Tips for Tikay

[Tal]

Substitute mathematics with variance if you like. Then substitute variance with "it all evens out in the end, don't it"

[arbboy]

The two biggest factors by a country mile in pricing up a football match are as follows:

1) The relative difference in quality between the two teams in question.  You take how much better the fav is to the underdog in a goal suprem then adjust for 2) below
2) Who is playing at home or is the game on a neutral ground

The reason Man U are 11/10 today is because they are away from home.  Nothing else.  Nothing to do with tiny sample sizes of away form/Remy not playing etc etc.  If they were at home they would be a 2/5 shot for this game.  If the game was the FA cup final and being played on a neutral ground Man U would be 4/7 shot.  It's really that simple. 

Betting Man U at 11/10 today at Newcastle has actually the same EV as backing them at 4/7 at Wembley against newcastle should this be the FA cup final and the same ev again at 2/5 should the game be being played at Old Trafford.

[Tal]

Fairly sure this is a wind up, so I'm ducking out of this conversation.

[arbboy]

Fairly sure this is a wind up, so I'm ducking out of this conversation.

No wind up sir all i have done is state the cold hard facts of how a professional odds compiler would price up a football match.

[arbboy]

Teams are not better away from home than at home.  It's totally illogical to think that and it's talked about every year about the 1 or 2 teams who have better away records.  No mention is ever made of the dozen's of teams who fit in with the logical (proven over decades of data) pattern of having much better home form than away form.  It's nothing but variance each and every year when it happens to a team esp the further up the leagues you go where home advantage becomes more and more a factor in the price of a match.


I simply don't agree with that, arbboy. Some teams are set up better to play on the break and will often find themselves able to get better results on the road than when there is an expectation to get a win at home. Yes, there is variance, but surely it is simplistic to say it is the only answer and that the whole thing is made up by a media that don't understand mathematics?

Why would you think the average sports reporter understands maths and probability? This is a poker forum and there are some pretty ignorant statements around mathematics and probability appear at times. I don't expect to get a job on a national newspaper, because my English just isn't up to it, similarly your average reporter isn't ever going to make a living in sports betting, poker or any other field where maths is anything other than a nice to have.

Imagine how the readership of the Sun would fall if the reporters started quoting 'regression to the mean' 'tiny sample size' if they were discussing Villa's amazing away form.  The reason report's don't state this is probably two fold.  Like doobs says they probably don't udnerstand the concepts themselves and, more importantly, even if they did their readers wouldn't be remotely interested and it wouldn't sell newspapers.

[MereNovice]

The two biggest factors by a country mile in pricing up a football match are as follows:

1) The relative difference in quality between the two teams in question.  You take how much better the fav is to the underdog in a goal suprem then adjust for 2) below
2) Who is playing at home or is the game on a neutral ground

The reason Man U are 11/10 today is because they are away from home.  Nothing else.  Nothing to do with tiny sample sizes of away form/Remy not playing etc etc.  If they were at home they would be a 2/5 shot for this game.  If the game was the FA cup final and being played on a neutral ground Man U would be 4/7 shot.  It's really that simple. 

Betting Man U at 11/10 today at Newcastle has actually the same EV as backing them at 4/7 at Wembley against newcastle should this be the FA cup final and the same ev again at 2/5 should the game be being played at Old Trafford.

I don't follow football but it really isn't that simple as far as I understand it.
You appear rather dogmatic and I really don't want to get into an argument but I feel that you are missing the point.

The posters above are not saying that a team is better away than at home, they appear to be saying that the correlation between their home and away form deviates from what appears to be a fixed ratio that you apply. This seems entirely reasonable to me. It might be difficult to make this judgement before the season starts but it seems entirely possible that the evidence of 32 games may be enough to modify this ratio in specific circumstances.
The averages over a season or ten seasons may tally with your figures but there will be exceptions that are not just the result of variance.
With regard to sample size there are many arguments that can be made but it strikes me that equating a Man Utd team managed by David Moyes with that managed by Alex Ferguson (even in terms of relative effectiveness at home to away) isn't very productive.
Similarly the appearance of a player such as Wayne Rooney or the relative merits of a win/draw/loss in a manager's estimation might make a difference to how a team approaches a match.

Professional odds compilers may use these rules successfully on the large scale but that does not preclude savvy punters from exploiting weaknesses in this method. After all, that is what this thread is all about (I think).

