Football Betting Season 2 Weeks 11

In real life, things have been a little tough. First I was sentenced to RT (that means you have failed your IPPT in reservist and you have to go in for - what 30 hours of training?) That was the first time I had failed my IPPT. In truth, I had asked for it - I was always forgetting to do my push-ups. Does it get harder to keep fit this side of 30? I always felt, after I staggered over the finishing line of that marathon more than a year ago, that that was the true end of my 20s.

Worst thing is that I thought I had passed my IPPT. I just had to do 4 chin-ups. But somehow it got recorded as 3, I don't know why. Maybe they didn't want to let me pass. They didn't post up the scores and so I didn't get to protest. The ICT was conducted at a fast pace.

Then there was another time somebody put up a very long list of CDs for sale. I thought - now here's the opportunity to get a lot of CDs - I hadn't been keeping up with music much for the last 10 years - untypical for a music freak like myself. Then I dithered along, going through amazon.com samples for the whole list (a big chore since we are talking about 500 CDs) and trying to learn about the great bands. In the end, out of the 20 CDs that I wanted the most, 10 of them are gone. Fantastically stupid.

Then there was knowing that an episode of unrequited love in the past was a little bit more unrequited than I realised.

However some good things make up for it, for example, knowing that the painful lessons I learnt since the middle of last year have been learnt. OK. So Arsenal are playing West Ham, bet on Arsenal, since West Ham are weak. (Case in point, Arsenal still managed to beat West Ham in spite of playing the second half with 10 men.) Real Madrid are playing a team fighting against relegation? Bet on Real Madrid. Chelsea are playing Blackburn? Bet on Chelsea. Barcelona are playing Real Zaragosa? Bet on Barcelona. Don't bother about the rest, no matter how tempting. Get your money back, that's important.

Football Betting Season 2 Weeks 10

Limpeh's luck has turned. My account was heavily in the red when I quit betting a few weeks ago. Lately, though, I think the results have been more predictable.

You see, one of my principles has been: do not bet in the first half of the season. This was something that I broke many time and I ended up losing money because a lot of upsets take place in the season: weaker teams are very enthusiastic, and stronger teams have yet to find their best form. However towards the end of the season, it's the stronger teams which find their best form, either because their best players are the ones with the strongest characters, or because, having rotated their squad, their players are still fresh, compared to other teams who have had to play their best 11, week in week out.

The other reason why betting nearer the end of the season is best is that you would already have assessed each team's strengths and weaknesses over the course of the season.

So this time, I bought Everton to play well against Hull. Normally Everton is not a strong enough team to be considered more or less certain of winning. But it's a tired and demoralised Hull we're talking about. Ditto Burnley. They are the whipping boys now. I would have bet on Arsenal to beat them, but the odds were too low (1.07) so I didn't punt. Portsmouth is not a whipping boy, because a lot of their players have underperformed at the start of the season, and because they have a good manager. I also bought Aston Villa to beat Reading, because this was a Premiership vs League Championship FA cup tie. However I've had to endure some very nervous moments because Reading was leading 2-0 at one stage, before it ended 2-4.

Chelsea to beat Stoke. I guess I was lucky. This could have been dangerous because we know that John Terry is not at his best. But Stoke are away and therefore not at their best either.

So all 3 of my predictions came to pass. Good for me. I hope that my luck will continue.

Gary Neville vs Carlos Tevez

Wayne Rooney misses a goal. Wayne Rooney says fuck. Nobody says anything.

David James concedes a goal. David James says fuck. Nobody says anything.

Fernando Torres powers past Nemanja Vidic and scores. Vidic says fuck. Nobody says anything.

Gary Neville shows his middle finger. The horror! The horror!

Football Betting Season 2 Weeks 9

First, I think this is one of the line ups of the Premier League which has the most number of former champions I have seen in a while.

Here is the line up, and next to each former champion, the last time they won the league.

Chelsea (2006)
Arsenal (2004)
Manchester United (2009)
Tottenham Hotspur (1961)
Aston Villa (1981)
Manchester City (1968)
Liverpool (1990)
Sunderland (1936)
Stoke City
Burnley (1960)
Fulham
Wigan Athletic
Blackburn Rovers (1995)
Everton (1987)
Birmingham
Bolton Wanderers
West Ham United
Wolverhampton Wanderers (1959)
Hull City
Portsmouth (1949)

Well, actually, the number is the same as last year, since 2 former champions were relegated - Newcastle (1927) and WBA (1920) and were replaced by Wolves and Burnley. Plus there were a few clubs that won the league before and played in a premiership a few years ago but funnily enough nobody seems to know where they are now: Sheffield Wednesday (1930), Derby (1975), Sheffield United(1898), Leeds (1992), Ipswich (1962).

So why am I telling you all this? IT's to distract from the fact that I had another depressing weekend at the bookies. It sounded like a sensible decision. Bet on Man City to win against Burnley, who are fading after a bright start. Bet on Arsenal to beat Wolves. Well Arsenal are in good shape now, and can wipe the floor with most of their opponents, including Man U. But Man City - what can I say? I was following the match on the internet while doing other surfing.

Burnley scored - I said "SHIT". Burnley scored again, I said "SHIT" again. Then Man City pulled 1 back before the break. I willed Man City on to score 2 more, and I knew they were capable of it. This they did. Then I went off to watch "Interview with the Vampire", one of those unwatched VCDs I have lying around and not doing anything. Then I turned on my computer again - "FUCK!" Burnley equalised and it was a draw!!! FUCK FUCK FUCK!

Man City - I write them off for now. They were good enough to beat Arsenal a few months ago, now it looks as though they might not even crack the top 4. Is there nobody you can rely on nowadays?

Football Betting Season 2 Weeks 7-8

Last week was truly dreadful. I bet on 3 matches, and I lost on all of them. I bet on Wolves vs Aston Villa, thinking that Aston Villa were that much better than Wolves. I was wrong: Wolves put up a good show, they were at home, and this was a derby, which made the result harder to predict. In the end, Wolves snatched a draw and I lost money.

