Final Countdown

As previously mentioned, and as some of you may be aware, a couple of major football tournaments come to a conclusion this weekend, with the Draw worth considering in both games.

At the time of writing the Draw for the Copa América final between Brazil and Argentina as priced by OddsPortal has shortened by several clicks to an average of 3.13 and when the Fair Draw probability is calculated, it is 0.308. In major tournament knockout matches where this number is 0.3 or greater, the ROI for the Draw is 48%. 

For the Euro 2020 Final, the Draw is also very short, with an average price of 3.00, and with the fair probability here at 0.324, when this number is 0.32 or greater the Draw ROI is 79%. Here are the results of previous matches in this range:

Bear in mind that the sample size is small since I only have data going back to 2004 but in my opinion the Draw in both matches offers great value, and if you have followed this strategy through the tournaments you're playing with profits. I have bets at 3.3 and 3.1 for the two matches.

The Under 2.5 goals is also a value proposition here at around 1.5, with 13 of 14 similar matches going Under until the Paraguay v Peru game last week where the Draw was strangely favourite as mentioned here. The Under is this game was 1.37. 

NHL 2020-21 Review

Tampa Bay Lightning clinched their second consecutive Stanley Cup this week beating the Montreal Canadiens by four games to one, and the NHL season is now over. I know I wasn't the only one following my system this season and while it disappointed in the post season, overall it was another successful season, as they have all been for many seasons. 

The basic system is on the left, and a slightly modified more selective system is on the right.

Unfortunately with the Killer Sports site going into a permanent hibernation in the next few weeks, producing such tables as above will no longer be possible but clearly the edge persists and I'll continue to follow the systems next season. 

For those wondering, over the 11 seasons above, the record in playoff games is +23.78 units (ROI 9.7%) and +22.79 units (19.3%), slightly above the regular season averages.

Avoiding the Draw and backing the favourite in third-place playoff games continued to be a profitable strategy last night in the Copa América although the winning goal, and a good one it was too, didn't come until a few seconds after the three minutes of added time, just as the game was looking guaranteed to go to a penalty shootout at 2:2. This tournament doesn't bother with extra time. 

Of the 13 third-place matches in Copa América tournaments, only one has ever finished as a Draw as I mentioned previously while in Euros and World Cups all-time, the numbers aren't much better with just 4 of the 25 matches finishing as as Draws. In the era of prices, the record is:

 

Euro and Copa Profits Locked In

The Euro 2020 semi-final between Italy and Spain last night saw another win for Draw backers, who are now up by 8.98 units with just two games remaining and thus a guaranteed ROI for the tournament of at least 47%. With the smallest probability difference (19%) of the competition between these two teams, this result was not a huge surprise and the 'official' average price of 3.16 was easily beatable with Pinnacle at 3.22 and higher on the exchanges.  

In the 2021 Copa América, another guaranteed profit with the same system now up 3.14 units, with just the final to come. The second semi-final between Argentina and Colombia finished 1:1 with Argentina advancing to the final on penalties where they will face Brazil on Saturday. 

There's also a third place playoff game in this tournament, but as mentioned previously, it's best to ignore these matches, especially in the Copa where only one of 12 such contests has ever finished level - the 2001 game between Honduras and Uruguay in case you were wondering. 

The two teams had met in a Group game just 10 days earlier, which may be an angle to research. Honduras isn't a CONMEBOL country of course, and were invited to take part in the tournament for the first time, but after taking third place they've not been invited back! 

I'll update the numbers once both tournaments have ended, but hopefully some of you took advantage of this perennially profitable system.

The Phoenix Suns held serve in Game One of the NBA Finals beating the Milwaukee Bucks and covering both the 6.5 point spread and the Overs - Game Two is on Thursday - and in the NHL the Montreal Canadiens avoided a sweep by winning Game Four against the Tampa Bay Lighting, who now lead the best of seven series 3:1. Game Five is tonight but first, another Euro semi-final. 

Copa América Draws

This year, the Copa América tournament is proceeding simultaneously with the Euro tournament. In the past the Copa has usually been played in odd years, with the 2016 tournament a one-off centenary celebration.

Effective from 2020, CONMEBOL have now aligned their tournament with that of UEFA in even years, but of course the COVID-19 pandemic delayed both tournaments.

For those of you backing the Draw in the Copa knockout matches, and this is historically a good strategy for the same reason it is in other major tournaments, we are in profit after the Quarter-Finals with a very unusual winner in the Paraguay v Peru game. 

This was the text book example of a "toss-up" game with the Draw actually the favourite at prices varying from 2.7 to 2.86. 

