre times were always relatively so much better than my longer distances. Now I know why - no bends.

Finally, a professional gambler has generously posted a video on YouTube with useful advice for anyone considering going pro any time soon. Included is advice on the set up required, horse selection techniques, how to deal with bookmakers and how to handle losses. Even the importance of staying hydrated is subtly worked in during the early scenes where a bottle of Evian is in evidence. More experienced pros might also learn something. It's certainly worth a look.

Financial Peak

I should know better, but every once in a while I get lured in by a teaser headline, and this one on AOL made me click on the link "You'll hit your financial peak at the age of 48".

Well no, not exactly. The dingbat who wrote the piece, Ceri Roberts - ("I started my career writing for teen magazines Sugar and J-17, before moving to more!") should stick to writing about Justin Bieber if she seriously thinks financial health revolves around possessions in your home. The last sentence makes no sense either - "After the peak at 48, the value of the average person's belongings begin to decline at the age of 50". What happens at 49? It has to either be the peak or the start of the decline.

We're all feeling the pinch at the moment, so it's good to know that many of us haven't yet hit our financial peak.

A new study reveals that we are worth the most when we reach the age of 48: at that age the average person's possessions are valued at £52,587, compared to £44,081 at the age 35.

Researchers found that hi-tech goods made up three of the five most expensive items in the average home, with the top five being large electrical goods, computers, furniture, jewellery and electronic gadgets. One in ten people also valued the contents of their wardrobe at more than £2,500.

However many of us have no idea what our belongings are worth: a More Than home insurance survey of 2,000 people found that people valued their possessions at £21,477 on average. But a study by the Centre for Economics and Business Research calculated that the typical value was in fact £35,414.

After the peak at 48, the value of the average person's belongings begin to decline at the age of 50.

So home equity, stock portfolio, retirement funds don't matter - it's all about large electrical goods and furniture. Well that's good to know. I am off out to buy an electric chair. It'll come in handy for next time I click on a teaser link. Or you could read the same rubbish in the Daily Mail, but that's no surprise.

Griff has released his draws for this weekend, and they are Aston Villa v Norwich City and Blackburn Rovers v Chelsea. The prices at the time of writing are 3.75 and 4.5 respectively.

I was rather hoping the Green Pullover would be tipping Cardiff City today, and he is. Only not to win - their match v Crystal Palace is one of his draw selections at 3.75. His other entries in the Battle of the Draws are Reading v Birmingham City (3.5), Rennes v Valenciennes (3.5), Palermo v Bologna (3.75) and Athletic Bilbao v Barcelona (6.5). Interestingly, he has three Under 2.5 selections, all from the above list. I commented in my e-mail this week to the XX Draw subscribers that backing the Under 2.5 goals in each of the 53 selections so far this season would have seen a profit of 5.54 points and an ROI of 10.45%. Obviously when you are looking for draws, you are looking for games with a low goal expectancy, and in a way, it's more satisfying to pick a 0-1 or a 1-0 game than it is to fluke a 4-4 winner. Unless that one goal comes after 90 minutes, in which case give me the 4-4 fluke.

It's been about as quiet as I can remember from a trading perspective this week. Baseball has ended, NBA basketball has yet to begin and with European games of only academic interest, no football either. Well, there shouldn't have been any, but the devil makes work for idle hands, and the Cassini coffers show a small loss on the week since Tuesday. It'll have to be a small electric chair.

For anyone who likes the college version of American football, there is one huge game tomorrow at midnight. The first and second ranked teams (college sports have a large element of subjectivity) Louisiana State and Alabama play each other in the regular season, a rare occurrence in the world of college football. Also worth a mention is another all top-10 game between the Arkansas Razorbacks (7) and South Carolina (9) which starts even earlier. Go Hogs!

Laughing Stocks

There is a book coming out in the near future, titled Laughing At Wall Street, with the not so catchy sub-title How I Beat the Pros at Investing (by Reading Tabloids, Shopping at the Mall, and Connecting on Facebook) and How You Can Too. 