I also bet on Man U to beat Liverpool. This was a risky bet and I put a lower wager. It’s reasonable to believe that Liverpool is in a big mess right now: in the last few matches they lost to Fiorentina, Lyon, Sunderland, Fulham, and also their second team lost to Arsenal’s. This is relegation form. They lost all their matches in the last 3 weeks, except against their strongest opponent, Man U. There’s no legislating for this kind of inconsistency.

Last of all I bet on Arsenal to beat Weat Ham. It was going so well for me, they were 2 up, and then they just gave it away and drew.

This week, I didn’t bet. I would have bet on Chelsea to beat Bolton (they did), and on Man U to beat Blackburn (they did). But I would also have bet on Stoke to beat Wolves, and Wolves managed to claw back the points. I don’t know the betting amounts but I would have lost a few dollars.

The temptation was there to bet on Wigan to beat Portsmouth: Portsmouth are the current whipping boys, and Wigan had just performed well to be the first team to take points off Burnley at Turf Moor this season. But my policy is never to bet on a match that involves Wigan, and it shows: Portsmouth thrashed Wigan eventually.

I also made the right call not to bet on Liverpool to bet on Fulham, although it was impossible to call.

The lynchpin of my betting strategy is that we have big consistent performances by the big 4. This probably doesn’t happen until towards the end of the season, when everybody else is exhausted, and the big 4 can keep on going because they have been rotating their squads, or because their regular players are not human. It’s possible that I will have to lay off betting until after Christmas.

Edit: after this was posted I was mulling on whether to bet on Man City to beat Birmingham. I was about to bet on them, when I had this strange gut feeling that I shouldn't have. Thank god for that gut feeling - you can't rely on Man City to be able to beat everybody they're supposed to beat. They are, after all, Man City!

Wheel of Fortune

This is not going to be an easy topic to write about.

In the late 50s, there was a team of young football players who were among the most promising players of their generation. They belonged to a team called Manchester United. They flew to Yugoslavia to play in an European match. On the way back, they transited in Munich… well if you’re a Man U fan you know the rest.

(Incidently Munich was the place where Hitler first established the Nazi party. It was the place where Great Britain and France decided to allow Hitler to take over Czechoslovakia, setting off a chain of events which started off WWII. In 1972, during the Olympics, a group of Palestinian terrorists kidnapped 11 Israeli athletes, promising to release them for ransom. When they were lured into an ambush, they killed all the athletes. Munich is quite an exciting place.)

A lot of the Man U legend was built around that disaster. One of those who were in that plane and didn’t die was Bobby Charlton, who went on to win the World Cup, and become one of the greatest players in England, if not the world. (Probably not the world.)

Eventually, the team rebuilt itself, and by the late 60s, with their 3 star players Law, Charlton and Best, they won the league, and later the European Cup. They went through a comparatively lean period of more than 20 years without the league, but they became one of the biggest club sides in the world in the 90s, helped partially by the legend of the Munich Air Disaster.

Liverpool would suffer even worse. In 1985, they were already the greatest club side in Europe. They had won 4 European Cups, including the one in 1984, and were looking for their 5th.

The European Cup final in 1985 took place in Heysel, Belgium. Their opponents were Juventus. There was some trouble in the crowd, exacerbated by the hooligans on the English side. Just before kick-off, a wall collapsed, killing around 50 fans. (I can’t remember the exact number, it doesn’t matter.) The match had to go on, because they were afraid that there would be even worse crowd trouble if the crowd were told that the match was cancelled. Understandably, neither side wanted to win, but somebody had to and it was Juventus.

In 1989, Liverpool were to play an FA cup semi-final against (Nottingham Forest?) in Sheffield Wednesday’s stadium in Hillsborough. The police were having trouble controlling the crowd entering a stand. The match was about to begin and there was still a large crowd standing outside. They made the mistake of allowing too many people to enter one of the stands, and in the resulting crush, 96 people died.

This was the incident that led to a wholesale review of standards for the condition of football stadiums, and increasing commercialization of that league. The formation of the Premier League resulted in player’s salaries getting more and more obscene. It is very distasteful to juxtapose these 2 incidents together, but there is a causal link.

The slave trade had already begun before the Europeans came. It was the Arabs who went into Africa to raid the continent for free labour. But it was the Europeans, especially the settlers in the Americas who took this to a totally different level. We all know some of the facts from our school textbooks, and I haven’t read up a lot on this so I don’t really know.

But the descendents of slaves in the USA are certainly having it better than those who remained behind in Africa. They are still being discriminated against, and not given as much opportunities as the whites, but the idea of race is beginning to fade, if not disappear. Right now, the most powerful government official in the US is a black man. OK, he’s actually a descendent of someone who stayed behind. But for the majority of black Americans, if their ancestors had not been captured into slavery, they would be having a pretty miserable life.

I guess the wheel of fortune is very funny like that.

Football Betting Season 2 Weeks 4-6

I record my betting on this blog because I wanted to make public my experiment with football betting. The last 3 weekends have been very mixed in terms of my fortunes.

2 weeks ago, I had a great record. I bet on Everton to beat Portsmouth because everybody was beating Portsmouth (I was right). I bet on Liverpool to beat Hull, who were having a miserable time, and I was right. I bet on Arsenal to beat Fulham and I was lucky – Fulham played better than Arsenal, but lost 0-1. Finally I bet on Man City to beat West Ham and I got that one right. There was also a La Liga match involving Real Madrid or Barcelona, and I got that one right too. My takings were $20 for getting everything correct.

Last week, though, it was a disaster. I bet on Tottenham to beat Bolton, and they were only able to draw. I bet on Wigan to beat Hull, but Hull beat them instead. I bet on Man U to beat Sunderland, and I got that wrong too. The only bet that worked was on Burnley to beat Birmingham at home.

