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Smiley's Premiership betting tips

Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2012 1:13 pm
by SmileyMan
OK, I've developed a foolproof* betting system. It's only for the Premiership, because it consumes a megaton of data. Anyway, testing against historical data showed a potential profit, and the 'live' test last week turned in an impressive 80% profit (£50 to £89)

Note, this is based on twenty years' experience in data analysis and computer programming, not just sticking a pin in the newspaper. I thought I'd share it with you lovely Yellows, on the basis that if we all become stinking rich we can buy the club!

How does it work? For each match, it produces a statistically determined percentage chance of each result - home win, draw, away win. I then convert these to digital odds (as per Betfair and lots of others now), and pick the most likely outcome. The idea is that a bet is placed on anything where the odds available from the bookies are better than the prediction. This should ensure that the chance of a profit exceeds the chance of a loss, and spread over the ten Prem matches of an average weekend, an overall profit will be made.

For reference, here's how this worked last week (all were a £5 stake from my £50 float):

West Brom to beat Liverpool - Prediction 2.11 - Matched 4.40 - Won £17.00
West Ham to beat Aston Villa - Prediction 2.24 - Matched 2.28 - Won £6.40
Reading to beat Stoke - Prediction 2.24 - Matched 2.46 - Lost £5.00
Newcastle to beat Tottenham - Prediction 2.24 - Matched 2.68 - Won £8.40
Wigan to beat Chelsea - Prediction 2.01 - Matched 6.93 - Lost £5.00 (the system seems to rate Wigan very highly for some reason)
Everton to beat Man United - Prediction 2.48 - Matched 4.60 - Won £18.00
Everything else was a no bet - the results was too predictable
Total Winnings: £49.80, Total Loss £10.00, Profit £39.80

Interesting to note that the big profits came where unfancied but perfectly decent sides got a home result against top table opponents. These results don't happen often, but the odds are hugely unrepresentative of the actual chances.

OK, so without further ado, here's the predictions for this week, and where I've managed to place a bet, the odds that I got. You should be able to get something similar in most places - I'm not betting so much that I skew the market......yet!

Swansea to beat West Ham - Prediction 1.95 - Matched 2.14
Everton to beat Aston Villa - Prediction 1.74 - Matched 2.52
Man United to beat Fulham - Prediction 1.95 - No Match
Norwich to beat QPR - Prediction 2.24 - Matched 2.42
Wigan to beat Southampton - Prediction 2.19 - Matched 3.60
Sunderland to beat Reading - Prediction 2.11 - No Match
Tottenham to beat West Brom - Prediction 2.11 - No Match
Chelsea to beat Newcastle - Prediction 2.24 - No Match
Stoke to beat Arsenal - Prediction 2.84 - Matched 3.65
Man City to beat Liverpool - Prediction 1.41 - Matched 2.48 (nap)

Quick note on the Stoke/Arsenal game - the system actually gives the exact same odds of a home or away win, but there's much better value in betting on Stoke at home.

The nap selection is Man City to beat Liverpool at 2.48 (about 6/4) - if you only want to make one bet, make it that one. But the system works better if you spread it across multiple bets.

Hope you don't mind me posting this - if it works, well I'm happy to share the fortune around. Remember, don't bet more than you can afford.

* in tests, 8 out of 10 fools preferred it

Re: Smiley's Premiership betting tips

Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2012 9:00 am
by bspittles
Most of those where you've matched on Betfair are only a couple of percent lower on a high street bookie like Ladbrokes so anyone interested shouldn't worry too much about having to open a Betfair account.

I'm confused about why you can't get a match on some of the bets. Surely if you've calculated a likelihood of each outcome, at least one of those outcomes much be a higher probablility that the odds on offer. So if you can't find anyone to match Man Utd at 1.95 (and I'm not surprised, that's nearly Evens!), then there must be someone offering the odds over those that you expect Fulham to be.

I hope that makes sense!

