Exit Stock Pickers

It seems longer ago than a mere two months, but time flies when there's a World Cup. Back in June, I wrote about my long-term financial investing philosophy of investing in a bunch of low-cost index funds rather than try to pick higher cost managed funds or even individual stocks. For the record, I do have some individual stocks, but most of my investments are in index tracking funds.

Emp disagreed at the time, but it seems I am not alone. After Warren Buffett wrote earlier this year that he had advised his trustee to "put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. (I suggest Vanguard's.)", investors poured $5.5 billion into the Vanguard fund over the next five months, "or about three times more than during the same period the previous year".

An article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal is worth reading.

The public during this bull market are overwhelmingly favouring low-cost, index-tracking mutual funds rather than those that try to beat the market averages.

The company [Vanguard] is a pioneer in the accelerating shift toward so-called passively managed products like index funds and exchange-traded funds that track baskets of stocks or other assets. These funds typically promise diversification and are relatively inexpensive compared to traditional mutual funds.

It is "a trend that I see continuing on, probably forever," said David Barse, chief executive officer at New York-based Third Avenue Management, which manages $13.5 billion. He said the challenge for active managers, like his firm, is to identify overlooked investments that don't merely track the broad market.

But he acknowledged that is increasingly a tougher sell, particularly to retail investors.

While investors hang on every word that the Sage of Omaha comes out with, it would have been nice for the WSJ to have given this blog a mention.

Betcast, Late But Worth The Wait

The FTL is now full - 32 entries, and a total guaranteed prize fund of £2,200, a total boosted by a £200 sponsorship from #32 - Betcast.

Another Australian based entrant, David runs bettingwebsites.org and has a number of trading Betcast Podcasts which you should all check out immediately.

The prize money will be split as follows: League £1,600, Erskine Cup £400 and Betcast Monthly Prizes £200. This works out rather neatly so that the two sponsors who donated money up front get name recognition on their respective sub-competitions, while the league is comprised of the entry fees plus the possibility (probability?) of at least some bounty payments being added.

The Bounty Boys, lest we forget, are:

Football Elite http://www.football-elite.co.uk/

TFA http://the-football-analyst.blogspot.co.uk/

Football Investor http://www.football-investor.co.uk/

Skeeve http://www.skeevepicks.com/

All will be paying out £25 to every entrant finishing ahead of them (up to a cap of £500).

The first monthly prize (of £25) will be for the table leader at the end of September, by which time the Erskine Cup will be in progress. With 32 entries, some of you may have guessed that the format will be the same as that used for the FIFA World Cup. I could have made it a straight knock-out tournament, but this way seemed like a fun idea.

Eight groups of four will see entrants play at least three 'matches' against another, with the top two in each advancing to a knock-out phase. With £400 to play for, the winner will get £150, the runner-up £75, losing semi-finalists £37.50 and losing quarter-finalists £25. With the cup and monthly prizes to compete for, the hope is that interest is maintained, as even someone out of the running for a league prize can always get lucky on a weekend or a month.

The Erskine Cup schedule will be:

September 27th, Group Stage Match 1

November 1st, Group Stage Match 2
November 29th, Group stage Match 3
January 31st, Round of 16
February 28th, Quarter-Finals
March 21st, Semi-Finals
April 25th - Final

The date refers to the Saturday of the weekend, but entries from all four days will make up the round. For the group phase, the winner will get three points, and the winner will be the more successful (or least unsuccessful) of the match up. In the event of a draw, one point each. 

The 'draw' will be seeded, with positions based on the FTL table as it stands after the weekend of September 20th. And I don't want to see anyone tanking to give themselves an easier draw!

Skeeve's Croatia Football Bets had another winner, and were they eligible, would be running away with the FTL already:

Three more selections in-play tonight, but that ROI is looking impressive.

On a completely different topic, the Crystal Palace manager saga, I am seeing Cardiff city owner Vincent Tan in a whole new light. Like most outsiders at the time, I felt that Malky Mackay was rather hard done by, but check out this video where he hints at some problems when Malky's transfer dealings, and also gets in a dig that in his two years at Watford, Mackay didn't do too well. The incredibly stupid text messages that he and Iain Moody are accused of exchanging should make it very hard for either of them to work at a top football club again. They sound like two immature schoolboys from a century ago, and I think Palace had a lucky 1.01 escape. The video also reinforces my opinion that, regardless of who the manager is, the owners or board need to monitor what is going on with spending, one reason reportedly why Steve Parish quite rightly refused to give in to Pulis' demands.

Of course, that Pulis had already been tapped up for the West Ham United manager's job, and was looking for an excuse to walk, is just pure speculation.

Work : Labour, Toil, Slog, Drudgery, Goofing Off

A number of entrants were in action last night. Leader Fairfranco wrote that he only had the two selections as he was on holiday from work, and so “not had a chance to go through all the games”. I’ll let you go back and read that quote again. Notice anything strange about that comment?

It goes without saying that I shall be forwarding a copy of his email to his boss, (FTL Rule 27 Section 3 Sub-Section C gives me this right) who will no doubt be interested to know how his employee is engaged while at ‘work’, and having sought advice from Johnny “Fartpants” Grossmark, I have set up a meeting with the police at my house as they say this clearly is a criminal matter, not a civil case. 

For those of you wondering whatever happened with my own legal troubles, (I was accused of writing a blog post, some of you may remember), I have to tell you that I have yet to hear anything from the police about my heinous crime. Evidence collection may still be in progress of course, or another possibility which just occurred to me is that perhaps little Johnny is a bit of a fibber.