The Draw should never be favourite as I explained in 2013:

The probability of a draw is clearly highest when the expectancy of goals is low. Of the under 1.5 goal outcomes, one-third (the 0-0) results in a draw. Add another goal and one-third of the six possible outcomes results in a draw, but add one more goal, and the draw probability drops precipitously. The draw outcomes from the Under 3.5 goal markets total two from ten.

So unless the goal expectancy in a match is two or less, the draw will never be favourite, but the closer to zero the goal expectancy is, the more probable the draw is. The relative lack of interest in the draw as a betting outcome does, in my opinion, make the draw a value bet when the market’s expectation of goals is higher than it should be.

Some books had Peru as second favourite, others had Paraguay, and the result was indeed a Draw, although if the market was expecting few goals, they might have been shocked with the 3:3 final score! 

Starting with the 2007 tournament, backing the Draw in the knockout stages of Copa América tournaments has an ROI of 45% with Quarter-Final matches at 75%, but as with the Euros, in Semi-Finals the value is historically on the favourite with an ROI of 20%.  

Lightning Strike and Sinistral Pitching

Hopefully some of you made some money on the Tampa Bay Lightning who won Game Three at an 'official' 1.79, and who will be a qualifier in Game 4 tomorrow when they attempt to sweep the Montreal Canadiens to retain the Stanley Cup. Their odds won't be so generous this time though, currently at around 1.67 but drifting slightly. 

The NBA Finals are set, with the previously mentioned Phoenix Suns playing the Milwaukee Bucks, a franchise that last reached the Finals in 1974 and last won the title in 1971. The Suns have home court advantage and they have never won the title, losing in 1993 to the Chicago Bulls and in 1976 to the Boston Celtics. The Suns are favourites for the title at around 1.63. 

No more winners for Draw backers in the Euro 2020 tournament, but a profit is already guaranteed with three matches remaining. Profits from the 12 matches so far are 6.82 units.

History is on our side. Of the 88 Euro knockout matches ever played, only 51 have been decided in 90 minutes, with Belgium the only country playing five or more games with all being decided in regulation. 

Of the remaining teams in this tournament, Italy's Draw percentage is 57%, England 50%, Spain 47% and Denmark 29% but in Euro Semi-Finals, the edge is to back the favourite, with an ROI of 39%, but obviously a small sample size. 

If we include World Cup Semi-Finals, the ROI on favourites is still high at 26%, but the Draw becomes profitable also. Which all looks rather promising for a dream Italy v England Final but this scenario also looked promising in 1990 until two disastrous penalty shootouts led to the elimination of both countries and to probably the worst World Cup Final of all-time.

In baseball, July has continued the good run for hot favourites with four out of four so far and one selection (Los Angeles Angels) today with the added bonus that the starter (Patrick Sandoval) throws left-handed, and such throwers have a remarkable 33-3 record this season.

Moving Day

Yesterday was Moving Day in Quebec, but at two games down in the Stanley Cup Finals, the Montreal Canadiens will need to get moving if they are to end Canada's drought in this competition!

It was also Canada Day, but little to celebrate for that province with the Tampa Bay Lightning winning the first two games and game three tonight likely to see the Lighting as a qualifier for the NHL System, although so far this season, this has not been profitable in the playoffs overall even if the Lightning specifically haven't been to blame.

The regular season gave us 51.5 units of profit to play with, but unfortunately the 26 playoff games have seen us hand back 6.23 of them.

In the MLB, June continued the good fortunes of May with the Hot Favourites adding another 14.1 units. Left handed starters were 14-1 for the month (32-3 for the season) as I mentioned last week. 

The T-Bone System lost 2.07 units, while the Overs added 9.8 units. You may recall that I mentioned the success of Unders in May writing:

The Totals Systems combined are comfortably in profit after 179 games (29.96 units) but interestingly all the profit is from Unders with Overs slightly down, although making up ground after a slow start to the season.

The probable reason was discussed in early June and the subsequent clampdown my umpires has not surprisingly seen this avenue of easy money closed down. After being in profit by 28.85 units through the end of May, in June we lost 4.8 units, but again overall a profit for the Totals Systems.

There's also a football competition currently in progress, and if you took my advice about backing the Draw in knockout matches, we're almost guaranteed a profit already, even with seven matches still to come. Four draws from the eight Round of 16 matches mean we are up 6.94 units so far, perhaps a little lucky with two 3:3 results on Monday given that no World Cup or Euro knockout game had previously ended with this result, but we'll take it. 

In the NBA, the Phoenix Suns reached the final after missing the playoffs for ten years straight, a record I believe, and will likely play the Milwaukee Bucks who now have a 3:2 load over the Atlanta Hawks. For the Overs System, we've only had four qualifiers in the playoffs, three of which went Under. As in most sports, there's a big difference between regular season games and playoffs. 

Good luck in July. At noon today, the year will be half over. 