Re: Smiley's Premiership betting tips

Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2012 10:24 am
by SmileyMan
&quotbspittles&quot wrote:I'm confused about why you can't get a match on some of the bets. Surely if you've calculated a likelihood of each outcome, at least one of those outcomes much be a higher probablility that the odds on offer. So if you can't find anyone to match Man Utd at 1.95 (and I'm not surprised, that's nearly Evens!), then there must be someone offering the odds over those that you expect Fulham to be.
You're right, but when I run it against the historical data you get roughly the same conversion percentage overall, but with a higher volatility. Essentially, fewer bets come off, but win bigger when they do.

So the least volatile option is to focus only on the most likely outcome for each match, and then bet on that if there's any value to be had from the bookmakers.

Re: Smiley's Premiership betting tips

Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2012 1:11 pm
by SmileyMan
All to an £8 stake:
&quotSmileyMan&quot wrote:Swansea to beat West Ham - Prediction 1.95 - Matched 2.14 - Won £9.12
Everton to beat Aston Villa - Prediction 1.74 - Matched 2.52 - Won £12.16
Norwich to beat QPR - Prediction 2.24 - Matched 2.42 - Lost £8.00
Wigan to beat Southampton - Prediction 2.19 - Matched 3.60 - Won £20.80
Stoke to beat Arsenal - Prediction 2.84 - Matched 3.65 - Lost £8.00
Man City to beat Liverpool - Prediction 1.41 - Matched 2.48 (nap) - Lost £8.00
Total won: £42.08 - Total lost: £24.00 - Net profit £18.08

Not as good as last week - lesson learned on the Stoke/Arsenal game which should probably have been a no bet. Still, £50 to £100 in two weeks - if I can double my money every two games I'll have £50,000 by season end, and £50m by the end of next year :)

Re: Smiley's Premiership betting tips

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 8:29 am
by bspittles
Good luck with finding a match on Betfair for your £2m offer on Man Utd to beat QPR :lol:

Re: Smiley's Premiership betting tips

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 11:35 am
by Isaac
This time next year we'll be millionaires!

I do think there's something in this, given that the likes of Betfair will generally reflect the market, rather than the actual probabilities of certain results there are bound to be areas when you can make some money. Finding out whether this has been a &quotgood&quot 2 weeks rather than a genuinely successful model is part of the fun.

Smileyman - I've a career in data analysis too, these days with enormous sets of data. What software did you use? I'm wondering whether you'd expect to have a greater chance of success (or at least opportunity) if you did it across more divisions, or whether due to (presumably) lower betting volumes on those divisions, the opportunity might not be as high?

Re: Smiley's Premiership betting tips

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2012 11:48 am
by SmileyMan
&quotIsaac&quot wrote:Smileyman - I've a career in data analysis too, these days with enormous sets of data. What software did you use? I'm wondering whether you'd expect to have a greater chance of success (or at least opportunity) if you did it across more divisions, or whether due to (presumably) lower betting volumes on those divisions, the opportunity might not be as high?
I wrote the software from scratch. I actually track teams progress across the top two divisions, so that I have accurate ratings data for newly-promoted sides, but only process the probabilities for the top division. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to trust the system until after a few games had shaken out, and that would limit me to a mere million quid a year :D

Extending to more matches might lower the volatility a bit, but I doubt it would increase the return. That would require a market that was simultaneously more predictable, but worse predicted, which seems unlikely. Intuitively, the Premiership would seem to invite more of the sort of distortion caused by ill-informed fans overestimating a teams ability - that distortion is where the money is.

Re: Smiley's Premiership betting tips

Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 12:55 pm
by Geoff
Sounds good.

How many weeks did you test this before going public and how many of those weeks did you make a nett profit?

Re: Smiley's Premiership betting tips

Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2012 1:20 pm
by SmileyMan
&quotGeoff&quot wrote:Sounds good.

How many weeks did you test this before going public and how many of those weeks did you make a nett profit?
One, with real money - I said as much in the original post. However, I ran it against historic betting data over five years.