Anyway, as it turned out, Fairfranco might be wishing he’d taken a holiday from the FTL as well as his “work”, (notice the rather amusing use of quote marks there), because both selections (Peterborough United and Crawley Town v Bradford City Draw) were losers. He is still in profit, but his share of the prize money has dropped.

BettingTools Brian was the big winner. He had five 'bonus' selections with three winners and a profit of 5.68 points to catapult himself into first place. His big winners were Charlton Athletic and Huddersfield Town, with Middlesbrough chipping in a little too.

Online Trader had one winner and two losses, but lost 0.84 points and now drops out of the green.

@ValueBankFooty made his debut with 16 selections and a treble. As the treble was comprised of three of the single selections, and the rules require that a selection only be included once, the treble took priority but Reading let the multiple down. The other two legs, Mansfield and Burton were both winners, so a little unlucky there.

Club Havana had four selections of which two won for a 1.06 point profit of and Tony Watson also had four selections with just the one winner (Burton) and a loss of 2.29 points.

Talkies Tips had five Under / Over bets and won two of them for a small loss of 0.77 points, while Abromo had four selections, two winners, but a loss of 1.38 points.

Peter Nordsted’s Drawmaster found two winners from five selections and gained 1.75 points

And for anyone thinking “I could do better than this bunch of sorry losers”, the bad news is that the FTL is now up to 31 entrants, so just one slot remains.

Fairfranco - please forward me your boss's email address. Thanks, and thanks to Lay Away for pointing out that the link to Skeeve's blog in yesterday's post wasn't working. The error has been corrected. 

I also had a request to add My Bet Plan to the blog roll, which I have done. It's only been around for a few weeks and looks like a poor man's Daily 25 - mind you, compared to Steve at Daily 25, most of us are poor men. It'll be interesting to see how they (Paul and Nath) progress.

Weekend Round Up 19.Aug.2014

Fairfranco and Online Trader both lost points, but remained the only entries in profit, and thus the money, after the weekend's results.

Thirteen of the (now) 30 entries have opened the season in the red, which means that 15 are still keeping their powder dry.

Sponsor The Football Analyst has clarified his strategy for the season and you can read his post in full here, but the key points are that his 'Bounty Entry' for us to beat will be system D1-D6 while his second entry will be DE1-DE6.

Abromo did have a couple more "winners" on his unders selections, but unfortunately they were from Poland, and as I wrote back in July:

As I use the Pinnacle Sports quoted prices from the Football Data.co.uk web site to record the results, selections are restricted to the leagues they cover, which are in England (top 5 leagues), Scotland (top 4), the top two in France, Germany, Italy and Spain, plus the top league in the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Turkey and Greece.

The XX Draws are off to a slow start, not helped by Tottenham Hotspur's 93' winner at West Ham United.

With both of Graeme's FTL entries being Draw systems, he says "I’m sure Cassini doesn’t mind a little bit of competition. :)" Not at all. We have Draw Picks and Peter Nordsted's Drawmaster that are pure draw selections, but none of us have started too well.

Another FTL sponsor, and last season's FTL prize money winner, Skeeve has returned to blogging after five years. Add him to your blogroll. His Croatia Football Bets are worth a look also - nicely in profit so far this season:

A couple of other opening EPL weekend comments, and perhaps some of you read my Arsenal v Crystal Palace preview last week, which include these prescient words:

I also mentioned in the Cassini Newsletter to subscribers that:

Some of you may be interested to know that over the last three EPL opening weekends, laying the favourite in all 29 matches would have produced 16 winners and a ~5.06 points profit. There’s usually a surprise or two somewhere.

This strategy was again profitable, although not by much. Five of the first six matches came in, but the final four favourites of the weekend (Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea) all won to trim the profit to about 0.67 points. That late Spurs winner hurt us here as well.

Early days of course, and there are now just two places remaining in the FTL to make it a nice round 32 entries. Steve M of Daily 25 fame and fortune has confirmed his entry, (he will start tied for 4th place) with the entry name Daily 25.

I'm sure most readers will be familiar with Steve. He is Australian based and his blog is far more than a P&L blog. He tells it like it is in typical Aussie style, or at least he tells it how he sees it, and when he is not taking the bookmakers to the cleaners, he is busy working on a e-book. Meanwhile you can sign up for his newsletter.

And finally, one more FTL entrant is Marc at @ValueBankFooty and he has a site here to check out.

Parish's Post-Pulis Palace Possibilities

It all started with rumours on Thursday morning that a £500 bet had been placed with William Hill on Tony Pulis to become "the next Premier League manager to leave his position". Given that he was at that time priced 40/1, it was hard to believe that anyone had been able to get more than 10p on, but what was certain was that William Hill shortened Pulis’s price to 6/4 (2.50) making him favourite ahead of long-time favourite Sam Allardyce.

Other books followed suit or suspended their markets and, as we all now know, by Thursday night Tony Pulis had indeed left his post by “mutual consent”, although “mutual contempt” might have been a more accurate description.

Someone knew, and this kind of scenario highlights the reason why bookmakers need to protect themselves and should be able to refuse to accept a wager. They are in business to make money, and are not a utility offering a public service as some people seem to think. It's hard to see how any regulation could be implemented which would leave bookmakers exposed to coups of this nature.

The markets soon adjusted to the turmoil at Crystal Palace. Their price for relegation dropped a full point, from around 4.05 to a low of 2.82 before a bounce back up to ~3.00.