Burnley are very good at home. It was risky betting on Burnley but worth it. For the Wigan match, I had to remember: 2 times I bet on Wigan this season, and I lost both bets. Wigan are unpredictable. Man U was not necessarily going to win against Sunderland – they had just finished Europe. Later on I also found out that Alex Ferguson had made a few tactical mistakes. I couldn’t explain Tottenham and Bolton, but there are a few teams you shouldn’t bet against – Everton, Bolton and Stoke. The boring-football,-but-we’ll-kick-you-off-the-park types. In my haste to bet on something, just so that I had something to bet on, I violated some of my rules.

This week, though, things are going quite OK. I bet on Arsenal to beat Birmingham. Arsenal are going through a good streak this season, and even though many people were predicting they would drop out of the top 4 this season, it seems as though Liverpool would be the one to make way instead. I also bet on Stoke to beat West Ham. Stoke are another side like Burnley, quite good at home, and difficult to beat. The score was tied until the 70th minute and so it was uncomfortable for me, but eventually it turned out OK. I don’t know about Real Madrid, but I won’t lose sleep over it.

This week, I’m also proud of the decisions I made not to bet. Everton “should” beat Wolves, but this season Everton is weaker, and so it was a draw instead. Liverpool are stronger than Sunderland on paper, but they lost, because Liverpool are in deep shit. A very far cry from the swaggering giants who were winning week after week towards the end of last season. Chelsea “should” beat Aston Villa, but even though they scored first, Chelsea lost. Chelsea are another team in shit trouble at the moment and at this rate, Arsenal or Man City has a great chance at the title.

One regret is that I didn’t bet on Tottenham to beat Portsmouth, although I thought that would happen. I thought that Portsmouth turned the corner by beating Wolves, but they are still weak. Wigan are weaker than Man City, but remember – never bet on an outcome that involves Wigan.

Update: Man City and Wigan drew. So the dictum that you should never bet on an outcome involving Wigan is correct.

Football (non) betting season 2 week 3

A decent week for betting last week. But I didn't bet anything so I didn't win anything.

The last few paper bets were OK. I lost by betting against Burnley again, but I made back from the other games. Tottenham had a lucky game where they got a goal against West Ham courtesy of a very lousy back pass from a West Ham striker. That was good. On paper I made $4 last week.

Here are my bets for the coming week:
Tottenham beats Birmingham at 1.28
Man City beats Portsmouth at 1.48
Liverpool beats Bolton at 1.43
Barcelona beats Sporting Gijon at 1.12

Putting "$20" on each.

Football (non) betting season 2 week 2

It's been a very painful week for me. I had terrible luck.

Man U vs Birmingham, at least I won that.

I bet on Liverpool to beat Tottenham, and I lost that.

I bet on Wigan to beat Wolves, and I lost that.

I bet on Man U to beat Burnley, and I also lost that.

For Liverpool vs Tottenham, I thought that Tottenham were a weaker team, with half of their defence out injured. I was wrong. Liverpool choked against Tottenham, who is showing themselves up to be some kind of a season.

Wigan managed to beat Aston Villa, so I thought that it would be easy against Wolves. But to my surprise, Wolves beat Wigan in what was one of the big upsets of the season.

But that upset was overshadowed by another one: Burnley beat Man U. It would have been an upset even if it were merely a draw. As it is, this was a truly crazy result.

I had betrayed one of my central tenets: bet on form, not reputation. The corollary to that is, if you do not know what the form is, don't bet. Which means: don't bet so early in the season. I think for the next few weeks, I will not do any football betting.

I'll just do paper betting to see what I would have won if I had bet on those things.

I'll bet on Arsenal to beat Portsmouth at 1.07 (miserable, I know but still...)
Manchester City to beat Wolves at 1.22
Everton to beat Burnley at 1.93
Tottenham to beat West Ham at 1.95.

See how that goes.

Football (non) betting season 2 week 1

I didn’t bet on anything this weekend. I was about to go to the Singapore Pools shop when I felt tired and went to sleep instead.

Anyway, here’s what I would have bet on this week.

Croatia to beat Belarus. I would have won this.
USA to eat ball against Mexico. I was queasy about backing USA against Mexico. Surely enough, USA got beaten by 1 goal.
Chelsea to beat Hull: this would have been very close.
Fulham to beat Portsmouth: this happened, but it was close
Liverpool to beat Tottenham: we’ll see about this.
Man U to beat Birmingham: ditto.
Everton to eat ball vs Arsenal: normally you bet on eat ball when you don’t really know the outcome of a match, and when both sides are perceived to be equally strong. This was emphatically not the case, as the final score was Everton 1 Arsenal 6.

Football betting Week 9

This is one of the hardest posts I’ve had to write about betting on football. My main strategy had always been to identify the safe bets to put on, and to wager money on it. So many things have happened that have subverted this strategy.

Did I say in my last post that nothing would go wrong? What hubris that comment has turned out to be. I am scarcely alone among all these people when I wonder what happened to Iraq and Egypt. Maybe it's fatigue? Maybe they were complacent? 2 Arabic teams vs 2 Anglo Saxon teams, and both times, the Anglo Saxons got their way. Maybe I overestimated Iraq? They did well against Spain but they did not score any goals in 3 matches, and to win a match you have to score goals. They are, after all, a team in a mess. Why did I start wagering $20 when luck starts to turn against me?

Egypt, what happened to Egypt? USA was supposed to be a punching bag. Maybe Egypt thought they had already qualified. Well Egypt is one of the top receipiants of foreign aid from the US, so sometimes you wonder if it has anything to do with it.

And as for buying insurance for Spain vs South Africa, it was probably too much prudence. But anyway better safe than sorry.

