Australia Sports Betting

For those who enjoy betting options such as first try scorer, SportingBet is offering 100% bonuses on any winnings for first try scorer bets on Friday night games.

This is a new Super 14 promotion – when you take a minimum $10 bet on the first try scorer market in any Friday night Super 14 match, you will receive a 100% bonus on your winnings.

For those who bet on multiple players, this would enable you to expand your number of selected players.

So if the following odds were offered:

Usually, to obtain a combination that provides an effective 2.00 payout for the shortest odds, you would select four players. So if the selection with the shortest odds won, you would receive a profit of ($20 x 8.00) – ($20 x 4) = $80.

With the 100% winnings bonus, however, you could bet on twice as many players for the same effective payout. So if the selection with the shortest odds won, you would still receive ($10 x 8.00 x 2) – ($10 x 8) = $80. The difference now is that you could select eight rather than four players. This would significantly increase your chance of winning.

Please note that the odds above are based on tomorrow night’s Rugby League game, so the actual odds will be quite different for a typical Union match.

Am I the only one who was a bit surprised by the odds that were on offer for Andy Murray vs. Roger Federer in the Indian Wells semifinal?

On Saturday, the 21st of March, one bookmaker was offering 2.20 for Murray and 1.67 for Federer. Considering their history against each other I wonder how long it will be, if ever, before Murray is installed as the favourite for this match up. I say this because Murray had won the previous four encounters between the two, and had a 6-2 record against Federer leading up to this game.

I know I’m a bit cheeky writing this article after the game, which Murray won 6-3 4-6 6-1, to extend his winning streak to five, but the odds to seem to be a bit of an anomaly. Having played competitive tennis myself I know that every now and then you have people ranked below you that you consistently lose to, and people ranked above you that you can consistently beat. It just seems that bookmakers and punters are preoccupied with rankings (Murray is 4, Federer is 2).

I don’t see what has changed in the last six or so months to suggest that Murray’s winning trend against Federer will end. Yes, Federer will beat Murray in future matches, but the betting odds suggest Federer will win the majority of them, and I’m not convinced that’s the case.

I have placed bets on Murray for his last three matches against Federer and will continue to do so, so long as bookmakers continue to offer more than 2.00 for him.

Below is their match up history, courtesy of SportsBet.

Murray: 7 wins
Federer: 2 wins

It’s interesting to note that both of Murray’s losses to Federer have occurred in finals. I watched Murray lose to Federer in the US Open final and thought Murray looked a little overawed by the occasion. If they go head to head again in a Grand Slam final and Murray doesn’t yet have a Grand Slam title under his belt, I might sit on the sidelines. Other than that, my money will be on Murray.

Since my previous post, Betting on Soccer Draws Provides the Best Value, I have completed additional analysis using the soccer results data. The results in this post are based on a larger data set, consisting of 1,540 football matches. Since my last post my initial results still hold true but the differences between systematic betting on wins, draws, and losses has tightened up.

For those who haven’t read my first post, since the end of January I have been tracking virtually every football match offered by a particular bookmaker. For each match, I have logged the available odds at a random snapshot in time, along with the eventual outcome.

In this post I compare the relative value of betting on home wins, draws, and home losses for three scenarios:

1. When the odds for a home win are less than 1.5 (home odds < 1.5)
2. When the odds for a home win are between 1.5 and 2.00 (1.5 <= home odds < 2.00)
3. When the odds for a home win and a home loss are both greater than 2.00 (home odds >= 2.00 and away odds >= 2.00)

I have excluded results where the odds for a home loss are less than 1.5 because I don’t have enough data to reach any meaningful insights.

1. When the odds for a home win are less than 1.5

If you had bet on every home team that had odds of 1.50 or less, you would have returned $0.99 for every dollar invested. In this scenario betting on the home team provided the best value with home loss betting providing the worst value.

2. When the odds for a home win are between 1.5 and 2.00

Now the results are closer to the total sample data results in my previous post. Here, betting on draws provided the best value, with home loss betting providing the worst value.