As implied not only by the drop in price for relegation, but also by his award of Premier League Manager of the Year last season, Tony Pulis was widely considered a key 'player' for Crystal Palace.

As I mentioned a few days ago, the Soccermetrics prediction model for the 2014-15 English Premier League season had Crystal Palace's projected to finish in 18th place and be relegated.

I wrote a rather excoriating post about this, at the time, rather unlikely prediction, but given recent events, the prediction looks a little more insightful with Palace now second favourites (behind Burnley) for the drop according to the Betfair markets.

Well, what do the markets know? Last season Palace were first favourites, and ended up in 11th place! By my reckoning, this means we'll finish 10th this year.

It would be stating the obvious that Tony Pulis did a great job last season, and only he and the insiders at Palace know the full story behind the split, but having had a close working relationship with Peter Coates at Stoke City for several years where his every wish was granted, it wouldn't be surprising if Pulis wanted more Stoke-like money spent at Palace.

Having only signed on in November, there were rumours back in January that Pulis wasn't happy about the lack of activity during the transfer window, so the break up is not the biggest of surprises. In the end, Palace made five signings, all on the final day. If it was true that Pulis and Parish had differences after just two months, and there's no smoke without fire, it was hardly likely to be a long term relationship.

More a marriage of convenience perhaps? What is a surprise though is why Pulis would have taken the job, knowing the constraints in place, and then start whining loudly enough for rumours to leak. Palace are not yet Manchester City. Heck, they're not yet Stoke City, but ironically the latter is the kind of example they might be looking to follow.

The timing of the departure is shocking of course. Tony waits until all the pre-season games are played, and with less than 48 hours before the season kicks-off, decides he can't continue.

If TP kicked up a fuss at the 11th hour then he's unprofessional in putting the club in what can only be called a blackmail situation. If that is the case he's better away from the club. Sometimes the nasty face of someone is exposed and maybe it's happened today.

Many of the quotes in this post are from a Crystal Palace fan forum, and like most forums it is best not to believe everything you read, but there were some insightful and well written comments that perhaps throw some light on the possible background to the split. The comment above does question Pulis's motives. If someone was looking for an out, what better excuse than "I don't have the owners' support" but leaving it until the last minute to thrash out any problem does smack of a distinct lack of integrity. I work in IT, and if a key resource decided two days ahead of going live on a major project that he or she would quit "unless you spend money that you told me you wouldn't spend when I took the job", it wouldn't be well received to say the least. If this is what happened, credit to Parish and the owners for not giving in.

As a Stoke fan I would just like to say TP has previous when it comes to this kind of thing. Probably a tactic to convince the owner/chairman to sign a player he wants.

At Stoke, If TP really wanted a player (like when we were after Crouch) he would always question the 'club's ambition' in any interview and manipulate Mr Coates into giving him more money. As proven in the past, TP is far better with a smaller budget because he gets far too excited with a healthy cheque book in his hand. Behind the smiles on camera he's a very stubborn and controlling figure. He got what he wanted from Coates for years but when he's challenged he throws his toys out of the pram.

Steve Parish and his co-owners are Palace fans and have the best interests of the club at heart. I am confident that they would not let have let Pulis walk unless his demands threatened the long term plan for the club and that a compromise was not possible. As a Palace fan, I have to say that despite the relative success Pulis enjoyed, I never felt that Pulis ever really felt part of the club in the way that Steve Coppell, Dougie Freedman or even Ian Holloway did. He always seemed to be keeping a distance.

Steve Parish has in the past stated that he and his co-owners want to leave a lasting legacy at the club, and that means building slowly but surely, and not risking the entire project on buying one or two big money players. It's not just the initial outlay, but there's the significant issue of committing to contracts into the future which, as several clubs have found to their cost, can become crippling liabilities. Portsmouth are the most recent example, and an extreme one at that, but other former established Premier League members such as Birmingham City, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers and Leeds United have been languishing for some time outside the Premier League.

As one fan put it: 

Let us be thankful that the worst thing which could happen to us would be relegation to the Championship with the club in a healthy position financially.

Understandably, managers aren’t interested in long-term thinking. Their interest is themselves, immediate results and thus usually very short-term, (Arsene Wenger at Arsenal is a rare Premier League exception) but no one man is, or should be, bigger than the club. Besides, the money isn't coming out of their pockets. We could all ask our bosses for a bigger budget to pay for better resources and then take the credit when our productivity improves, but as important as Pulis was, at the end of the day he is an employee and needs to work with what was agreed when he took the job, not threaten to quit when he doesn't get his way.

Steve Parish and his fellow owners have been in a similar situation before. After making a flying start to the 2012-13 Championship season, manager (and playing legend) Dougie Freedman took the money on offer at Bolton and left. Parish came in for some criticism at the time for not doing enough to keep Freedman, but Bolton’s pockets were deeper than Palace's, and the responsible decision as an owner was the one Parish made. It paid off. Incidentally Crystal Palace was in fourth place at the time, while Bolton was twelve places lower in sixteenth. Managers move when there's a better offer, and that doesn't necessarily mean to a higher placed club.

The managerial appointment of Ian Holloway was a good one, if not a great one. Holloway fitted the bill perfectly - he was a manager with experience of taking a club into the Premier League, and while he wasn’t immediately seen by some fans as a great choice, his success in steering Palace to promotion via the play-offs more than vindicated the owners’ decision.