Later on, I compounded the errors when I bet on Spain to beat the USA, and was as shocked as the rest of the world when USA beat Spain instead. Brazil won against South Africa to get to the finals, so I got something back. For the last round of matches, I thought I had nothing else to lose, since the way that things fell, a “strong”team was pitted against a “weak” team again. I bet on Brazil and Spain to win again. This time I got whacked. Brazil won USA, to be sure. The margin of victory was slender and the manner of victory suggested that it was a very close run thing. I threw a fit again when Spain failed to beat South Africa, the same team they whacked 5-0. Perhaps they were sure that they could get the winner in extra time.

I had severely underestimated South Africa and the USA. Both were teams that qualified for the semis, by the skin of their teeth (at the expense of “better” teams like Egypt and Italy, for the USA, and Iraq, for South Africa). Perhaps it was better to say that I had overestimated Spain and Brazil’s motivation to win this tournament.

I suppose the one thing I can learn from this is how much my strategy depends upon there being NO SURPRISES. I have also learnt that group games are different from knock out games. In knock out games, a draw is almost as good as a win, if you think that you can beat the other side in extra time. In group / league games, a win is a win, a draw is a draw, the psychology is totally different.

The Confederations cup has shown that there is a lot of attacking football on offer in international football, that the nice football on offer in Euro 2008 could continue in 2010, as opposed to the dreary World Cups of 2002 and 2002, as well as the awful Euro 2004 when Greece won. There is a trend now, where 4 or more people raid the opponent's half when a break takes place. There is a growing realisation that the winner is the one who scores more goals than the opposition, rather than the one who concedes fewer goals.

A completely unexpected turn of events is USA's march to the finals, after heavy losses in the first 2 games suggested that they would soon be heading home in disgrace. First, a thrashing of Egypt, combined with a heavy loss for the Italians sealed an extremely unlikely passage to the semis. Then, another extremely unlikely win against Spain. Then, getting within touching distance of the trophy itself by going 2 up against Brazil.

Who would have expected the US to be the romantic underdogs at anything? I think, yes, the USA will be a world force in football one day, even though that day seems 10, 20 years in the future. The USA and Australia are giant sporting countries, and the issue is not always whether they have the will to succeed, as whether you can get them interested in football. The USA, I suspect, will be like the German national team, not very pretty football but effective, and soon you will hear people say "never write off the Americans".

Spain underperformed yet again. The Spain team who so enthralled the world 1 year ago in the Euros looked like resuming the normal service of underperforming at major tournaments. Except maybe you could forgive them, considering that some of them were in the Barcelona team, which means they won Euro 2008, La Liga 2009, Copa Del Rey 2009, Champion's League 2009 and don't really have any more space in their trophy cabinet for another Confederations Cup.

I can’t wait for the regular season to begin so that I can attempt to fix my current account deficit.

Football Betting Week 8 Part 2

Brazil beat USA. Duh. What is surprising is that Egypt beat Italy. Or rather not surprising. You see, this is a vindication of my principles, which is to bet on form, not reputation. I didn't really believe that Egypt were that strong but they are playing in Africa after all (OK Italy is very near to Africa also), and I saw that Brazil very nearly failed to beat Egypt. I was forced to conclude that Egypt were really good and bet accordingly (luckily) even though some part of me didn't agree with that.

For the last round of the group matches, I bet for Iraq to beat New Zealand. No problems there, I expect to win comfortably. Also on the way to the betting shop I was deciding whether to bet on Spain to beat South Africa. There was an eerie feeling about that, but I bet anyway. In both cases I was sick and tired of winning pennies so I upped my stake to $20. Later on I realised what that eerie feeling was. South Africa had to win or draw to ensure qualification. If they lost and Iraq beat New Zealand, they would be out. Spain, already qualified, did not have to win. I did a Homeric "Doh!" and I decided to buy insurance by betting on a draw, which means that in the event of a Spain win or draw, I would win a modest $2. Of course, Spain could lose and I would lose $30, but too bad for me if that happened.

For the other group, I bet on Egypt to beat the US. Well I only out $10 on that because the US could always muscle out a draw. If Egypt got a better result than Italy, they would qualify, so they would want to win this one. But they are only slightly better than the US, in spite of their being able to beat Italy. We'll see how that goes.

Remember what Singapore pools says. Bet responsibly. Always do your research beforehand.

Football Betting Week 8

OK, I did say the season is over, but for a few lucky (or unlucky countries) this is not so. Because we have the Confederations Cup. Last week, there was some easy money to be earned if you bet on Spain to trash New Zealand, or if you bet Brazil to beat Egypt. (But it must be said that Brazil came very close to not beating Egypt).

I said before that international football represents a unique betting opportunity. Results are more guaranteed, a strong team is less likely to screw up against a weak team because the players know they don't want to be pelted with rotten tomatoes at the airport when they get home.

So dis week, I bet on Spain vs Iraq. The bookies obviously think that Iraq is very weak even though South Korea and Saudi Arabia couldn’t get past them in the Asian Games. I wanted to put Spain beats Iraq but they were giving me 1.02. Then I saw that they were giving 3.5 balls to Iraq. Take it, goddamn! OK, I won that one at 1.4. I also bet on Brazil to beat the US, that one I understood. And also for Egypt to eat ball vs Italy, something that really mystified me – why didn’t I just bet on Italy to win? Duh. Anyway, Egypt, don’t fail me now.

Money for nothing and checks for free.

Results: Brazil beat USA. Duh. What is surprising is that Egypt beat Italy. Or rather not surprising. You see, this is a vindication of my principles, which is to bet on form, not reputation. I didn't really believe that Egypt were that strong but they are playing in Africa after all (OK Italy is very near to Africa also), and I saw that Brazil very nearly failed to beat Egypt. I was forced to conclude that Egypt were really good and bet accordingly (luckily) even though some part of me didn't agree with that.