It’s written by a man from Dallas, Chris Camillo, who invested $20,000 in the stock market in 2007, and turned it into more than $2 million over the next three years – no mean feat at the best of times, never mind over three years during which most portfolios lost value. 

The 37-year-old amateur investor attributes this success to his knack for identifying trends and spotting opportunities before Wall Street. His logic is essentially that the core demographic of Wall Street is male, middle-aged, wealthy and lives in or near a city, and is thus slow to pick up on female, youth, lower-income or rural trends. By having a more diverse group of acquaintances, it is possible to have an edge over the stock market professionals who have a narrower social life.

A couple of examples of his success are Guitar Hero and the Wii, and he tells of standing in a line of 150 people in a retail store on the day a new line of clothing was launched and seeing every piece sell out within two hours. 

Apparently many people had already stumbled onto the same secret, that this line of clothing was going to be a success, yet while many made their profit from re-selling the items on eBay, the author cashed in by investing in the store’s stock – and claims to have ‘almost’ tripled his money in about 48 hours. All these people had information, but while some profited by re-selling, others, like the author, made easier money by thinking bigger, or at least differently.

The author also has some thoughts on how to handle risk. He says:

People are generally risk-adverse with their money. I think all humans have a hard-wired aversion to losing money, and there's a large psychological barrier to overcome with risking your money on a stock trade or a leverage options trade. So one of the things that I teach prior to even thinking about finding the next big thing is learning how to compartmentalize your finances.

Most of us have a spending account. Many of us have a savings account, which could include a retirement account. And that's money that we count on to retire with, and to get rich slowly over the course of our life. But what few of us have is what I call a big money account. So I encourage all people to view every dollar in their life as a potential hundred dollars for its full future potential investment value. And when you start to look at everything in your life, every dollar bill as a hundred dollars, it uncovers all types of money that all of a sudden you might be willing to put into your big money account. For example, you might really appreciate getting all the sleep you can on the weekends, so you might hire someone to mow your lawn. However, if you view that $20 as a potential $2,000 for its full investment potential, that might persuade you to go out and mow your own lawn, to take that $20 and put it into your big money account. Now you have an account that you're willing to take risks with, that you're willing to make leverage investments with.

I have written before on this subject, and when your trading or betting bank is not money that is ring-fenced from your daily, weekly, monthly or even annual needs, you are not going to make the best decisions.

Finally, a quick comment on Green Pullover. As much as I enjoy some friendly competition with him, would he please stick to trying to beat me at draw finding rather than keep selecting Crystal Palace to win. Single-handedly, he is ruining that wonderful club's chances of playing Premier League football next season. Stop it!

Accepting Reality

The NBA lockout is getting serious. Once again, the main news sources focus on the owners and players, with nary a mention of the poor sports investors who are also out of pocket - this from CNN.com:

With more lost games come more staggering numbers in financial losses -- even for minimum-salary players. The amounts that these guys will lose in the month of November will fall between $80,500 and $230,000. In other words, the lowest-paid guys in the league will lose significantly more in one month than the average American will make in an entire year. ... Four players -- Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Rashard Lewis, and Kobe Bryant, would've made over $20 million in 2011-2012, and the losses they take are the most drastic.

The battle between NBA owners and players is one that the players cannot win, at least, that's what all the experts are saying, but I have to agree. When you have a skill that limits you to a small number of employment opportunities, you are not in the best of bargaining positions. For a basketball player, the highest salaries are in the NBA. Sure, you can ply your trade elsewhere, in Europe or Canada perhaps, but with few exceptions the big money is to be made in the NBA. If there is no NBA, you are somewhat screwed. If the best that the NBA is willing to offer you is $x million, then even if it wasn't the $x+y million you were getting before, if it is still higher than anyone else is paying, suck it up. Cutting off your nose to spite your face isn't the best of ideas. Ask Latrell Sprewell. It's also how anyone hit with the 50% Super Premium Charge on Betfair probably feels too. As a former IT contractor, I'm well aware of how a specialised market can go from boom to bust overnight, and stamping your foot saying how much you used to be paid doesn't do much good.