The Premier League was a different matter. After too many changes in the summer, it became clear that Holloway was out of his depth after just a few games. To his credit, Ian Holloway admitted as much, and the parting was genuinely by “mutual consent”. Pulis got a lot of credit last season, but just as crucial was Holloway holding his hands up early enough to give his replacement a sporting chance.

The club took their time appointing a replacement. For one month, three matches, Keith Millen was interim manager, and in my opinion, never got the credit he deserved, because there was a marked improvement even before Pulis was appointed.

Looking back, the delay was possibly down to differences in opinion about how much control Pulis would have, but they compromised enough to reach a deal which ultimately saw the Eagles soar up the table with Palace making the most of their goals, winning eight games by 1:0, and finishing in 11th place. Heady stuff.

As Pulis possibly realised, without any big money signings, that strong run was always going to be a tough act to follow. Leave now, and he's ready and available to take over in October or November for a struggling team who are looking for a new manager. Hopefully it won't be Palace! Wait too long, have a bad start, and his star starts to shine a little less brightly, but a good manager working with an improved squad from last year, should have been more than capable of another mid-table finish. The top seven in the EPL are for the time being at least, all but set. Did Pulis seriously think we could break into that elite group? The only way that will happen is to build a strong foundation off the pitch as well as maintaining a 'good enough' team on it. Any success needs to be sustainable. This season is one where the goal is consolidation.

Another observation is that, with the exception of his second spell at Stoke City which lasted seven years, it's interesting that Pulis doesn’t seem to last for too long anywhere. I'll leave readers to draw their own conclusions regarding that.

His managerial career started in 1992 with two years at Bournemouth which were followed by four years at Gillingham where he was “controversially sacked by the club amidst claims of gross misconduct”.

He later brought a £400,000 court case against Gillingham chairman Paul Scally for unpaid bonuses, which was settled out of court in 2001 for £75,000.

Ten months at Portsmouth followed before he was sacked, and after two years out of work, he had a three year spell at Stoke City followed by a season at Plymouth Argyle.

Steve Parish's task is now is to stay calm, find a manager who can keep the club in the Premier League while accepting that his role is as a manager, not the owner, and that he needs to work with the funds available, and that funds are not unlimited. Someone who buys into the long-term nature of the project. How long was Moyes at Preston North End and Everton for? I'm just saying. 

Pulis is not the messiah, and Moyes is not a pariah.

One door closes, another one opens. Tony Pulis pulled off something of a miracle last season, but no one in football is irreplaceable. Iain Dowie was once a hero. That finished well as some of you may remember:

The case was heard in the London High Court in the summer of 2007, and on 14 June The Hon. Mr Justice Tugendhat ruled that Dowie had "deceived" Jordan and made "false representations" in conversations with Crystal Palace on 20 and 22 May, stating he had had no contact with Charlton when he had in fact spoken to them on 17 and 22 May. Dowie was ordered to pay Palace's legal bill, estimated at up to £400,000 and a similar amount to his own legal team in addition to compensation due to Crystal Palace. In 2008 an out-of-court agreement between Dowie and Crystal Palace was reached "on terms acceptable to Crystal Palace Football Club".

Don't mess with Palace! Dowie was allowed to leave "to be nearer his family in Bolton" but eight days later was revealed as Premier League Charlton Athletic's new manager! Charlton is nowhere near Bolton of course, except in league position.

Dougie Freedman was a Palace hero too, as a manager for keeping Palace in the Championship after a 10 point deduction for entering administration had put that status at risk. He left, but most Palace fans understood why. 

Ian Holloway was the hero just a year ago, but football moves on, and "impossible to fill" voids are soon filled.

Given their past record, I have no doubt that Steve Parish and his co-owners will steady the ship and make another decision in the club’s best interest. 

They are heroes too in their own way, for saving the club in 2010 when it was on the verge of ceasing to exist. 

The position of manager at Crystal Palace is a lot more attractive than at most clubs these days, and the CVs dropping in to the mat at Selhurst Park next week should be impressive. Sir Alex may well be considering coming out of retirement as you read this, and Pep Guardiola is quite possibly reading the fine print on his contract. Malky MacKay is reportedly licking his chops. Roy Hodgson's a Croydon boy and a former Palace (youth team) player. He might be interested in a bigger challenge...

Anyway, Keith Millen will be in charge for the first game at least, and probably the first three with an International Break in early September, and there is no need to make a panic decision. Millen knows the players, he worked with Pulis last season, and the shortening in Palace's price in the relegation market is an overreaction and an opportunity.

This article pretty much sums up what I have been trying to say.

Now read the title of this post out loud ten times. I bet you can't do it. 

Princes Or Paupers?

Just five places remain in the FTL so if you are tempted, dally no longer.

I had assumed that they had died years ago, so it was quite a surprise when the Duke Brothers signed up. They may have failed to corner the market in frozen orange juice back in 1983, but are presumably looking to recoup some of those losses from the FTL. Whether or not they'll be trading places as the season unfolds remains to be seen.

Stevie G has also entered, hoping to go one better than another Stevie G who led most of the way last season before letting it slip at the end.

The current list of entries in alphabetical order is:

If you want to change your entry name or colour scheme, let me know, and if you want to fill one or more of the five remaining places on a first come, first served basis, £52.50 per entry to calciocassini @ aol.com via PayPal please.

This is the current state of play for entries who have seen action:

A reminder that entries for the weekend (games through Monday) should be in by midnight tomorrow.