Euro Draws, Canada Hopes, And Suns Shine

Rather a thrilling day in the Euros 2020 tournament with two more winners for Draw backers, although not many would have expected the 3:3 result in both matches. 

At 3:1 to France in the second match, I tweeted this:

Quite remarkable, especially given that no previous Euro - or World Cup for that matter - knockout game has ever finished 3:3 after 90 minutes! The Copa America last had a 3:3 in 1999 (Mexico v Peru). 

Draw backers currently have a healthy profit of 5.69 units from the six matches played with another nine matches to come.

It's Game One of the Stanley Cup Finals tonight, with Canada having another shot at ending its 27 year drought since the last win for a team from that country coming in 1993. 

The winners that year were the Montreal Canadiens beating Wayne Gretzky's Los Angeles Kings and the Canadiens are back this year, underdogs against the reigning champions Tampa Bay Lightning.

Five Canadian teams have reached the Finals since 1993, but all have lost; Vancouver Canucks (twice), Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers and Ottawa Senators. 

The regular season NHL system this season was very successful, +51.5 units with an ROI of 14.9%, but wasn't so successful in the playoffs losing 6.23 units for an overall ROI on the season of 12%, which is not too shabby at all. 

Going back to 2006, the system is profitable in playoffs (ROI 10.2%), but in any one season with a small number of matches, we are at the mercy of variance. 

The NBA season is close to determining its final series also, with the Phoenix Suns looking to clinch their place in the final tonight when they face the Los Angeles Clippers at home and with a 3:1 lead. Whoever advances from the West will play either the Milwaukee Bucks or the Atlanta Hawks.

Euro 2020

When it comes to the knockout stages of big tournaments such as World Cups and Euros, it should come as no surprise that the Draw is generally where the value lies. 

I only have data going back to the 2004 Euros, which means a sample size of just 96 matches. The third-place play-off games in World Cups tend not to be competitive, nor are they technically elimination games.

Using Odds Portal prices adjusted to a standard over-round of 103% (in Euro 2004, this was over 110% declining to 102.6% for the 2018 World Cup), backing the Draw in all 96 matches would have profited you 27.22 units, an ROI of 28.4%.

The highest ROI is at the Quarter-Final stage, but every round (Round of 16, Quarter-Final, Semi-Final and Final) shows a profit. When games are 'toss-ups' or 'close' matches the ROI is 71%. Unfortunately 18 matches in eight tournaments would test the patience of most of us, but worth mentioning for those who use Kelly when determining their stakes. 

Euros / World Cups 2004 - 2018

In the 40 matches where there was an odds-on favourite (using fair odds) the ROI is 4%, while it is 46% in the more evenly matched of matches. 

Of course in any single tournament with just a few matches, the chances of a loss are very real, with three of the eight tournaments showing small losses. 

The 2010 World Cup lost 1.77 units from 15 matches, and both the last two Euros were losers with losses of 0.7 units in 2012 (from 7 matches) and 0.13 units in 2016 (from 15 matches). 

Killer Closing

A rare loss for the 'Hot Favourites' system on Tuesday, although with Gerrit Cole the starting pitcher, it perhaps wasn't a surprise given his poor record as a hot favourite this year. He already had more losses than any other pitcher this season for us, and now leads all comers by two, with five losses in his nine matches.

Overall this season the ROI on the Money Line is 12.6% and an even higher  

20.8% on the Run Line, but interestingly, by which I mean I have no explanation for this at the moment, when the starting pitcher is left handed, the profits are far higher this season compared with previous years. 

Unfortunately insights such as this will be much harder in the future as it appears the site I use (Killer Sports) is to shut down soon.

Whether any alternatives will reveal themselves remains to be seen, but it is bad news. For betting pre-game you need data, and this site has baseball data going back to 2004 which has proven to be very valuable. 

Unfortunately it attracts people who get excited by nonsense such as "Padres as a dog since 2008 of more than 125 before all star break in first game of series, last h2h was home win this season where opposing team threw 2+ strikeouts." When you play with enough parameters, random patterns are easy to be find.

Oh well, at least they are seeing the MLB season to its conclusion, and the NBA and NHL seasons will have ended, but no NFL for next season. Fortunately we have a clear edge in this sport going back to 2002 so I should be able to cope even if it will take a little longer to identify qualifiers. The other issue is that no longer will the results of systems be readily verifiable, but life goes on.   

Whyteleafe Woes

Not to depress anyone, but less than a week until the days start to shorten again, and 2021-22 pre season fixtures start to be announced. Unfortunately for my club, there is again no pre-season tour of Queensland and even more unfortunately for my local non-league club, any season at all is now in doubt.

Many years back, I trained pre-season with Whyteleafe but surprisingly they never called me back, (presumably they mislaid my number).