With the cancellation of all NBA games through November, I took a look at my numbers from last season, and was somehat relieved to see that, as might be expected, October and November are appetiser months for the main entrée of the season, which starts in December. The usual concerns of no form and personnel changes take a while to settle down. Of course, were a shortened NBA season to start in December, that 'settling down' period would simply be delayed, so however you look at it, this outage is going to cost me money.

I was looking at the salaries of MLS players, and while David Beckham and Thierry Henry aren't doing so bad, the average salaries there are really very, well, average. It's a little strange to look at the salaries of two of my erstwhile heroes, Gregg Berhalter and Jovan Kirovski, (I use the term 'heroes' loosely), and see that their incomes are nothing special at all. Their lifestyles might be a little more exciting though. It's a short career though, something that's hard to comprehend when you're young.

Maybe my Mum was right about school after all. Law of averages means she's going to be right every once in a while, although I still think she was wrong with the "computers might not catch on" line she came out with when I quit my first job (with NatWest) to learn computer programming.

Bouncing Back

I like my numbers, and I like my spreadsheet to balance. I wasted a good 15 minutes of my life today searching for a £2.43 difference. I should have paid more attention to the Betfair Forum, where it seems I was not alone in puzzling over this, which turned out to be a gift from Betfair:

Please note that when customers have bet on an Australian Market in the past, which has been a cross-matching market there is a pool of funds which is split evenly between those customers who have bet on those markets.

Betfair then share the pool between those customers. The funds can be transferred back to your main wallet or can be used however you like.

It would appear that the Australian authorities allow Betfair to skim profits with their cross-matching algorithm, but insist that this money is then shared out each year. As someone who rarely bets in Australian wallet markets, this is quite a good return on my money! It does make one wonder how much such a 'dividend' might be on the main wallet markets though.

Still a late night NFL game to come, Philadelphia Eagles v Dallas Cowboys, but for the most part the weekend results are all in, and overall a pretty good couple of days. Not good enough to make up for Friday night's World Series loss though!

The XX Draw Selections had another profitable weekend, with two winners from five selections raising the ROI for this season to a really rather decent 25.5% after 53 selections. The results, and those of my 'all-in-good-fun' competitors are shown over at Gold All Over, but the summary is here:

One Quadrillion Dollars

For those who love numbers, a good article from the BBC News magazine on the subject of what really is a trillion, and the history of big numbers. When I was a kid, a billion was a million million, but in 1974 that all changed when Britain moved from the "long scale" to the "short scale". 

Unfortunately this move did not make the Cassini family overnight billionaires, although we must have been worth a few bob at one time! France and Italy also switched to the "short scale" before reverting back to the "long scale", which must make things a little confusing during EU meetings. I found it interesting that "English" Canada uses the "short scale" while "French" Canada uses the "long scale".

As for how much is a trillion? The BBC uses the example of a door mat to illustrate the point. One billion doormats approximates to a city the size of Manchester, while one trillion doormats is the size of the United Kingdom.

There is also a brief mention of the power of compound interest, something that should be mandatory teaching in all schools:

Elsewhere, economic growth has driven an inexorable rise in numbers, says economist Andrew Dilnot. "The speed of change you get from quite small annual growth is what catches us all out. If something is growing at 10% a year then it doubles every seven-and-a-quarter years."

The Rule of 72, and a reminder that any positive ROI from a betting method can generate big returns over time.

Cardinal Red - And It's All Over

The World Series Game 7 turned into a bit of a personal disaster for me, as I strayed from the strategy of laying the road team if they take the lead early. I actually used that strategy to get Green All Over, but for some reason couldn't just let it rest. Possibly because it was the last game of the year and I wanted to make the most of the opportunity, I then opposed the Cardinals at various prices as they extended their lead incrementally to 4 runs, but unfortunately the Texas Rangers could never get anything going, and in one game, my profits on the season were reduced by 40% to end slightly below those of 2010. What have I written in the past about greed? Unless it's a stellar weekend ahead, the Premium Charge will not be a factor this week. The Texas Rangers will be feeling even worse than me, after losing last year and coming so close to winning this year, trading as low as 1.02, with the Cardinals twice just one strike away from elimination in game 6. Ouch.