When Averages Mislead

Some observations about the usually excellent Soccermetrics predictions on the EPL season ahead. One is that while the total number of draws predicted seems reasonable at 96, their distribution is anything but.

Every team will draw 8, 9 or 10 matches? Over the last ten seasons, the high in each has ranged from 12 to 17 while the low has been 4 up to 7. Stoke City, Aston Villa and West Bromwich Albion are prime candidates for more than 10 draws in my opinion, but it's a sure bet that someone will have more than 10 draws. Even in the draw-drought seasons of 2013-14 (78) and 2005-06 (77) West Bromwich Albion and Aston Villa had 15 and 12 respectively.

I'm also not happy at all with Crystal Palace's projected finish. Dr. Howard Hamilton writes:

Crystal Palace simply played over their heads last season and are candidates to regress back to the mean, which in their case would mean relegation. If Tony Pulis can get his defense to perform ahead of expectations again (16 goals better), they might be able to approach their points total from last season. If he can’t, it will be a mad scrap to stay up.

Based on their form since Mr Anthony Pulis took over, Crystal Palace would have finished eighth last season, not too far off a Europa League place.

I think Dr. Howard has made the mistake of looking at Palace's last season results overall. They were clearly a different team under Ian Holloway than they were under Mr Anthony Pulis.

21 of the 48 goals conceded were given away in the opening 10 games meaning they conceded less than one goal a game after that, (including 3 in our 3:3 win over Liverpool) which comes to 37 over a season.  How many goals did champions Manchester City concede last season? Oh, let me check - back in a minute.

Back! It was 37. So Howard wants Crystal Palace to improve their defence by 16 goals which makes it 21 goals conceded which would likely make us Palace Champions.

Averages can be misleading, but I do agree that Palace were efficient last season. 33 goals were scored, (more than only relegated Norwich City and Cardiff City), yet they won 13 matches - eight by 1:0. They will need to score more, not concede fewer, unless we concede just 37, in which case we Palace really will be looking for a place in Europe next season. If we Palace concede 21, it'll be as Champions.

Geoff from fulltimebetting has set up a couple of tournaments that readers may be interested in. Not a patch on the FTL of course, and while Fantasy Leagues are not my cup of tea anyway, I think I have more than enough on my plate this season, but I know some people enjoy them:

Not sure if you ever have time but the free to enter Fantasy football game http://fantasy.premierleague.com/ is superb in that it lets you have one team but then use that team in up to ten different leagues. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but I’ve set up a league with a £100 prize that you might perhaps want to mention to fellow subs. 525120-134301 is the code to enrol.

Geoff has also set up a Last Man Standing competition with Paddy Power:

https://lastmanstanding.paddypower.com/?do=home

Click on Private Tournament and then its fulltimebettingblog and password is fulltimebettingblog. Winner takes 90% with greedy paddy taking the rest! £5 TO ENTER.

That might have been fun, but it appears you need a Paddy Power account to get to the private tournament page. If you have one and want to enter, Geoff would love to see you. Meanwhile, he is busy reading up on "How to create a strong password".

Speaking of the FTL, we are now up to 24 entries with the entry of Jamie A, and Draw Picks makes his debut tonight with these two:

Kilmarnock v Aberdeen 

Patrick Thistle v Ross County 

Will we see the leaders challenged? The table will look a lot different after this weekend, that's for sure.

If you fancy yourself as a tipster, there's £1,200 up for grabs in the League, plus an exciting Erskine Cup, Monthly prizes, and bounty prizes to compete for.

FTL Weekend Update 11.Aug.2014

The FTL season got underway, albeit slowly, this weekend with entries from the names in the table below, which reflects the current standings.

With 16 of the 23 entries still to make a selection, Fairfranco should probably not plan on spending his four figure prize money just yet, but he is off to a strong start. Online Trader was very excited about starting off with a winning set of picks, and seems to be going for quality, not quantity, this season. So far so good.

Abromo was the most prolific with 25 selections, but he showed a small deficit despite 17 winners and currently props up the table.

A long way to go though, and still nine places available if anyone wants to sign up before the EPL gets going next weekend.

The World Awaits

For some reason, despite The Sultan announcing his retirement from the blogging world in February, I kept his blog on my blog roll. I now think that was a mistake. He wrote in a post titled Goodbye Traders:

So I've come to the conclusion that this is the perfect moment to end my blogging. I know it's not the first time I've said this but I'm certain this time! I had planned to continue through 2014. I felt I might still have a bit left to contribute because my tennis trading academy had given me a new lease of life in terms of material to blog about. But recent events have finalised in my mind that the online trading world is a place I no longer wish to be part of.

The retirement held for five and a half months, before he was back with "Sultan Tennis Trading Academy: Hot News!" (His exclamation point, not mine). Then earlier this month, we get this:

I've lived on the edge for a few years now and have come through it but things can change. I think more and more about what I'm going to do with the money I've accumulated and how I'm going to invest it in future.

Perhaps my memory fails me but I thought there was a Sultan pleading for investment because he had no funds of his own to invest. Didn't he write something like this in 2013?

I want to make some serious cash or I'm really not that bothered. I always thought that was going to happen one day and I'm almost certain that it would if I could only compound my profits. But that isn't going to happen this year and I don't know if I can continue treading water for another year, when I could be doing something else. Without investment, I'm stuck and although I've been doing well, everything I earn goes straight back out.

I was not far away from quitting trading completely back in February. I remember being very frustrated at the fact I could not afford to compound my profit and would not be able to do so for the foreseeable future.

