Football Musings

[wearthefoxhat]

Following on the old greyhound musings thread, I thought I'd start one for football.

Mobius Grey posted an interesting link that gives a perspective and insight into odds compilers mindset. (Matthew Trenhaile)
https://tradematesports.medium.com/how- ... 36b4937439

----

Useful websites I use for the raw data are;
https://www.soccerstats.com/
https://fbref.com/en/
https://footballxg.com/xg-league-tables/

-----

Peter has a useful 18 minute you-tube video that shapes the way I crunch the data.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ihkv3kSWt-Y

Also, this Y-T video about machine learning as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00YPWyB5aR4

-----


I also posted up some thoughts about value bettting on football leagues by creating my own tissue prices and comparing with Betfair. If the market hasn't matured much, I'd compare it with the Betfair sportsbook, and yes, there's still value there too.

The results worked out well overall. (so far)

Champ.png

-----


My initial approach was posted in the todays football thread. Essentially is follows as;

The Home/Draw.Away data is calculated into %probability and converted into decimal odds for value comparison. The data is a combination of normal data and Xg data that is usually overlooked by some. If a game looks to be value, further checks into team data/injuries, etc needs to be carried out. Most leagues can be evaluated. If value is found in the H/D/A market, then other markets like O/U will too.

It's likely I won't post up lists after lists of games pre-off, and just use it more as a reflective diary on games that went well and others that didn't.

There are big organisations (Starlizard springs to mind) doing all this in some way or with data analytics/analysis and investing for others, so I'm just doing things my way and take a piece of the profit pie where and when I can.

----

[sionascaig]

There can be quite a change in "goal expectations" just in the run up to the market starting (even after the team announced) - maybe worth setting up an alert for that?

[wearthefoxhat]

There can be quite a change in "goal expectations" just in the run up to the market starting (even after the team announced) - maybe worth setting up an alert for that?

Good idea. Although I'm not using the BA software for this exercise.

[wearthefoxhat]

The 2 premiership games last night gave some food for thought. There seems to be a small bias on away teams for value (which is a good thing) as the market seems to overbet the home team at times.

16Sep.png

Fulham were surprisingly good value at around 2.68 as the algo crunched it out as an odds-on chance against a side still adjusting to the premiership and having to cope with an in-form striker.

Southampton have shown grit so far not being phased by going behind in games and making good substitutions, but fell short this time. The 3.80 looked fair value pre-off.

[MobiusGrey]

Sorry WTFH I realise this is 'football musings' but as you don't have a 'tennis musings' thread yet I thought I'd post this link here anyway. For me personally there is absolute gold here from a value betting perspective

https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-art ... N7PJG4DNFJ

[The Silk Run]

Excellent content from Weartherfoxhat which is nothing unusual. Clinically put together ...
GOOD work Sir

[henbet22]

Good stuff.

Two thoughts.

1) You could run a lay the home side sub 2.0 martingale/fibonacci/progressive/load up system and watch the forum go into meltdown

2) I haven't looked at this since the 90's as I went down the outright league betting path in the football instead. I made my own H/D/A tissue prices which were nearly always within 5-10% of the thursday coupon prices. But they had no monetary value whatsover over two seasons because of the overround and the tax. The worst performing home teams were in the 10/11 - 11/10 range and you could treble up the draw pre singles and enjoy ceefax immensely on a saturday. Anyway memory lane aside...... With the away side prices you have hit the nail on the head as it boils down to the performance of the away side to overcome the in built home advantage. Or the underperformance of the home side to cede that advantage. So I reckon that's where the biggest edge would be. (imo) That angle is performing well so far. Tiny sample I know!!

Also do you contribute to the Snowheads forum? I realise its an entertaining username but just wondered as the writing style is similar.

[wearthefoxhat]

Sorry WTFH I realise this is 'football musings' but as you don't have a 'tennis musings' thread yet I thought I'd post this link here anyway. For me personally there is absolute gold here from a value betting perspective

https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-art ... N7PJG4DNFJ

Hmmm.. Tennis musings. One day maybe.