I received an e-mail from Scott who wrote:

Hi Cassini
Another good XX weekend...

As a trained mathematician, statistician, and football trader, what is your opinion on the statistical merits of using a database of previous goal times to make bets on the time bracket of (for example) the first or last goal of the game, e.g. first goal of the game after 25 minutes or last goal of the game after 70 minutes?

You can do statistics and back-testing on anything, but would you have low, medium, or high confidence in such bets if they are backed up by statistics or could one just as easily make the argument that while numbers for total goals, total shots, total shots on target, and match outcomes can be reasonably predicted within certain confidence intervals, the actual timing of those goals is largely random?

Hopefully Scott won't mind me publishing the question, but finding topics to blog about isn't always easy, and this is an interesting question. The answer is that this isn't something I have looked into at all. For me, while a team's rating is likely to hold true over several games, on any one day, anything can happen. By this I mean that selecting the top three teams over a Premier League season is a lot easier than picking a winner on any match day. It's why we watch football. So to break down one single game into even smaller segments and try to predict how things will play out in those few minutes seems even more prone to chance. In my opinion, the prices available on bets such as the first goal after 25 minutes, or the last goal after 70 minutes, are unlikely to offer any value. I'm not aware of any consistently profitable strategy using these bets, except by the laying bookmakers of course.

Somewhat related perhaps, and there was an interesting piece on the BBC web site about statistics yesterday, specifically Liverpool's poor rate of conversion of shots to goals. While the ratio of shots to goals varies across leagues and teams, from Barcelona's ridiculous high of almost 1 goal per 5 shots in mid 2010-11, to Serie A's approximately 1 goal in 12 shots, the BBC article mentioned Liverpool's recent game v Norwich City where they scored one goal from 25 shots. The EPL produces approximately one goal for every 8.5 shots, so whereas over a season, that 90 minutes could be expected to generate close to three goals, in one game, or one part of a game, anything can happen.

"Professional" Gambling

A mid-week loss for Football Elite as Atalanta and Internazionale drew 1-1. Matt commented that:

Atalanta missed a last minute penalty which was a real kick in the gut. A 3.30 point swing on one strike of a ball from 8 yards out. AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

a comment which has me a little concerned about how knowledgeable Matt really is on football, because in my playing days, the spot was a full 12 yards from the goal-line.

A loss for the XX Draw selections midweek too, as Valencia scored in the 82nd minute to beat Real Zaragoza.

Griff has posted his draw selections for this weekend, and they are:

Wigan Athletic v Fulham and West Bromwich Albion v Liverpool

He also provisionally included Tottenham Hotspur v Queens Park Rangers but with the qualifier that: "The Spurs game is borderline - if the price goes above 5 then it's a no bet", it's a No Bet. At the time of writing, the price is 5.4. Incidentally, none of the three matches mentioned are among my selections for this weekend.

We await the selections of the Green Sweater with much anticipation.

Not to make light of Michael Chopra's issues with gambling addiction, but I did find it mildly amusing that the picture accompanying the story on the BBC showed him wearing a Cardiff City shirt with the club sponsor clearly displayed. Someone has a sense of humour.

Somewhat related, and a poster on the Betfair Forum wrote that in reply to the question "What do you do for a living?" his replies of Gambler, Bookmaker and Market Analyst all received different reactions. Someone replied that they would likely be "loser", "scumbag" and "successful intelligent fellow" respectively. There's also the term of trader that could be used, which along with Market Analyst sounds a lot more respectable. The opening post on the same thread included the idea that "many professional gamblers will eventually evolve in to problem or pathological gambling", which is complete nonsense.