It was only about a year ago when The Sultan reminisced about his days of trading for one of the court-siding syndicates:

I was asked to trade on behalf of a syndicate. I would love to have that kind of opportunity again (it was pulled after a month, despite me making a good profit) but until that happens, I will continue to slog away on the ladders every week and see where it gets me.

Well somewhere along the way, The Sultan has hit the big time - apparently. He now muses about his strolls on the golf course, and his fear of ending up collecting lost golf balls like one gentleman he sees there:

I presume he sells them back to the course owners in exchange for a few pennies. I suppose it's not the worst job in the world. You spend all day outdoors in a picturesque environment. But I always feel a sense of anxiety whenever I see him - because I'm scared that I'll end up the same as him.

That's some presumption for a start. As someone whose parents' back garden adjoins a golf course, I can tell you that many people, including my Dad, actually enjoy finding lost golf balls, and happily give them away to anyone interested in them. And as for looking scruffy, well it's not typically an activity that requires a suit and tie, and best shiny shoes - although having said that, my Dad is of a generation where he does feel improperly dressed if he goes to Morrison's without a jacket and tie!

But what's this about a sense of anxiety? How could that be?

...even though my debt worries are long gone and I will be comfortable for years to come - barring a disaster. But what happens if there is a disaster? I've lived on the edge for a few years now and have come through it but things can change. I think more and more about what I'm going to do with the money I've accumulated and how I'm going to invest it in future.

Well something changed in a hurry. We've gone from being stuck, with anything earned being spent, to being comfortable for years to come, and "which ISA should I invest in?" all in the space of a few months. Having never made more than £10,000 in a month until October last year, and despite not having reached the Super Premium Charge threshold yet, he is somehow comfortable for years to come - still renting mind you - and something just doesn't add up.

Comfortable is a relative term for sure - to some it means having no debt, to others it means that income from your investments covers living expenses. One person suggested:

Financially Comfortable: To me, this means that you have a sizeable portfolio, you own a reasonably successful business or you’ve got a very stable job, and you either own your home outright or have a very manageable mortgage. You could go out and buy a new car without needing a loan. You could afford to take a year off from work to pursue a dream and not return mired in debt. If you’re half of a couple, you could live well enough if either of you stopped working.

It's all very curious, although quite possibly intended to inspire naïve readers into signing up for the "email only" academy and achieve their dreams of living the high-life like him. Usually these ads are accompanied by pictures of the seller in his Ferrari parked in the driveway of his palatial home as his private jet takes off in the background.

I enjoy my own company (I really am delightful companionship) but for the first time in a long time, I have started to crave some real-life interaction.

But I think I am now reaching the stage where perhaps solo trading is actually starting to turn me a tad insane.

Modest and mad, an irresistible combination.

Finally, yesterday we had this vomit inducing paragraph:

I know I have a lot to offer the world in some capacity but at the same time, I'd be stupid to throw away the incredible income stream I have fought so hard to generate. It's a real conundrum.

He IS the messiah! As Hejik wrote in his excellent and detailed look at The Sultan earlier this year:

Unfortunately, his head is now stuck so far up his own backside that he can no longer see things in a clear light.

The Artful Dodger And FTL Update

The FTL entries are up to 23 now, so just 9 spots remaining, and a reminder to anyone entered that entries for the weekend (tonight through Monday) need to be in by midnight tonight.

The roll call to date, in alphabetical order, is shown below.

Some new names as well as some familiar names. It should be an interesting season, and the total prize money, League, Erskine Cup and Monthly prizes, is now at £1,550.

Only one entry so far for this weekend other then the XX Draws, but I am expecting a few more to come in during the day with the Football League and Conference kicking off this weekend, and the table will start to take shape.

Right now, Fairfranco is pocketing £1,290 as the only entry in profit! (This excludes the Erskine Cup and seven of the eight monthly prizes, in case you were wondering why the numbers didn't add up).

We have some good names too - Mountain Mouse was amusing, and as Geoff himself said, Fulltimebettingblog took several hours to come up with as a name.

Finally, not sports investment related, but Rubicon, aka Scott, sent me a link to an article in The Daily Telegraph on the fare dodging Fund Manager Jonathan Burrows and "collective madness" in the City, which I enjoyed reading.

FTL Attractions And Identifying Poison

Although several of the less followed leagues have already started, the 2014-15 party begins for real this weekend with the Football League and Conference back, along with the top league in France.

Twenty entries now make up the FTL and the selections should start flooding in any minute. A reminder that selections for matches played this weekend (i.e. Friday through Monday) should be in by midnight on Friday, with any Friday selections of course needing to be in before kick-off.

The twenty entries will now be competing for £1,400 in prizes, plus bonuses for finishing ahead of any of The Football Analyst, Football Investor, Skeeve or Football Elite. The Erskine Cup will also add some excitement (in my opinion) as the season unfolds.

The first Cassini Service email has also been sent out, with some selections this weekend, although there will no draws featuring promoted sides until the new year, and nor will there any longer be any ridiculously short priced draws from France and Italy. I will still be including these matches because they can usually be backed at higher prices, but backing these matches at Pinnacle Sports prices is just not viable. Backing at shorter than 3.15 in Ligue 1 cost us (the XX Draws) 13.78 points, while 12.28 points were lost backing at under 3.21 in Serie A.

The Draw price can vary by a lot - just this week the Draw price from the Ligue 2 game between Brest and Clermont Foot was recorded by Football Data at a best of 3.3, with an average of 3.06 (also Pinnacle's price). The low I saw was Ladbroke's 2.85. It is stating the obvious that there is a big difference between 2.85 and 3.3 - 15.8% value.