Short end of the Betting scale

At the risk of labouring my point, here is a quote that appeared in the ST sports section today. Somebody bet 135K pounds that England would beat Andorra, and got back 675 pounds as a result. Said the quote, a bookie: "I don't know what's less believable, a Scotsman backing England or someone risking 135K to win peanuts".

Now, that is the extreme example of the sort of bet that I would make on these matches. People still forget the end result, which is almost 100% certain: England was going to win. OK, I wouldn't pick up pennies in front of a bulldozer, and I would have taken any bet of, say, 1.05 upwards. I don't know what odds Singapore pools gave on this result. If it's anything above 1.01, then they're practically giving away money, and all you have to do is take it.

I'm just kicking myself for not collecting that free money when England were playing Kazakhstan and Andorra.

The point is not that these upsets do not happen. The point is that they happen so rarely that at the end you will still be ahead.

Late night thoughts on Football Betting

This is the essay that kick started my gambling spree. In a way it was not a gambling spree but rather my attempt to test this theory. So far the theory is proving to be moderately but not spectacularly successful. This was also sent to some ppl in my department who regularly bet on 4D / Toto, games with negative expected takings. I never play those games.

In summary, the bad news is that if the bookies price their odds in a certain way, and if they don't make mistakes, you will never win money from football betting in the long run. But the thesis here is that not only do they often make mistakes, they make deliberate mistakes, because the people who bet against them are not rational maximisers of money (since when could that description ever be pinned on gamblers?) but have a higher preference for risk. The betting odds are designed to maximise profits against punters with this profile.

The modest profit that I have made from making 40 bets suggests that the theory is sound. But it is quite a bit of work for quite a little bit of money. If I want to really roll in the cash, I will have to be a big big punter, and I don't know if I have the stomach for this.

Anyway, here it is, for those of you who want to milk the Singapore Pools cow.

Some people have asked me why I bet on football and do not bet on 4D / Toto. After some experimentation I have tried to make sense of it all:

Betting


Before we get into the main topic of what a good betting strategy is, let us go into the mind of the bookie. One of the first things is to realise that to be a bookie you need some objectives, some of which are fairly contradictory to each other.


Probability based pricing


The standard way of setting odds is based on probability. That is to set odds that prevent statistical arbitrage. What is this? Let us go into some maths.


Suppose there is an experiment with 2 possible outcomes, A and A’. Event A takes place with probability p. If somebody bets on A, then you should sell it to him at odds X(A), where X(A) is less than 1/p. I write X(A) the way Singapore Pools does it here. If you buy a betting ticket at X(A), it means that if you bet $1 and lose, you will lose that $1. Otherwise you will win X(A). Obviously X(A) is more than 1.


As for why you, as a bookie, should sell the odds at X(A), let’s go to the law of large numbers. Suppose this experiment were to be performed many times. Then the number of times you get outcome A is close to pn. Suppose the gambler were to bet $1 on A every time. Then he would win close to pn times, and your payout is around np(X(A) - 1). At the same time the gambler loses n(1-p) times, and he pays you n(1-p). So the amount of money you have is n(1-p) - np(X(A) -1). Rearranging the terms, that means X(A) is less than 1/p.


At the same time, X(A’) should also be less than 1/(1-p). That way, you will get a profit either way. Don’t worry too much about the numbers. Just try to understand the idea of what p is. p is the actual probability of A taking place.


The question is, what is p? Nobody really knows what p is. It is just the perception. But the "rational" buyer will have his own conception of what p is. I say "rational" because your customers are all gamblers and gamblers are not generally rational.


If bookies always set their odds on this principle, then football gambling would be like toto or 4d: the odds are always against you, every ticket gives you a negative expected return. Fortunately for us, there are a few reasons why bookies will sometimes deviate from this principle.


Why bookies deviate from probability based pricing.


First, there is also the market to consider. Suppose everybody were to bet on A. That would be bad for you if A actually did happen. Fortunately there is a pricing mechanism that can influence more gamblers to bet on A’ instead. So you adjust X(A) and X(A’) accordingly. But now you have shifted the balance away from the ideal, which is to set things based on p.


Suppose p were, say 0.95. Then by right you should price X(A) at less than 1.052. The thing is - who the hell would want to buy a bet from you at 1.052? You can’t balance the odds. Everybody will bet on A’, and in the event that A’ takes place, you will lose on A’ more than what you gained from the people who bet on A and lost to you.


In order to induce more people to bet on A, you price it at X(A) = 1.1, or 1.2 instead. But that means that the rare person who buys it from you at 1.1 will get a free ride. Understand that what is going on here is essentially the bookie is buying insurance from the punter who bets on a likely outcome. If you are buying insurance, chances are you are making a loss.


This criterion – loss minimisation is often contradictory to probability based pricing schemes. This contradicts the efficient markets hypothesis. If people are rational and have a cold hard look at the value of p, they would not be betting the way they are betting.


This is why you must realise that the punter is not only betting against Singapore Pools. He is also betting against the market, and the market is other punters, many of whom do not have "O" levels in Maths.


Gamblers are generally not very good at calculating stuff. That’s why you, the bookie, are making so much money. Suppose the probability p is 0.95. Then 1-p is 0.05. What would X(A’) have to be under the probability based pricing scheme? 19. A big fat 19! Is anything ever priced at 19? You will never find it. But you could price something at, say, 7 or 8 and people would think that it’s hell of a bargain. They’re not going to demand that you set your odds at 19, even though that is the fair price. They will be happy with 8. They will feel lucky and bet on 8, and chances are, they will lose their clothes, the poor suckers.


The other reason why you don’t want to set X(A) at 1.05 is this: by doing so, you will be telling the whole world that you, the knowledgeable bookie thinks that it is almost impossible that A’ is going to happen. Who would want to bet on A’? Nobody, because you are announcing to the whole world that A’ will never happen. Who will want to bet on A? Nobody, because the odds are too low.