Of course, many people describe themselves as professional gamblers based on the fact that they are unemployed and gambling is all they do (O'Dwyer for example) where nothing whatsoever about their approach is professional. Collecting dole money and steadily losing it on-line does not count as being a professional gambler. I'm basing my opinion of the comment being nonsense on the more limited definition of professional gambler which is someone who has grasped the concept of value, is actually successful at 'gambling', and actively chooses it as a career. Anyone of that ilk is unlikely, in my opinion, to evolve into a pathological or problem gambler. If anything, they are more likely to do the complete opposite, which is to get bored with it all and walk away.

Finally, a comment from Jon on my ideas on the make up of a 20 team Premier League were promotion and relegation to be scrapped. Jon wrote:

How can a pointless ZDS record have any bearing on who should make up the new closed shop Premier league?

Well, I would hardly call the illustrious ZDS trophy "pointless", but I am prepared to concede that an extra condition should perhaps be added, which is that teams qualifying via the ZDS route must also have made it to the last eight of this season's League Cup (to show consistency). That should quieten the protests.

Elo Ratings Update

Perhaps not surprisingly, Manchester City's emphatic win at United on Sunday has seen City climb to the top of the EPL Elo Ratings.

Swansea City continue to prop up the ratings, with Blackburn Rovers and Bolton Wanderers the next two. Promoted teams continue to be the lowest rated teams in all five leagues, with Novara, Granada, Ajaccio and Augsburg. Because promoted teams have now earned rating when they enter the top division, there's a necessary element of subjectivity in the initial rating, so it's interesting to see how they settle in after a few games. Usually the top promoted team is started off around mid-table, and a couple have slid a little, QPR down to 15th, Evian Thonon Gaillard to 16th, but Real Betis, Atalanta and Hertha Berlin are holding their own for now. The weaker promoted teams continue to be at, or near the bottom with only Rayo Vallecano improving their position by more than one spot. Next season, I shall start the top teams off a little lower.

No XX Draw Selections Tuesday 25/10

My e-mail provider seems to be having problems today, or I am doing something stupid, but for my XX Draw Subscribers, there are no selections from today's limited menu of fixtures. I will run the numbers on the Wednesday matches and send out an update later.

Forte And 4-2

Another weekend in the books, (actually, it's been over for a while, but I forgot to hit the Publish Post button yesterday) and Sunday ended up being my best day so far this month. My two XX Draw selections found one winner as Cagliari and Napoli drew 0-0, but Blackburn Rovers v Tottenham Hotspur let the side down, finishing 1-2. Still, two winners from three this weekend, (17 from 47 for the season) and the ROI for the season is a very respectable 26.8%.

As mentioned previously, it's interesting comparing results with others, and Green Pullover (that's him to the right)

and Griff have both thrown their hats into the ring. With an ROI of 18.9% from 35 bets, GP is looking at a Silver medal, while newbie Griff has only four proofed selections to date, with one winner and a current negative ROI, but it'll be a while before the ROI means anything on such a small sample. Still good enough for the Bronze medal. Peter Nordsted's "Game Of Two Halves" may well turn out to be a winning strategy, but it seems like a lottery to me, and one that has yet to produce a winner from six selections. Peter has some good ideas, and six games is nothing, so the jury is still out on this approach.

Football Elite found a winner in Hannover '96, who beat Bayern Munich 2-1. Hannover were recommended with the draw, so essentially a Bundeslayga that came in at 3.1, and a small profit on the weekend's selections. The Bundeslayga system also had a winner on Friday with Werder Bremen failing to win (an XX Draw selection) but Borussia Dortmund won easily enough v Koln.

October is usually an average month, but this one has already surpassed that benchmark with seven days still to come. The six months from October through March represents 68% of my profits since 2006, but the immediate future is looking bleak. As regular readers know, the NBA is my trading forte, and with no end to the dispute in sight, (another two weeks almost certainly to be cancelled at any moment), it's looking like a lean year for the kids and their Xmas presents. The dogs will soon be released into the wild to fend for themselves, (a little unfortunate for them since they weigh a combined 12lbs) and it'll be toast and Bovril (Marmite for Mrs. Cassini) for dinner every night with three cups infused per tea bag rather than the standard two.