More recently my son went further and played a few matches for the first team there, but yesterday the club confirmed rumours that have been circulating for a while that they will not be playing in next season’s Isthmian South Central League.

The club has been forced to give up its Step 4 status after new owners of the Church Road ground refused to negotiate a new lease or licence agreement with the club for the 2021-22 season.

So that's a bit disappointing, but hopefully the club will continue, albeit in a lower tier. Depending on how much lower a tier, I may try out for the team again, although after the broken leg this year, I'm not sure my chances of first team action are any higher than they were 40 years ago!

The new owners of the ground are Irama Sports, a Singapore based company which has "close links" to former Liverpool and Wales player Ian Rush. Not sure how true their claim to love grass roots sports is though.

Sports investing has gone a little quiet this month so far with few qualifiers in either the NHL or NBA systems as both these sports are well into the playoffs. It's fortunate there have been few, as most have been losers.

The NHL ROI has fallen to 13.4% for the season, and the NBA Overs ROI to 22.5%. The MLB Hot Favourites continue to generate money though, with a 22-5 record and an ROI for the month of 16.8% and 11.7% for the season. June is usually a good month for hot favourites, though not quite up to May's high standards, but 2021 is on track to beat the June record set two seasons ago.

Sticky Situation in MLB

Last month, I wrote this in regard to the MLB: 

The Totals Systems combined are comfortably in profit after 179 games (29.96 units) but interestingly all the profit is from Unders with Overs slightly down, although making up ground after a slow start to the season.

Overall, Unders is the winner in 51.7% of matches, but in our subset of selections, the strike rate is currently 62.9%.

It appears that we may now have an explanation for why the Unders is performing so well. The latest Sports Illustrated magazine has an article titled "The inside story of how rampant pitch-doctoring in MLB is pumping pitchers up and deflating offenses" reporting that:

Over the past two or three years, pitchers’ illegal application to the ball of what they call “sticky stuff”—at first a mixture of sunscreen and rosin, now various forms of glue—has become so pervasive that one recently retired hurler estimates “80 to 90%” of pitchers are using it in some capacity. The sticky stuff helps increase spin on pitches, which in turn increases their movement, making them more difficult to hit. That’s contributed to an offensive crisis that has seen the league-wide batting average plummet to a historically inept .236.

The current World Series champions Los Angeles Dodgers are called out specifically:

According to the data, L.A. has by a large margin the highest year-to-year increase of any club in spin rate on four-seam fastballs, which are considered a bellwether pitch. In fact, the Dodgers’ four-seam spin rate is higher than that of any other team in the Statcast era. There is no proof the Dodgers are doctoring baseballs, but nearly across the board, their hurlers’ spin rates on that pitch have increased this season from last.

The Dodgers declined to comment.

However, the Dodgers have been one of the non-profitable teams for this strategy this season, and along with the Padres and Giants have made this a non-starter in games involving NL West teams. In NL East matches however, the Under is winning 68.4% of the time. 

In the AL, where the Designated Hitter rule applies, matches involving an American League team, system matches are going Under 66.2% of the time.

Now that the issue of tampering with the ball has been exposed, it will be interesting to see how the Totals markets, as well as the leagues, react. We may not always immediately know why an edge exists, but if you wait until an explanation is found, you'll have missed the boat. 

The T-Bone System is firing on all cylinders this season too, with a 100% record this month and a season ROI of 5.6%, while the hot favourites are up 11.1% on the season. After losing 6.7 units in April, the system is now up 26.9 units.  

The Betting Bees - Benham's Brentford, and Bloom's Brighton

Other than fans of their promotion rivals, I suspect that most neutral football fans were happy to see Brentford promoted to the Premier League last Saturday. 

One club chairman who wouldn't have been so thrilled would have been Brighton's Tony Bloom, as it is well known that he and Brentford chairman Matthew Benham had a major falling out in the early 2000s when they worked together at Premier Bet. The two clubs did agree on the transfer of Neal Maupay in 2019, so maybe things have cooled off a little but the boardroom could be an interesting place when the two teams play each other next season.

I've previously written on this blog about Benham in February 2015 when Brentford were playing in the second tier after spending 59 of the previous 60 seasons in the third or fourth. I wrote about Bloom a year later in February 2016. It's worth reading the Benham article again, given that the post ended with:

None of us know what will happen next. But we can say this. Brentford and Midtjylland are clearly going the right way and their stories over the next few years will make fascinating viewing. And while Benham has taken some flak in recent days, history teaches us that in the long run it is unwise to bet against him.

Back in February 2015, FC Midtjylland had never won the Danish League or Cup, but since then have won the league three times, finished runners-up twice, and also won the Danish Cup. With Brentford now reaching the Premier League, it's pretty clear that Benham's methods work.