The 90% rule


So my strategy is, find outcomes that have p = 0.9. Chances are, whatever the odds are, they’re better than 1.1. You will win more than you lose. You may think that it’s not worth it to bet on low odds, but that would be making the classic mistake.


So the question is: is there such a thing as a 90% event? Yes. If you look at football and the league table, the league winners will win around 65-70% of their matches. Last season Man U won 25 out of 38, which is around 65%. When Chelsea won their first EPL, they were so dominant they won 29 matches, which is 75%. Last season, at the other end of the table, Derby County lost 29 matches, which is also 75%.


So that is already a 70% chance of winning, playing the average middle table team. If you have a big 4 team playing a whipping boy, the chance that the big 4 team will beat it could go up to more than 90%.


The other thing is that the form of both teams is non-stationary. This means that Man U winning 65% of the matches includes all the matches where they have just returned from Europe, had key players injured, gone through a bad patch. Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as form. Team dynamics is a very ephemeral thing. Shift a few parameters out of line, and the whole teamwork disappears, heads drop, etc etc.


So there are such things as 90% events. It is simple. Just bet on them. So how do you identify 90% events? Well there’s not enough space here to talk about it. Obviously your skill is important. I am writing a non-constructive proof here so I only have to show that something exists without necessarily telling you how to attain it.


Risk


Maybe you think that a 10% return is meagre? The average investor would think that 10% a week is fantastic. Even 5%. You are in this thing to win money. You don’t ask for higher returns unless you really want to be a gambler. Well you are not a gambler. You are a probabilist. You must pick your fights.


Here’s the thing: there is asymmetry of power in this game. Yes, the bookie sets the odds and if he had his way, he will set the odds against you every time. That’s why you should stay on the segment of the spectrum where it is difficult for the bookie to price the odds against you. Think of yourself as a winger. The right back / left back will find it difficult to tackle you because he has to stay inside you, and because if he tackles, chances are you’ll get a throw in anyway. This method of punting is similar to playing on the wing.


You can see this in what Singapore pools have done. They are sick and fed up of losing money all the time because they always expose their asses wide open for bad people like me to take advantage of the system. So in order to steer people away from betting on 90% events, they have introduced the first half – final results combi. Combis are bad bad things because they are not in the 90% range, so don’t fall for it.


Maybe you think that gambling is not safe? Compared to what? Lehman minibonds? When you buy a structured product there’s not much you know except that your relationship manager has a tight skirt and a fantastic ass. There is not much useful information out there. At the same time, when you put your money in for the long run, there is always a case that something really bad would go wrong, and your investment will blow up.


When hedge funds blow up, it is because of the unknown unknowns. Think about LTCM. Who knew that the Russians were going to default? Who knows the way that interest rates / oil prices / the weather is going to go? Who knows if your bank is going to collapse? Who knows the insides of companies, and how well they are really run? Who knows how the iPod is going to fare in the market?


In contrast, in football, the information is there. Who is on fire, who is not playing well, who is injured, who is the good tactician, who is a good acquisition. Your risk manager is Alex Ferguson / Arsene Wenger / Rafael Benitez. They are the best in the business and your interests are perfectly aligned with them, if they want to win. Even better are internationals, where you know that if Italy were to lose or draw against Luxembourg they will have shit thrown at them in the airport when they come back. When you invest in a company, do you ever get to see first hand how it is being managed?


Make no mistake, though, gambling is not safe. This is still gambling. At the most you can call it speculation. I have tested this theory with $200 of my own money: 16 bets, and got my money back every time. But I still feel the trepidation and dread every time I go down and punt. Your judgement has to be good. I do not have the temperament of a gambler. I suppose this is what trading is like, but it has worked for me so far.


You need to have discipline to stick to the 90% rule. I once bet on Argentina or Brazil to win the 2006 World Cup. Bad move. I once bet on a World Cup semi-finals where both teams were strong. Also bad move. In general, the more exciting a match (exciting meaning a see saw match, just like Aston Villa- Everton last night) the less you should bet on it. One sided massacres like Liverpool ass raping Blackburn is OK, except that I didn’t know if Liverpool are tired from Europe.


I would not have believed I had found a winning formula until I have had a chance to test it. I will lose a bet sooner or later but in the long run I will be ahead. You know the law of large numbers – if a person is consistently lucky, it is not luck.


Why don’t people know about this?


Well I don’t think that hedge funds would use this strategy. It is illegal. I don’t think people who found a way to consistently win money from Singapore Pools would crow to others about this. Might get into trouble with the authorities. I know 1 or 2 people who regularly bet money on football and claim to be ahead. I think it is possible. This concept was explained to me by a character in Graham Swift’s excellent novel, "Last Orders". He claims that through a careful study of the books, you can choose which ones to bet and you can land up ahead. Perhaps Graham Swift is relating the real life experience of a person who did the same.


Furthermore, there is a bias against gambling. Many people believe that all gambling is bad. True, it has the stigma of wrecking lives. True, it is addictive – and the chances that you will get hooked and all your discipline goes out the window is a very real possibility. But the same is true for anybody who trades in the financial markets for a living!


The last objection has to do with whether this is ethical, because every dollar you win is taken out of a community service project or some other expensive government project. Everybody who wants to win at Singapore pools is guilty of this, but yes you are more guilty because you know that in the long run you are ahead. This is not an essay about ethics, the choice is up to you.

Football Betting Week 7

Very brief note. Season was over already and not much to bet about. I think I only bet Tampines to win against Balestier because of my policy of always betting against the whipping boys. I also bet Everton to eat 1.5 ball against Chelsea. As the matched neared, I was beginning to realise this was potentially unwise. I had bought the odds for 1.28, and then I saw the odds lengthen to 1.5 just before the match. Which means that a lot of people felt that Chelsea could beat them by2 or more goals.