Even though my recorded prices are Pinnacle's, and they are chosen because betting with them is sustainable, it is worth mentioning again that their price can usually be beaten. The last time I checked, in the EPL of 2012-13, Pinnacle Sports had the top draw price in just 73 of 360 matches, although that 73 was higher than any other single book. I'll probably take a look at 2013-14 in the next few days.

Matches involving newly promoted teams in the first half of 2013-14 cost us 26.16 points before being profitable in the second half.

Football Elite's Matt sent out a very interesting preview of the Football League and some non-leagues too yesterday, and made some good points about the impact of the close season. I had a question on the Cassini Service email which was how am I making selections already when teams have yet to play. It's a fair question, but my thoughts are rather like matt's on this, and as Matt wrote:

And of course you also need to ensure that there’s no wholesale changes to the club otherwise last seasons performance is totally irrelevant. All clubs have some change, don’t be put off by individual player changes or even in some cases manager changes. Just as long as there’s not been a lot of changes to key men.

Southampton is one example of a team whose rating from the end of last season is basically redundant, but for most teams, as Matt also pointed out, the close season is relatively short. Three months, and not too much usually happens - it's not like expecting World Cup form to roll over from 2014 to 2018 - which would not be a good thing for England.

Peter Nordsted has entered his Drawmaster in the FTL, expected to debut selections next weekend, and
also sent out an email which included some of his services for next season, which includes "Pete Nordsted's Weekly Football Ratings and Analysis sheet".

An example of the Arsenal v Crystal Palace game can be found HERE

This match is of particular interest to both Peter (an Arsenal fan) and myself (not an Arsenal fan, although my Granddad was), and I was interested in comparing our numbers on this. Arsenal are a club who have made a number of moves this summer, and are likely (in my opinion) to be underrated by my ratings and thus suspended from any systems until their rating adjusts. Crystal Palace have made fewer moves and will struggle to beat last season's 11th place finish (in my opinion), but let's look at the numbers.

Peter has Arsenal expected to score 1.4 goals, Palace 0.31 while I have Arsenal scoring 2.03 and Palace 0.99.  A 2:1 home win if ever I saw one, although the market favours 2:0.

These numbers make the Over 2.5 goals 1.97 in my opinion, 4.11 in Peter's. Betfair's price has traded as low as 1.11(?) and as high as 1.89.

I also think (and I say this as a numbers man, rather than as a Palace fan) Peter's 0.31 goals expectation  is way too low. The market thinks so too. 1.32 for Under 2.5 goals is rather unusual (to say the least) in the EPL. The Crystal Palace v Aston Villa game was the shortest priced Under last season, at an average of 1.61.

In the 1,714 matches since I started recording goal expectations and actual goals, I only had two teams with an expectation as low as 0.3. Both did indeed fail to score, but a tiny sample size means little. Looking at other low expectancies, there were 85 teams expected to score 0.5 goals or less, but half (well, 42) managed to score, and 17 managed to score more than once.

It could be coincidence, but it's a promising sign that the closest expected to actuals is in the range where I have the highest number of predictions.

Teams        :          Variance        :         Actual            :         Expected

It's a good way to validate that the model is working close to 'expectations'; after all, the output is only useful if the data being entered is accurate. Poisson can quickly become poison.

Fortunately the markets are there to help - if our numbers are too far off the market's, well chances are we've messed up somewhere.  If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. 

Brest In Show

The FTL continues to take shape. We are up to sixteen paid entries, with three more promised, and this now includes Matt ( of Football Elite ) and Peter Nordsted who will be entering his Drawmaster selections.

Matt looks like he will also be offering a bounty to anyone finishing ahead of the net of his Recommended Bets, Vulnerable Home Favourites and Football League bets, and I suspect it will be the same bounty terms as the generous The Football Analyst, Football Investor and Skeeve have already committed to, i.e. £25 to each entry finishing ahead of them up to £500.

We also welcome back Fairfranco from last season, hoping to improve on his 13th place last time out after a disappointing run from February took him out of the profit and prize money finish he held at the start of that month:

He's off to a good start as the first selection of the season was Brest (~1.95) who came from behind to beat Clermont last night in Ligue 2.

We also have an entry sent our way from TFA Graeme, UK_Raz, and here is the latest list of entries along with the estimated prize money for the League, the monthly prizes and of course the Erskine Cup which will start in November, if not sooner.

As the only entry in profit, Fairfranco is currently looking at a cash prize of £1,104.

But wait, there's more - there's also the August / September monthly prize of £17, plus £100 in bounty money - not too shabby for an investment of just £52.50.

With a cap of 32 entries, there are just 13 spots remaining. Rules and details can be found here. Don't wait too long.  

FTL Rules Update

In the FTL Rules for 2014-15, I wrote:

Draw No Bet (DNB)

Football Data do not record prices on these bets. A selection of Team A (DNB) will therefore be treated as a lay selection of opponents Team B, in other words you have the Draw on your side, but stand to win less. Bear that in mind before choosing this market.

This was never a very satisfactory solution, and after an exchange of emails with Matt of Football Elite, for whom an accurate reflection of his bets in the FTL table is important, I am updating this rule. 

Basically, it is not rocket surgery to deduce the DNB prices from the Match Odds, and so I spent a total of about five minutes setting up the spreadsheet to accept Match Odds and spit out the DNB prices.