His betting strategy - "to exploit inefficiencies and errors in bookmaker prices" - should be what everyone strives for, and speaking of which, here are the results from May.

A couple of red areas, but in a short time period such as a month, results are always going to be skewed by randomness and luck, and worrying about wins and losses is rather silly if we have confidence in our strategies. Focus on the process, not the results.

"Bad bets sometimes win and good bets sometimes lose. Long-term it will work." - Mark Langdon (Racing Post)

Keeping Score

I mentioned Morgan Housel a couple of times late last year, and his book "The Psychology of Money" which is well worth reading if you are interested in finance. 

One of the main takeaways from the book is that investing is quite unlike any other field. In the opening chapter he writes:

In what other industry does someone with no college degree, no training, no background, no formal experience, and no connections massively outperform someone with the best education, the best training and the best connections? 

The 'outperform' in this instance is the often heard story of someone like a janitor or librarian who dies at a good old age and leaves several million in their will, and Housel includes the story of Ronald James Read who:

"was an American philanthropist, investor, janitor, and gas station attendant."

All that Read and others like him have done is typically invest what they can from their average salaries in stocks / index funds and let time do the rest.

Fewer than 4,000 of the 2.8 million Americans who died in 2014 left more than $8m and Read was in this group.

The Washington Post praised Read, writing, "How a man of modest means accumulated so much wealth contains exemplary lessons for saving that apply to all of us." 

The writer, Barry Ritholtz, noted that lessons could be learned from Read's experience adding: 

"But there is also a cautionary tale about recognizing the value of your finite time here on Earth. Perhaps learning to enjoy life while you can is part of that equation."

This subject was also touched on by Morgan Housel in a recent podcast interview I listened to, when the name of Warren Buffett was brought up, as it often is in these conversations. 

Early on, Housel is asked about Buffett and essentially the primary reason that he has become so well known and wealthy is because he started investing at age 10, and in his 90s is still going. The formula for getting rich is "be patient and wait for 75 years."  

Housel points out that 99% of Buffett's net worth was achieved after age 50, and 97% after he turned 65 and that his obsession with business and investing has come at a cost to his family and social life.

Most of us want wealth so that we can be independent and focus on other things in our lives, but for Buffett and I suspect some other billionaires, wealth is simply their scorecard in a game they can't quit. 

If you're into podcasts, check out "We Study Billionaires" Episode 378 - The Psychology of Money. It's 75 minutes of fascinating conversation and great to listen to while you're out for a walk or run. 

Back to the book and Housel declares that:

financial success is not a hard science. It's a soft skill where how you behave is more important than what you know.

This applies to sports investing too, as do some of the podcast discussion relating to Benjamin Graham and his evolving formulas!  

While not in the same league as Warren Buffett of course, not many of us are, I do like to track my investments and May was another solid month overall (+3.52%) although most of the gains were from property which is unusual. Seven consecutive months in profit and +33% since the end of October.

2010-2021

Tesla slumped 11.9% last month while my birthday Bitcoin purchase has now lost 40%, not one of my smarter investment decisions but at least I only put in a relatively small amount. Overall my play trading account lost 4.2% last month, and 0.6% year to date. 

I probably shouldn't mention the streak of profitable months because as soon as I mentioned the winning streak (of 19) for hot MLB favourites in the last post, we hit two consecutive losers on Friday. Normal service has since resumed with two more winners at the weekend, but I'll review the MLB, NHL and NBA systems for May in a couple of days. I'll also be publishing some results from the Europa and Champions League this season, now that those competitions are both finished. 

MLB Streaking, Chelsea's CL Final Form and More

A work trip took me away from betting and blogging for a few days, but a couple of people left comments or sent me emails while I was away. 

David asked for clarification on this comment from my "Never Say Never" post of a couple of weeks back:

The lesson for bettors is that any sporting outcome can be value if the price is high enough. Bet for value, not for who you think will win, and you will be a long term winner. In other words, bet numbers not teams.

What I meant by this is that you shouldn't bet an outcome because you "think" it'll win. You back an outcome because the probability of a win is greater than that implied by the price (odds).

If you are finding value, the profits will come. If you are backing who you think will win with no regard to value, then the losses will come. It's counterintuitive to back an outcome that you don't think will be a winner, but it is often the right thing to do if your goal is to make money rather than provide entertainment. The key to successful betting is to take advantage of those betting for entertainment as well as the uninformed, because it is their money that ultimately tips the scales and offers value to the sharper minded. 

Stewboss commented on the NBA Overs System results for the regular season, writing:

The NBA overs figures are good on the face of it but I feel that results based on the closing line would be a more useful measure. The figures polled from your data source are posted at arbitrary times with no consistency. There are threads on their forum confirming this.