The silver lining is that I have started to look back at my former favourite trading sport, the NHL, which in my early Betfair days was a nice earner for me, except that the introduction of the 8 second clock in 2006 not only eliminated the snipers from Canada, but took most of the in-play liquidity with them. Why the extra three seconds should apply to games in the south as well as in Canada, I'm not sure. Anyway, in the same way as I enjoy the challenge of finding value in football, it's the same with ice hockey, only a little easier because there's the 'no draw' market.

The baseball World Series was perfect last night when visiting St Louis went 2-0 at Texas early on, and went too short. An ideal situation where I would much rather oppose the leader, and get behind the home team, than try to ride the winning wave to the beach. It took until the eighth innings for the Rangers to take the lead (4-2), but by that time I was already Green All Over. As the score moved first to 1-2 and then to 2-2, there's just too much time in baseball to ponder what is the worst that can happen, and the primitive trader instinct to 'protect the bank' versus 'hang in there for the kill' usually wins, and I trade out too early. I like to think I am only cashing out at value, but between you and me, I suspect that on such occasions I am offering my fellow traders a very fair deal. That's just the kind of chap I am.

Blue Moon Rising

Back to the Barcelona v Sevilla match yesterday, and Average Guy from Betfair Trading Challenge wrote earlier today:

Came home from an errand and unbelievably Barca 0 - Sevilla 0 with 15 minutes to go and I laid the draw for €40 @ 2.0.

Stupid me, I had decided there was no issue with the concept but I broke the staking rules(my own), I should have laid three tranches of €10 @ 2.0, 1.5 and 1.25. Max Loss = 17.50 but I blew it of course. By the way Messi missed a 94th minute penalty but a stupid trade is still a stupid trade. I still think the bet was a good one if properly structured but my impulsive behaviour was the undoing of the trade.

I wouldn't agree that the undoing of the trade was impulsive behaviour, but would suggest that the market stayed too short on Barcelona, and that the value was in backing the draw at this stage of the game. Not always the case however. Sometimes for kicks, I look at what games are being recommended for the Football Trading System, aka Lay The Draw, and yesterday included Newcastle United v Wigan Athletic. A little cheeky of me perhaps, but as the price on the draw hit 2.0, I knew that several followers would now be desperately backing the draw to reduce their losses at around this price, which for me made it the perfect time to strike and lay the draw. Newcastle scored in the 81st minute. My point here is that at 2.0 or thereabouts, the draw can be value to back or to lay, and clues as to where the value is can be found if you look around.

The Manchester derby is in-play as I write this, and City lead 1-0, and United are down to 10 men. With the pre game probability (according to the market) of Manchester United scoring no goals 0.18 and City scoring no goals at 0.28, (implying 0-0 should be priced at 19.35) laying the 0-0 draw at 14 seemed good value. Of course it's not that simple, as it fails to account for the mutual dependency on the opponents, a problem that has caused me to put my value spreadsheet on-hold for a while. While it wasn't performing too badly, a system that finds value in laying every short priced favourite, every Over 2.5 in Germany, and every Under in France is not what I am looking for. The basic Poisson distribution doesn't work well for low scores in football, hence the need for a correlation factor, which clearly needs to be a little smarter than what I currently have in place.

City have just won 6-1, which means a second loser for Football Elite this weekend. Two more XX Draw selections in action today, as well as Griff's Blackburn Rovers v Tottenham Hotspur. Green Pullover has decided to join in the fun and compete for the unofficial title of Top Drawpicker, and it is just a coincidence that he picked the weekend of a 9.0 winner to announce his entry. Not so good today though, with a predicted draw at Old Trafford going down in flames by a five goal margin. Results for the season to date updated over at Gold All Over. Pully has Brighton v West Ham as another draw pick tomorrow.