Just my thoughts, obviously.

[arbboy]

The two biggest factors by a country mile in pricing up a football match are as follows:

1) The relative difference in quality between the two teams in question.  You take how much better the fav is to the underdog in a goal suprem then adjust for 2) below
2) Who is playing at home or is the game on a neutral ground

The reason Man U are 11/10 today is because they are away from home.  Nothing else.  Nothing to do with tiny sample sizes of away form/Remy not playing etc etc.  If they were at home they would be a 2/5 shot for this game.  If the game was the FA cup final and being played on a neutral ground Man U would be 4/7 shot.  It's really that simple. 

Betting Man U at 11/10 today at Newcastle has actually the same EV as backing them at 4/7 at Wembley against newcastle should this be the FA cup final and the same ev again at 2/5 should the game be being played at Old Trafford.

I don't follow football but it really isn't that simple as far as I understand it.
You appear rather dogmatic and I really don't want to get into an argument but I feel that you are missing the point.

The posters above are not saying that a team is better away than at home, they appear to be saying that the correlation between their home and away form deviates from what appears to be a fixed ratio that you apply. This seems entirely reasonable to me. It might be difficult to make this judgement before the season starts but it seems entirely possible that the evidence of 32 games may be enough to modify this ratio in specific circumstances.
The averages over a season or ten seasons may tally with your figures but there will be exceptions that are not just the result of variance.
With regard to sample size there are many arguments that can be made but it strikes me that equating a Man Utd team managed by David Moyes with that managed by Alex Ferguson (even in terms of relative effectiveness at home to away) isn't very productive.
Similarly the appearance of a player such as Wayne Rooney or the relative merits of a win/draw/loss in a manager's estimation might make a difference to how a team approaches a match.

Professional odds compilers may use these rules successfully on the large scale but that does not preclude savvy punters from exploiting weaknesses in this method. After all, that is what this thread is all about (I think).

Just my thoughts, obviously.

The bolded statement assumes all other factors are the same in each circumstance  ie team news/motivation/scheduling/whether its a 2 legged game etc etc.  The only difference being where the game is played.  If that is assumed then it really is that simple.

[tikay]

Tikay's favourite female there on TV

Who that, Mark? Fell asleep on the sofa.

[TightEnd]

Munster 47-Toulose 23. winner.

i missed the pl bets sorry, they were hidden away in a semantic argument :-)

[MereNovice]

The two biggest factors by a country mile in pricing up a football match are as follows:

1) The relative difference in quality between the two teams in question.  You take how much better the fav is to the underdog in a goal suprem then adjust for 2) below
2) Who is playing at home or is the game on a neutral ground

The reason Man U are 11/10 today is because they are away from home.  Nothing else.  Nothing to do with tiny sample sizes of away form/Remy not playing etc etc.  If they were at home they would be a 2/5 shot for this game.  If the game was the FA cup final and being played on a neutral ground Man U would be 4/7 shot.  It's really that simple.  

Betting Man U at 11/10 today at Newcastle has actually the same EV as backing them at 4/7 at Wembley against newcastle should this be the FA cup final and the same ev again at 2/5 should the game be being played at Old Trafford.

I don't follow football but it really isn't that simple as far as I understand it.
You appear rather dogmatic and I really don't want to get into an argument but I feel that you are missing the point.

The posters above are not saying that a team is better away than at home, they appear to be saying that the correlation between their home and away form deviates from what appears to be a fixed ratio that you apply. This seems entirely reasonable to me. It might be difficult to make this judgement before the season starts but it seems entirely possible that the evidence of 32 games may be enough to modify this ratio in specific circumstances.
The averages over a season or ten seasons may tally with your figures but there will be exceptions that are not just the result of variance.
With regard to sample size there are many arguments that can be made but it strikes me that equating a Man Utd team managed by David Moyes with that managed by Alex Ferguson (even in terms of relative effectiveness at home to away) isn't very productive.
Similarly the appearance of a player such as Wayne Rooney or the relative merits of a win/draw/loss in a manager's estimation might make a difference to how a team approaches a match.

Professional odds compilers may use these rules successfully on the large scale but that does not preclude savvy punters from exploiting weaknesses in this method. After all, that is what this thread is all about (I think).

Just my thoughts, obviously.