As Voltaire said, "perfect is the enemy of good." As I've written here before, the prices in the Killer Sports database aren't necessarily closing prices, but are:

a representation of the line at which most people bet the game. The Lakers closed at -1, pick and +1 in some places, but they were -2, -1.5 and -1 for most of the day. The closing line, in many cases, is not the line at which most people bet the game.

They will generally be close to the closing prices, and in many markets will be the same, but as Killer Sports point out, even if the total or line moves in the last few minutes before a game starts, not many people will be on at that price since betting has been taking place for some time before, and for events like the Superbowl for a full two weeks. 

They're also the best totals and lines we have, or at least that I know of that are available for free, and they are certainly good enough to use as a basis for identifying areas of market weakness. We can never find mathematical proof for a system since prices / odds are dynamic and if we hesitate too long, we miss the boat altogether.  

Anyone who has followed the NBA Overs system will know that totals sometimes move during the hours prior to a game and if you bet early, sometimes the move will be in your favour, sometimes it'll be against you. Sometimes you can get better than the dime line (1.952) and other times you may get worse, but even if you only got 1.806 on the 1,000+ matches since 2013, you would still be in profit. 

The intent isn't to say that if you follow this system, you will have an ROI of 7.9% - you almost certainly won't - but it is to show where the market is inefficient and it's up to each individual to work out for themselves the best way to take advantage of this since we don't all have access to the same sportsbooks and prices. And if anyone has solid closing totals for NBA games, please let me know where they are available and I'll see if the inefficiency is consistent on these. 

The NBA playoffs are currently in progress following the new play-in games, but only one game so far has been a qualifier, but it was another winner at least. 

In the NHL, the playoffs are also moving along, but a small loss so far post season has meant the overall records have taken a slight hit:

There is one Game 7 tonight (Vegas Golden Knights v Minnesota Wild) and possibly another on Monday night if the Montreal Canadiens beat Toronto Maple Leafs tomorrow. 

Since 2012, backing Home teams in Game 7 matches after a loss in Game 6 has an ROI of 23.1% but from just 18 matches so don't get too carried away. 

In the MLB, a couple of wins this week have moved the T-Bone System into green, but it's the hot favourites system which is really paying the bills this season so far, currently on a winning streak of 19 and with just one loss in the last 35 matches. It's not often you get a run this hot in baseball.

Three more selections tonight, and this month is currently the best since August of 2019.  

The Totals Systems combined are comfortably in profit after 179 games (29.96 units) but interestingly all the profit is from Unders with Overs slightly down, although making up ground after a slow start to the season. 

Overall, Unders is the winner in 51.7% of matches, but in our subset of selections, the strike rate is currently 62.9%. 

Looking at the past 17 seasons of Champions League football, the Final has not been profitable for backers of the underdog, which tomorrow means Chelsea. 

The favourite has won 11 of the 17 Finals, with five Draws and only Barcelona's win over Manchester United in 2009 seeing a return for 'dog backers. This game was also the one with the narrowest of differences between finalists. 

A couple of curiousities are that the only Final where an odds-on favourite didn't win was 2012 when Chelsea were again the underdog and held Bayern Munich to a Draw while Chelsea were also underdogs in 2008 with another Draw the result. 

 

Into The Playoffs With Page-McIntyre

Both the NHL and NBA regular seasons are now ended with the playoffs underway for the former. For the NBA, this season sees a new play-in format (similar to the first two rounds of the Page-McIntyre System for a four-team playoff) to determine the seventh and eighth seeds in both conferences.

Typically the teams with the seventh and eight best regular season records are allocated these spots, but this season the teams finishing seventh through tenth play a mini single elimination tournament for the two spots. The ninth and tenth placed teams play each other first, with the loser eliminated and the winner playing the loser of the match between seventh and eight placed teams for the final playoff spot. The winner of the seventh v eighth game becomes the seventh seed, which in the Western Conference sees the Los Angeles Lakers (second favourites to win the championship) host the Golden State Warriors. The Lakers finished tied for 5th place with the Dallas Mavericks and Portland Trail Blazers but dropped to 7th based on the tie-breaker rules. 

The idea of a play-in tournament was, as with the Football League playoffs, to keep interest going for longer for more teams in the regular season and a single elimination game in the NBA is new, with best of 5 or 7 game series typical. 

Those of you following the Overs System this season will doubtless be thrilled with the results yet again. 

A more manageable number of bets than in 2018 and the highest ROI since the totals started to climb so dramatically in this league. Totals are in italics as there will likely be a few more qualifiers from the playoffs. 

In the NHL, the results were also excellent despite the realignment of teams due to the pandemic:

Hopefully the markets will continue to be inefficient through the playoffs. The Boston Bruins lost in overtime on Saturday, but we had two winners yesterday to put the post season results into profit. 