So I want to thank Louis Saha very much for his 25 second goal. I want to thank the referee for denying Chelsea a penalty. I want to thank the referee also for not realising that the ball that bounced down off a crossbar actually crossed the line, and that the real score of the FA cup final was 3-1. But Chelsea are rather more gracious these days after they got slapped left, right and centre for that Barcelona fracas. And furthermore if you have won the FA Cup, and are seeing off a coach that you like, you don't give a shit about these minor things.

I suppose that given some of the bad luck that I had been having over the last few weeks, I got some good luck to even it out. (Note to gamblers: this is not true, I'm taking poetic license with the laws of probability. It doesn't mean that just because you have had bad luck, some good luck will come around to even it out.)

Aside from that near miss, there was one of the biggest games of the season: Barcelona vs Man U. Fat boy asked me what to bet. I refused to put a wager on it, because I was so uncertain of the outcome. He pressed me for my gut feeling. My feeling was that Barcelona had the more talented side which played with more flair. But I also felt that Man U had always shown more spirit because they were a side from England. (Notice that I did not say they were an "English" side.) So I told him to bet on Man U. After the match I got worried that he threw away a large amount of money. Until I asked him, and he told me that another friend had told him that Barcelona were stronger. And he listened to that friend. So good for him.

At the end of the betting season, I had wagered $450, and my account is at +$10. It is not spectacularly good or spectacularly bad. I think that my strategy works, and that I'm on to something. I don't like people jumping to conclusions, and based on some generalised law they have heard about somewhere else, blithely say that all gambling leads to ruin. It doesn't mean that there are no systems that work. The eventual outcome of a spate of gambling should depend upon the behaviour of the gambler, and it should always be possible that if people behave in a way that is different from the average gambler, they can earn a small profit.

Football Betting Week 6

Last week was a bad week for me. 2 bets went awry, and then I realised that I should not have bet on them at all. I should not have bet on Hamburg and Werder Bremen to win their respective matches because they had just played 5,6 games in 3 weeks. Simple things like this - why do I keep fucking up?

The last week of the Premiership and the Bundesliga. I missed 1 easy bet when Shaktar Donesk played Werder Bremen in the UEFA cup final. I should have bet on Shaktar to win. (As in win the competition, not win the match because after 90 minutes it was a draw.)

This week, I have the chance to recoup all my losses. I just have to win all my bets. This is not as difficult as it sounds, because, remember, I am in the habit of making safe(r) bets.

Hoffenheim are in better shape than they were during their slump. So I bet on them to eat 1.5 ball against Schalke 04 who were so crap 2 weeks ago that they let relegation candidate Mochengladbach beat them. As of now, Hoffenheim are tied 2-2 with Schalke 04, and can let 1 more goal in and I'm still safe.

Wolfsburg have to beat Werder Bremen in order to ensure they win the Bundesliga. So let them do it. Right now, in the middle of the 2nd half, they are leading 3-1. Wolfsburg winning their first Bundesliga! Imagine! What a change from the EPL where it's always the Big 4 taking the top 4 and the big 4 minus Liverpool winning.

I rely on Werder Bremen and Schalke 04 to play their parts because since they fucked me up before this is the least they owe me. (Edit: yesssss... I win my 2 bundesliga bets. I am safe!!!)

For tomorrow, I say that Chelsea beats Sunderland. Chelsea still have a mathematical chance of beating Liverpool to 2nd and they can only do that if they win. Also I bet on Everton to eat ball vs Fulham. Since when have Fulham been so powerful that they give ball to Everton? Well if the bookies want to be stupid let them be.

You know me, I know what I'm doing. I can win it all back. My luck is changing. I'm going to strike the big one. Imagine what we can do. One more try. This will be my last. I promise I will give it back to you.

OK, I'm not kidding, when I say I can win it all back. I've been keeping count and I'm around $10 behind. I only bet $10 at a time. I've wagered less than $500 so far this season and getting back $490 is not that bad, even though it's hardly profitable.

Unlike fat boy who puts in $100 at 1 shot. There was this time, middle of last week, when he asked me whether I wanted to go bet on Sunderland vs Portsmouth. Now you know, betting on 2 evenly matched teams is not my style because you never know what's going to happen. He also asked me to go bet on even goals for some S-league match. That's not my style because I only bet on 80%, 90% outcomes. He asked me to go down to Sing Pools to bet, I refused. I'm wary, almost every time I've (intentionally or otherwise) deviated from my own principles, I've been punished.

Next day he was $600 poorer. Now I feel a little sorry for him because he only started betting again because he had a gambling buddy (ie me). But I gave him advice and he didn't take it, so who's there to blame?

Moral of the story? Don't fuck with the system.

Update: this is the first week where I have won every bet I made. OK, 4 is not a large number but at least I can say I'm in the black again. I was a little scared when Sunderland almost clawed their way back against Chelsea, but it's alright now. All 4 relegation candidates have lost their matches. Newcastle were relegated courtesy of an own goal by Damien Duff. Some players would rather get relegated so they can play for different clubs and you wonder if Damien Duff is one of them. OK, my football season has ended on a high, and I am in the black again.

Football Betting Week 5 Part 2

I must be jinxed.

I was buying some bets for the weekend. There was a long queue at the counter. I put my entry form to the counter, and one of the bets had a problem. I returned it for a refund, and because the line was so long, I didn't go back and redo that bet.

One of the bets was for Berlin to eat ball vs Schalke. I would have won it. Another one was for Aston Villa to eat ball vs Middlesborough. I would have won that one too. Fat boy asked me if I wanted to bet on Fulham to beat Newcastle since the odds were around 3. I was quite wary of that, and I would have bet half my normal amount on that one. But I would have won that one too, even though the margin of victory was very narrow (0-1). He also asked me to bet on Everton vs West Ham. I didn't like it, but West Ham got 1 guy sent off and they lost.

Elsewhere, I was iffy about Wolfsburg beating Hannover, but they managed a 5-0 victory.

How did my bets do?