[wearthefoxhat]

Excellent content from Weartherfoxhat which is nothing unusual. Clinically put together ...
GOOD work Sir

Thanks Silky.

The good thing about football is that the market is massive and plenty of stats available if you look hard enough.

[wearthefoxhat]

Good stuff.

Two thoughts.

1) You could run a lay the home side sub 2.0 martingale/fibonacci/progressive/load up system and watch the forum go into meltdown

2) I haven't looked at this since the 90's as I went down the outright league betting path in the football instead. I made my own H/D/A tissue prices which were nearly always within 5-10% of the thursday coupon prices. But they had no monetary value whatsover over two seasons because of the overround and the tax. The worst performing home teams were in the 10/11 - 11/10 range and you could treble up the draw pre singles and enjoy ceefax immensely on a saturday. Anyway memory lane aside...... With the away side prices you have hit the nail on the head as it boils down to the performance of the away side to overcome the in built home advantage. Or the underperformance of the home side to cede that advantage. So I reckon that's where the biggest edge would be. (imo) That angle is performing well so far. Tiny sample I know!!

Also do you contribute to the Snowheads forum? I realise its an entertaining username but just wondered as the writing style is similar.

1) Ahh... the ole Martingale trick. Laying the poor home value sub 2.0 is a good idea though. Bit like the Little Acorns approach...

2) No, I don't contribute to the Snowheads forum. Have posted in the UKbettingforum before. The value away teams maybe combined with the value draw for insurance, could be a method going forward. I've looked at all the UK leagues today including the Scot Premier, so it might throw up some thoughts going forward.

[wearthefoxhat]

Was a fairly good day with the Championship/League1/League2 results yesterday. (League 2 especially)

With the lower leagues I has to use the Betfair Sportsbook odds as the markets hadn't formed on the exchanges. (In theory, the profits would have been higher)

The Premiership is about break even with 2 games to go, the Scot Premier is -7pts at the moment.

Champs.png

Leag1.png

Leag2.png

[wearthefoxhat]

One thing I'm looking at is when Value is predicted, a closer look at current form is required. I dug out an old spreadsheet that creates a form signal. Common sense dictates that if the Value prediction matches the Form signal then it's a bet. Conversely, if it doesn't match, no bet. A little more work, but what else is there to do on Monday?

Here's an example of what I mean.

Yesterdays game; Tottenham v Leicester
The value prediction gave Leicester the nod as Value @ 7.40 compared to true odds of 5.79. However, the Form predictor gave a clear Home signal with a 4.62 goals advantage to Tottenham. Result; 6-2


Value Prediction

VPredSpvLe.png

Form Prediction

TottvLeic.png

[henbet22]

A rich seam in the football goldmine.

Thanks re Snowheads. Was going to ask you about the Dolomites!!

[wearthefoxhat]

This is where I'm at going forward.

As previously said, I produce my own tissue price, compare with either the exchange or sportsbook and then evaluate the current form to create a Home/Away/Draw prediction. The objective is to match the Value prices with a positive signal H/A that also have a predicted 2 goal advantage.

Here's an example of the League 2 games at the weekend. The green highlights show signal/goal advantage/value confirmed.

Lge2.png

[Atho55]

This is a musing prompted by the Matthew Trenhaile article. It`s based upon Pinnacle odds and uses the Home Win odds as a comparator to actual full time scores. Simply, Home win odds = 2.0, 305 fixtures, 144 Home Wins, 83 Draws, 78 Away wins. The initial odds are =(FLOOR) in Excel to group such that each odd value has numerous entries. This is the Premier League from 2004 to 2022 (games played) and plots the Home Win Odds on the bottom axis and the % of games that ended Home Win, Draw or Away Win.

Pinn1.jpg

So by taking the home win odds from the Pinnacle site you can find the corresponding value on the bottom axis and read off how the Pinnacle estimations evolved into actual %`s. The home win odds on the lower axis are NOT the full extent of the values available but the graph loses clarity as more are shown.

Pinn2.jpg