 

What A Drag

They are still favourites to win the World Series, but the Los Angeles Dodgers have fallen to third in their Division behind the San Francisco Giants and the San Diego Padres. After starting the season with 13 wins from the first 15 games, they lost 15 of the next 20, despite not being the underdog once. 

When the starting pitcher is right handed, there is an ROI of 93.5% when opposing the Dodgers in non-Divisional matches, but in Divisional games where the sides typically are more familiar with each other, right handed starters mean it is profitable to back the Dodgers, but the season is still fairly young so don't get too excited. It's just another angle to keep an eye on.

The familiar T-Bone System is in positive territory this season, with National League matches boasting an ROI of 11%. Backing 'Hot Favourites' got off to a slow start, but with a current streak of seven wins the ROI is down just 1.1%. 

For the Totals Systems, results are mixed so far. Overs are struggling, overall down 4.53 units but mostly in the National League, while Unders are up 22.22 units so at least the Combined Totals are in profit once again. 

I wasn't sure how Totals would play out this year with the introduction of a new baseball but experts had determined that:

the new baseball is bouncier, yielding higher exit velocities than in years past, and also possesses more drag, as it is not traveling as far.

The key is that the early numbers seem to back up the theory that the baseball isn't traveling as far. Fewer Home Runs in April than in 2019 (no April games in 2020), and home run totals are at their lowest since April 2017. It does appear that the betting markets haven't yet adjusted to account for this.

Dow 36,000

In 1999, a book titled Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting From the Coming Rise in the Stock Market was published.

 

Written by James Glassman and Kevin A. Hassett, the authors argued that stocks at that time were "significantly undervalued and concluded that there would be a fourfold market increase with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) rising to 36,000 by 2002 or 2004."

It didn't happen. At the time of writing, the DJIA is above 35,000 for the first time and within touching distance of the 36,000 but almost two decades later than predicted. 

The authors put a little money where their mouths were by betting $1,000 (proceeds to charity) that the index would be closer to 36,000 than 10,000 in ten years and lost. 

They would have needed to wait until October 2017 to have won, but were perhaps a little unfortunate in timing, given that the book was published shortly before the dot-com bubble burst, with a further blow coming with the September 11 attacks of 2001.

The global recession of 2009 was the final nail in the coffin for the bet, but hopefully the royalties from the book covered their losses! 

While tidying up some files this weekend, I came across this article from MoneyWeek magazine of 24th January 2020 written by Bill Bonner. I'm glad I ignored the advice. 

At the time of the article, Tesla was priced at an adjusted $112.96 and while it did decline in March (along with just about every share) to around $70, it's now around $637, even if it is struggling today.

The point is not to believe everything you read, especially when people are paid to write rather than for being correct. 

Most bloggers are not paid to write, and last night I purged from my blog roll all those entries without a post in the past year. There are surprisingly few sports investing blogs out there, and if you know of any please let me know.

Martin, who writes the Tennis Trading blog asked to be added, and I have complied, although to be honest with a 15 month break between February 2020 and this month, I fully expect this blog to go dormant sooner rather than later. 

His comeback post blamed the pandemic for the loss of interest, but the tennis markets are tough to find an edge in so it will be interesting to see what transpires, but Martin is correct in saying that:

A progressive staking system will never change a losing strategy in a winning one. There has to be a real edge.

Never Say Never

Sky Sports News tweeted out the following on Wednesday:

The key five words here are, of course, "if the price is right".

As one reply succinctly put it:

OK, so it was my reply and I'm biased, but of course the Glazer family would sell any asset at "the right price".

For example, Ron Noades sold Crystal Palace in 1998 after Mark Goldberg offered him £23.8m, a sum at least double what the club was worth at that time. 

Noades was reluctant to sell, and regretted the deal later, but the offer was simply too good to turn down. Noades even lent Goldberg £5m to allow the deal to go through.

Perhaps Goldberg knew that Palace were destined to be one of the biggest 25 clubs in the world, ahead of "Super League" club AC Milan!

The point is that everything has its price. I mentioned the Berkshire Hathaway Annual General Meeting in a recent post, and one of the questions asked was whether the company would be open to a call from Elon Musk with a request to insure SpaceX's future mission to and colonization of Mars.

The question was directed at Ajit Jain, who runs Berkshire Hathaway's insurance business.

“Specifically he wants insurance to insure SpaceX’s heavy rocket, capsule, payload, and human capital. Would you underwrite any portion of a venture like that?”

Without hesitation, Jain responded, “This is an easy one. No thank you. I'll pass.”

Buffett chimed in with:

“Well, I would say it would depend on the premium. And I would say that I would probably have a somewhat different rate if Elon was on board, or not on board.” 

Buffett gets it, and perhaps it's no surprise that Buffett's successor will not be Ajit Jain, though that decision appears to have been based on the latter's age rather than his questionable response, as the chosen one is Greg Abel who is a mere 58 years old. 