Stuttgart beat Cottbus. That was to be expected. Dortmund beat Bielefield, that was also to be expected. But I bet on Bremen to beat Karlsruhe, and they lost instead. I bet on Hamburg to beat Cologne. They also lost. What happened? Was I really unlucky?

Then it hit me: Both Bremen and Hamburg were involved in the UEFA cup. For the last 3 weeks, they have been playing midweek matches. So it doesn't really matter that both of them are still chasing Europe places in the league: they're tired. Why the fuck did I bet on teams which are tired? When am I going to stop making stupid mistakes?

I don't know if I'm going to bet next week, because so many of the issues have been settled already.

At least one of the bets I decided not to make was the right decision. I wasn't certain Bayern Munich would beat Hoffenheim, and in the end, they drew. Which means that Wolfsburg are now favourites to win the Bundesliga. It is incredible. This is a team which has never finished higher than 5th, in a town that was founded by the Nazis in 1938. OK, they have one of the best coaches in Felix Magath, and OK, this year Klinnsman screwed up Bayern Munich royally. But still, this is hell of an achievement for an upstart.

Football Betting Week 5

OK, Monchengladbach beat Schalke 04. That was a little unexpected. Every time I lose a bet, I keep the slip and I scribble a “moral of the story” behind it. My moral of the story is “do not bet against a team which is fighting relegation at the end of a season.”

I suppose the key word was “fighting relegation”. As opposed to “letting relegation happen to them”, as is the case of teams like Arminia Bielefield.

But some things are only apparent in hindsight. When I looked back at the match results, I found out that, yes, I did my homework. Monchengladbach were really coming off a bad run of form. And Schalke had been winning (except that they lost the match before Monchengladbach)

Because of the recent spate of mistakes and bad results, my account is now in the red.

In the middle of the week I had the opportunity to redeem myself.

Hamburg vs Bochum. 1 title contender (probably will be former title contender very soon) versus 1 relegation candidate with bad form. I won by betting on Hamburg to win.

Berlin vs Cologne. Another title contender versus another mediocre team with bad form. I won by betting on Berlin to win.

Munich vs Leverkusen. Another title contender versus another mediocre team. I don’t know why the odds are so low for this, but I bet anyway. Win.

Wigan vs Man U. Wigan are good but they’re not good enough to beat a steamroller who has to win this match to secure the title. Win again.

See, when I stick to safe and trusted methods, things go right for me. But I made a mistake. I listened to fat boy and bet on Young Lions to eat ball vs Super Reds. Is fat boy trying to screw me up? I lost, and lost back almost all the profits from the 4 winning bets.

Well I’m on my way back towards the black anyway, so I shouldn’t complain.

Actually I could complain. There were a few other matches whose results seemed possible to predict. Werder Bremen, after a lot of consistency, is hitting a run of form, and they thrashed Eintracht Frankfurt. I’d have settled for the win and collected money. My hunch (proved correct) was that Stuttgart was going to beat Schalke 04. You could say, on hindsight, of course Monchengladbach would win Cottbus, but given it was settle by 1 last minute goal, maybe it was still too much of a risk. And given that Hoffenheim is looking good again, you can bet on it to beat a relegation candidate Bielefield.

But I suppose, since I had earlier judged those matches too risky to play, I should stick to my decision no matter what.

This weekend, this is contingent on the odds. I will bet on Dortmund to beat Bielefield, Stuttgart to beat Cottbus, Bremen to beat Karlsruhe, Hamburg to beat Cologne.

Wolfsburg should beat Hannover, but since Hannover is in such good form of late, I will pass that.

Man U are playing Arsenal. Ordinarily, I would say, Arsenal’s defence is in such bad shape, on current form they will lose to Man U. But since only a draw would see them get back their EPL, it’s not good to bet on that one.

Liverpool, however, should still be too strong for WBA (even though most likely they no longer have anything to play for.) Similarly for Chelsea vs Blackburn, you just can’t see any other possibility, other than a Chelsea win.

Football Betting Week 4

Not a very good week for me when it comes to betting. In the middle of the week I bet on Hull to eat ball vs Aston Villa and that was OK. I also bet on the Young Lions to win against a Cambodian football side and I lost. I simply did not do my homework on that one.

After that I resisted invitations from fat boy to bet on matches in mid week. The Champion's League semi finals - you never knew what was going to happen in them. Good to watch, bad to bet on.

Anyway, here are the results from this week's betting:

I got Bochum to eat ball against Hertha Berlin. This is bad: Berlin beat Bochum by 2 goals. I suppose I read it somewhere that Berlin seldom beats any team by more than 1 goal, but if I didn't think highly of Bochum, then I shouldn't have bet on them to eat ball.

Hoffenheim vs Cologne was another unexpected result. I bet on Cologne to eat ball vs Hoffenheim. It's true that Hoffenheim have lousy form, but if I did more homework I would have realised that Cologne also have lousy form. In the end, I also lost this bed. Hoffenheim beat Cologne by 2 goals.

Good old reliable Dortmund beat Karlsruhe for me. That was good. You could also count on Liverpool to beat West Ham. (I thought this would be close, but 3 goals? Damn.) Stoke to eat ball vs Hull - can you imagine Hull thrashing Stoke? (In the event, Stoke won. )

There are some bets that I'm glad I didn't make. Like, Leverkusen to win against Bielefield. (They didn't.) Or for Portsmouth to eat ball vs Blackburn. Or Wigan to win against WBA. Now is a very bad time to bet against WBA because suddenly they're improving, suddenly they're the team who doesn't want to be relegated.

There's 1 more bet I made. That is for Schalke 04 to beat Monchengladbach. If I win that bet, I will be even for this week. Otherwise, I will either have to impose stricter discipline on myself and have a stricter criterion for the bets I'm willing to make, or review whether or not my strategy is working at all. Because this week could be the week that I wipe out all the profits I've made over the last few weeks.