Here's the bets for this weekend:
Fulham to beat West Ham over 2.69 (3.05 matched)
Swansea to beat Sunderland over 2.01 (2.24 matched)
Wigan to beat Stoke over 1.74 (2.36 matched)
Newcastle to beat Aston Villa over 1.57 (1.67 matched)

Since bspittles asked, here's the second best option for the ones where the best option couldn't be matched at the price. I've placed a bet on these at half stake as an experiment*
Tottenham to draw with Norwich over 3.61 (5.40 matched) - Tottenham win is 1.95
West Brom to beat Everton over 2.99 (3.15 matched) - Everton win is 2.69
Man city to draw with QPR over 4.56 (7.80 matched) - Man City win is 1.45
Southampton to beat Man United over 2.85 (6.60 matched) - Man United win is 1.95

The Liverpool - Arsenal game is a no bet (it's the same prediction as the Stoke game last week, so I promised to learn my lesson on that! If you're interested, either side to win is 2.84, and the draw is 3.39)

* experimental betting, filed under &quotreasons I am poor&quot )

Re: Smiley's Premiership betting tips

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 8:32 am
by bspittles
Excellent, thanks.

Re: Smiley's Premiership betting tips

Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2012 10:54 am
by Kernow Yellow
&quotSmileyMan&quot wrote:Since bspittles asked, here's the second best option for the ones where the best option couldn't be matched at the price. I've placed a bet on these at half stake as an experiment
I wish I'd done that too! As it is, I don't think I chose the best week to open a Betfair account :(

Thanks for the data though Smiley. I look forward to following (and maybe participating) with interest. Shame it's Premiership only - it strikes me as a system which has more chance of paying off when spread over a larger number of events. But then I know very little about statistics or betting...

Re: Smiley's Premiership betting tips

Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:44 am
by SmileyMan
&quotKernow Yellow&quot wrote:
&quotSmileyMan&quot wrote:Since bspittles asked, here's the second best option for the ones where the best option couldn't be matched at the price. I've placed a bet on these at half stake as an experiment
I wish I'd done that too! As it is, I don't think I chose the best week to open a Betfair account :(
Absolutely unbelievable. Sorry for this week's results, folks. I'm sure it's just an outlier in the data, because in the simulations a 100% loss is pretty bloody rare. I'll take a look at the model when I've got some time next week, see if I can improve the results a bit - I've already got some ideas around that.
Thanks for the data though Smiley. I look forward to following (and maybe participating) with interest. Shame it's Premiership only - it strikes me as a system which has more chance of paying off when spread over a larger number of events. But then I know very little about statistics or betting...
If you spread it over a large number of events, the payoff is pretty much the same with the current model, because football results are pretty consistent across divisions when teams of a similar rating difference play each other.

Re: Smiley's Premiership betting tips

Posted: Sat Sep 15, 2012 11:23 am
by Geoff
Waiting with bated breath.......................

Re: Smiley's Premiership betting tips

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 3:44 pm
by Kernow Yellow
What's up Smiley, lost all your money already? I thought last week's results might have been quite good for you...

Re: Smiley's Premiership betting tips

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2012 4:10 pm
by SmileyMan
OK, here is the 'rush job' version, with just the odds for each result. Use at your own risk

Code: Select all

Home        	Away        	Home Odds   	Draw Odds   	Away Odds   
Swansea     	Everton     	2&#4684        	3&#4639        	2&#4684        
Chelsea     	Stoke       	1&#4674        	3&#4672        	6&#4638        
Southampton 	Aston Villa 	2&#4684        	3&#4639        	2&#4684        
West Brom   	Reading     	1&#4674        	3&#4672        	6&#4638        
West Ham    	Sunderland  	2&#4646        	3&#4653        	3&#4622        
Wigan       	Fulham      	2&#4624        	3&#4659        	3&#4665        
Liverpool   	Man United  	4&#4603        	4&#4659        	1&#4687        
Newcastle   	Norwich     	1&#4674        	3&#4672        	6&#4638        
Man City    	Arsenal     	1&#4695        	3&#4661        	4&#4674        
Tottenham   	QPR         	1&#4695        	3&#4661        	4&#4674