The lesson for bettors is that any sporting outcome can be value if the price is high enough. Bet for value, not for who you think will win, and you will be a long term winner. In other words, bet numbers not teams.

National League Rivalries

As the 2021 MLB season moves past its opening month, the most interesting division right now is the National League West where two of the top three favourites for the World Series are currently trailing the San Francisco Giants, currently available at 130 on Betfair. 

The reigning champion Los Angeles Dodgers are favourites for the World Series, with the Padres third favourites behind the New York Yankees who are currently fourth out of five in the American League East division. 

The Guardian has an article on the Dodgers - Padres rivalry which has become a thing over the past couple of seasons, and mentions the other big rivalries in baseball such as the Yankees - Boston Red Sox, St Louis Cardinals - Chicago Cubs, New York Mets - Philadelphia Phillies and the traditional NL West rivalry between the Dodgers and the Giants.

These rivalry matches are interesting from a betting perspective because, as well as each occurring around 19 times a season, of the extra interest they generate.

The eight clubs mentioned in the traditional rivalries all happen to be in the biggest eight clubs in baseball, at least by franchise value which is likely closely correlated to the fan base. In order they are ranked as shown left.

Only one of the rivalries (Yankees - Red Sox) is in the American League, with the others all National League, evenly spread across the Divisions with one apiece. 

Back to the National League West and with data starting from the 2004 season, i.e. 17 full years plus this one, backing the underdog is a profitable strategy. The market appears to be particularly pro-favourite at the start of a new series and in games where the 'dog is coming off a loss. 

For the Mets - Phillies matches, the ROI is 9.7% while for the Cubs - Cardinals games it is 6.4%. Neither is close to the 47.3% in the West, but it's well worth looking out for these games. The Dodgers play the Giants seven times later this month. 

As an aside, Clayton Kershaw, an old topic of this blog, had one of the worst nights of his career for the Dodgers yesterday giving up four runs in the first innings before being pulled from the game. As it was Game 1 of a double-header, this put the Dodgers in something of a bind, and they went on to lose both games.

Switching sports, and in the NBA last night the Phoenix Suns were about 12.5 point favourites versus the Cleveland Cavaliers. After regulation, the game was tied, but in overtime the Suns not only won, but covered the spread winning by 16 points. First time in 30 years a double digit favourite has covered in overtime. 

Cryptocrime

Thanks to my new found awareness that comments now require me to proactively seek them out and approve or, in the event they are spam, delete them, this blog has its first comment in a while. With regard to Bitcoin and it's traceability by law enforcement, Cats of Oxford wrote:

The question is, if Bitcoin is so easily traceable by law enforcement, why have we not been able to track down and stop the ransomware attackers who take payment in Bitcoin, nor even to work out who is behind the number of high profile "Bitcoin thefts" in the currency's history...

The comment by The Irrelevant Investor (Michael Batnick) was that:

"Law enforcement would love nothing more than for criminals to use a financial instrument whose history can clearly be traced, like Bitcoin."

When Batnick was challenged on this point, his reply was a rather weak:

"The US government seized roughly 70,000 Bitcoin from the Silk Road case last November, or more than $3 billion at current values."

Technically true, but from what I understand, this was after the authorities had seized the records of Silk Road, rather than from tracing the transactions. As someone on the thread said, the equivalent of Al Capone's accountant being turned.

This paper "In Math We Trust" published in March by One River Digital Asset Management has this opinion:

Reasonably, there are also concerns about the use of Bitcoin by nefarious actors. Yet, the immutable nature of the blockchain ledger has worked to the great advantage of law enforcement officials for tackling criminal behavior (Kathryn Haun’s journey at the Department of Justice is a terrific example). Forfeiture of digital assets is also far more successful than with cash criminal activity.

Who's Kathryn Haun? you may ask. Well, apparently she was asked in 2012 to look into shutting Bitcoin down.

But Haun quickly decided the currency itself wasn’t what needed probing.

“It would have been akin to saying ‘let’s go prosecute cash,’” Haun said.

Instead, her department prosecuted multiple cases where bitcoin was being used for extortion and white collar crime. In some cases, the technology behind bitcoin, known as blockchain, actually helped the department solve cases.

So it's probably the blockchain technology that Batnick was basing his opinion on. While several exchanges have been hacked with huge losses going back many years, there's also this problem reported on by the New York Times earlier this year:

"of the existing 18.5 million Bitcoin, around 20 percent — currently worth around $140 billion — appear to be in lost or otherwise stranded wallets, according to the cryptocurrency data firm Chainalysis.

Unfortunately Bitcoin lost 4% yesterday, and Tesla lost almost as much, so not the best of starts to a month, but there's a long way to go yet.