The bolded statement assumes all other factors are the same in each circumstance  ie team news/motivation/scheduling/whether its a 2 legged game etc etc.  The only difference being where the game is played.  If that is assumed then it really is that simple.

I disagree but I don't think that we are likely to achieve any agreement so debating it any further is unlikely to produce much light.
Logically, it seems far too simplistic to say that the correlation between home and away form is fixed in all cases. Football (and sport generally) isn't that rigid.

[bobby1]

Bet365 already given me 50% back weirdly - offer seems really good surely

The offer is really smart for several reasons.  It rewards existing customers on national day a lot of which will be 'floating' or once a year punters who could have their national bet anywhere.  It reactivates a lot of dormant accounts on the big casual day of the year.  It tempts you to bet more than you probably would have normally.  It makes you have to withdraw the refund (you would be amazing how few customers have ever made a withdraw from their betting accounts and don't even know how to - its a lot harder to find out how to withdraw than to deposit - have you ever seen a 'quick withdraw' button like you see 'quick deposit') which firms like 365 will have detailed stats on for offers and they will know the vast majority of customers will spend the £125 refund on other products therefore they are inducing you to spend more than you actually want to.  You have to bet ew so you are more likely to get a return of some description which they will hope you will reinvest again in other products.

Another driving reason for that promo could be that firms dread any outage but esp one on a Saturday around footy kick off times or half time in the footy. The thing they fear more than that is getting an outage on GN Saturday around kick off of the footy or halftime. Encouraging customers that already have accounts to bet before midday is a good way of taking the strain away from the busier time and then all those things you have listed are deffo a way of getting some of their refunded cash back too.

[Rubbish2407]

I know everyone is going to come up with the same old argument.

"We don't know anything different to the Bookies and the market has been formed for quite some time".

Do Man City really only beat Sunderland 66 times out of every 100 on a neutral venue with their full team out?

Man City are 1/2 to beat Hull away next week and Hull beat Sunderland away last week?

Surely one of 1/3 to beat Sunderland or 1/2 to beat Hull is wrong? Anyone?

Question for Arbboy, I posted this on the League Cup Final day and obviously we know now that Man City won both games. Do you still think the prices were correct for these two matches? I had Man City at least 1/4 against Sunderland and not aftertiming but had my biggest bet of the season on them because I thought 1/3 was plain wrong?

[tikay]

Munster 47-Toulose 23. winner.

i missed the pl bets sorry, they were hidden away in a semantic argument :-)

Lovely job, thanks hector. I started to watch it, but was overcome with sleeplessness.

[arbboy]

Bet365 already given me 50% back weirdly - offer seems really good surely

The offer is really smart for several reasons.  It rewards existing customers on national day a lot of which will be 'floating' or once a year punters who could have their national bet anywhere.  It reactivates a lot of dormant accounts on the big casual day of the year.  It tempts you to bet more than you probably would have normally.  It makes you have to withdraw the refund (you would be amazing how few customers have ever made a withdraw from their betting accounts and don't even know how to - its a lot harder to find out how to withdraw than to deposit - have you ever seen a 'quick withdraw' button like you see 'quick deposit') which firms like 365 will have detailed stats on for offers and they will know the vast majority of customers will spend the £125 refund on other products therefore they are inducing you to spend more than you actually want to.  You have to bet ew so you are more likely to get a return of some description which they will hope you will reinvest again in other products.

Another driving reason for that promo could be that firms dread any outage but esp one on a Saturday around footy kick off times or half time in the footy. The thing they fear more than that is getting an outage on GN Saturday around kick off of the footy or halftime. Encouraging customers that already have accounts to bet before midday is a good way of taking the strain away from the busier time and then all those things you have listed are deffo a way of getting some of their refunded cash back too.

That is definitely a factor as well which i forgot.  Redarmi also said to me this morning about how effective it will be as numerous people in the pub can effectively act as 'agents' for 365 and get paid in effect via the refund to put other people's/family members bets on for them at bet365 rather than the local betting shop.  It does seem a stroke of genius the offer long term for them. So simple/no rollovers/refunds in cash and very very sexy to the once a year punter who has bet with them on the last GN and might be tempted via a free bet to open an another new account to actually stay with bet365 instead.

[Marky147]

Tikay's favourite female there on TV

Who that, Mark? Fell asleep on the sofa.

Gemma Merna