3. When the odds for a home win and a home loss are both greater than 2.00

Now the results are the same as total sample data results in my previous post. Here, betting on draws provided the best value, with home win betting providing the worst value.

Summary

If the odds for a home win were less than 1.5, betting on the home team in my sample data provided the best value. If the odds for a home team were between 1.5 and 2.00, then draws provided the best value, with away team betting providing the worst value. If the odds for both a home win an a home loss were greater than 2.00 (indicating an anticipated tight encounter), draws provided the best value, with home team betting providing the worst value.

The higher the odds for a home team win, the worse the value of home team betting. For tight encounters, i.e. where win and loss bets both have odds of 2.00 or more, punters systematically under bet on the ‘boring’ draw result, hence making it the best value. When the odds for a home team win are low, i.e. less than 1.50, punters under bet on the home team. This maybe because they believe the odds don’t provide good enough value. Also, the favourite-longshot bias may come into effect, where punters get wooed by the 10.00+ odds available for the underdog.

Please note that because I have split the data up into specific categories, my sample sizes for each set are much smaller, making the results less reliable.

Disclaimer

None of my data has been double checked, nor have the summary statistics. Please don’t rely upon any of these results. This post is designed for your casual enjoyment only.

Suggestions?

If you have any requests or ideas for other analysis to run with the data feel free to let me know.

Before you read any further, please note that these results are preliminary

I’ve always been curious as to whether consistent discrepancies exist in betting odds for particular events. I’ve previously heard of the favourite-longshot bias where betters tend to overvalue “long shots” and undervalue favourites. For example, in a horse race where one horse is given odds of 2.00 and another is given odds of 100.00, the true odds may be 1.50 and 300.00, respectively. However given that I bet frequently on soccer matches I wondered if any such discrepancies exist for three-outcome soccer betting.

Since the end of January I have been tracking virtually every football match offered by a particular bookmaker. For each match, I have logged the available odds at a random snapshot in time, along with the eventual outcome. Based on the data I have come to the conclusion that betting on draws provides better value than betting on a win or loss for the home team. Based on the results, betting on the home team provides the worst value of the three possible bets.

Why does this discrepancy exist? I believe it’s because draws are considered to be boring results, and people are more interested in betting on a win or a loss. This distorts the amounts placed on each result, forcing bookmakers to adjust the available odds accordingly. Because people systematically under bet on draws, bookmakers have to offer higher odds on them to get a more balanced level of betting across the possible outcomes.

Below is my summary data

Total matches: 1,097

If you had placed a bet on every home team you would have returned $0.84 for every dollar invested, while betting on a draw for every game would have returned $0.99 for every dollar placed.

After reading about the favourite-longshot bias, I decided to look at results for betting on the shortest odds, longest odds, and the middle odds. By that I mean if the odds were as follows for a match:

Portsmouth – 6.70
Draw – 3.75
Chelsea – 1.55

A Chelsea win represents the shortest odds, a draw represents the middle odds, and a Portsmouth win represents the longest odds. I found that betting on the middle odds provides the best value, and the shortest odds provides the least value. Perhaps people tend to overestimate the value of the “big” clubs that they’re more familiar with. Below are the summary statistics. Please note that I excluded any event where two or more outcomes shared the same odds, hence the smaller sample size.

Total matches: 1,035

These results are preliminary, and I will provide updates as my sample size grows. I will also take a look sometime at the value of bets with odds of 1.00 – 2.00, 2.00 – 3.00, 3.00 – 4.00, etc., to see if the favourite-longshot bias exists in football.

Disclaimer

Please note that none of my data has been double checked, nor have the summary statistics. Please don’t rely upon any of these results. This post is designed for your casual enjoyment only. As my sample size grows and I make a more thorough analysis of the data, I will be able to present these results with more confidence.

Suggestions?

If you have any requests or ideas for other analysis to run with the data feel free to let me know.