So the rule will now read: 

Draw No Bet (DNB)

Football Data do not record prices on these bets, but the prices will be calculated using the Match Odds that are published. The probability implied for the draw will be re-assigned proportionately to the Home and Away prices, for example

Bounty Hunting

The good news for the 2014-15 FTL continues, with Skeeve becoming the latest to step up to the plate and offer a bounty, matching the offer of The Football Analyst and Football Investor. Another service willing to put their selections up against all-comers. For anyone new, the bounty is £25 for finishing ahead of any or all of these three, up to a maximum of £500 (which is 20 entries, and we don't have that many yet!).

It's unfortunate that Croatia is not a league covered by the Football Data web site because Skeeve's Croatian Football Bets not only finished in profit last season (94 bets, 56 wins, +18.36 points, 19.5% ROI), but have started this one in fine form too:

Not only is Skeeve generously adding to the bounty, but he is offering a special deal for Green All Over readers and offering the discount price - €400 (reduced from €500) for the full season, or €280 (reduced from €350) for the August-December period.

The FTL is taking shape. As of this morning we have 14 entries, listed below in alphabetical order with the current prize money assuming every entry in profit by the same amount. It won't end that way!

Plus there is £25 for finishing ahead of Football Investor, another £25 for finishing ahead of The Football Analyst highest placed entry, and now yet another £25 for finishing ahead Skeeve, although only one entry managed that last season.

For anyone who understands the importance of value, i.e. every reader of this blog, this is a great opportunity.

Pay just £52.50 to enter, have a full season of entertainment, and possibly walk away with over £1,000. Beat two of the Bounty Boys, and you basically get your money back even if you make a loss.

If anyone wants to change their entry name, or even the colour scheme for it, let me know, and if you are interested in joining, check out the rules here and sign up. The season for many of us is less than a week away.

2014-15 Fixtures Spreadie Ready

More than four thousand (4,034 to be precise) fixtures from the coming 2014-15 season are now in the spreadsheet I mentioned, after the Legacalcio finalised their schedule. The leagues included are the top 5 in England, and the top 5 in Europe - i.e. nine. 

The spreadsheet is a no-frills effort, with plenty of changes to fixtures ahead, but it's a decent starting point. Everyone has their personal preferences and needs, but in my experience entering the fixtures in the first place is the time consuming part.

As mentioned previously, if any FTL members or Cassini Service subscribers want a free copy, drop me a line. Some of you already have, and you should have received it this morning.  

The Gambler Returns, Jovial John

After going dark for several years, and by his own account coming close to death, John Tuohy, aka The Gambler is back. Some of you may remember John from years back. His blog was one of the original betting themed blogs, (though it was comprised more about food and frequent trips to the pub than anything too insightful) but if I remember rightly, he went on tilt one Saturday afternoon on Betfair, and lost enough money to cause him to self-exclude, and he then spent the next few months whining about why he couldn't re-open his account, rather than recognise that he might have a problem.

So I'm not sure if I should be pleased that he is back blogging and betting or not. I'm pleased he is alive of course, if not in the best of shape, but it's disturbing to see him repeating his former pattern of betting which seems to be to bet on whatever is on TV at the moment, with no consideration about finding value. Horse racing, cricket, pre-season football friendlies...  time will tell, but I fear we're witnessing a train wreck.

John featured in a Cigar Aficianado article back in 2004 which, unsurprisingly given that it is exactly 10 years old, looks very dated now, but might interest some of you. It includes this:

Only 20 percent of Betfair's customers are drawn to this rarefied form of wagering, [trading] and it has attracted a coterie of mathematically inclined players who've left their jobs in the city for a run at professional gambling. Such is the case with John Tuohy, a former IT consultant who's gone from being a regular day-to-day punter, with a 9-to-5 job, to gambling full-time on Betfair. He's a jovial guy, sitting on a couch in the study of his luxe waterfront high-rise apartment, watching races on TV and casually punching wagers into his computer.

I wrote a post triggered by this article more than five years ago, which is just as relevant today as it was then, and will interest all of you! The comments are particularly interesting. The article featured a “supersharp advantage player”, or a “nerdy-looking guy with a PhD in mathematics” by the name of Glenn Alcoe, (not to be confused with anywhere in Scotland) and a little Cassini research uncovered an interesting tidbit.

I suspect you're wrong... not to ruin the story, but there really IS a Glenn Alcoe who is involved with horse racing. He took part in the 2005 All Party Parliamentary Betting and Gaming Group inquiry into inside information and laying horses to lose. It’s an unusual name, so if I were a betting man, I would put money on him being the same guy. Incidentally, if you actually read that report, no one without inside information, and with an ounce of common sense, would ever bet on horses again.

Glenn still is active in the horse racing world (@rhillsisgod for those of you on Twitter)
There are still places in the FTL available - we have a quorum, but if we can fill 32 places it'll make things much more interesting. Still waiting to hear from Peter Nordsted or Skeeve regarding the sponsorship opportunity, but Football Investor Stewboss has offered to match Football Analyst Graeme's offer of a £25 bounty to anyone finishing ahead of him in the table (up to £500).  

£52.50 for the chance to pit your wits against the big boys and win their money.

Finally, a reminder that the early bird price of £129 for the Cassini Service next season expires at the end of July, and we are nearly at the end of July.

PayPal to calciocassini @ aol.com for either the FTL, Cassini Service or both, and if you haven't read my article on Betting Expert regarding updating ratings, check it out here.