Thursday 3 August 2017

Forgotten Division

In contrast to Leagues Two and National, blindly backing of Away teams shows no sign of profiting from a market weakness. The only 'blind' strategy that would have been profitable from 2012-17 was Laying the Draw, but an ROI of 0.8% isn't anything to get excited about.

Aways were profitable from 2012-16, but 2016-17 saw the fewest Away wins (27%) since the 2009-10 season, and as a result lost over 90 points. Away wins lower down the English pyramid were the result in 33% of matches.

Aways did become profitable if you ditch the longer-shots, those with an Implied Probability of less than 0.25, and this strategy would have had an ROI of 2.5%.

League One is the division in England that I have the least interest in. Whatever division the team you support is playing in comes first, fortunately for me that is currently the Premier League while who might be coming up from the Championship means I take an interest there.

At the other end, who is dropping out of the league is of interest, while which non-league sides are entering (or re-entering) the Football League is also interesting and means I look at results there also.

League One gets lost in the middle, in a kind of no-man's land, and with no real trends, I think I'll keep it that way. Other than checking in every once in a while to see if Portsmouth, playing at a level they are certainly are not accustomed to, can survive.

1 comment:

Eggmund said...

Hello, not sure I've quite understood the data.
How can blindly backing home and laying home both lose? Or how could backing home, away, and draw all lose quite so much, when you would expect to be only slightly down if you backed all the options? Is it that the bookmaker's margin is between 1-2%?
How much is the bookmaker's margin on football matches, and does the data imply that the odds are broadly right (less the bookies spread)?

This may be ignorance on my part as most of my activity is on betfair, where markets add up to 100.2%ish and Betfair takes its (healthy!) cut at the end.