Rags to Riches Value System -27,2%

[noneckdude]

Hello Punters, It has been a long time since my last post but I am back, hopefully with something good as I can honestly say this is my life's work. 

My previous posts have been about finding value in season bets for the Dutch Eredivisie. The quest for value in football bets has never been off my mind but I have been busy with other, more serious issues in my life. Currently life is (almost) back to normal and I am back on the road to Valuetown  

A little background on myself: I am a 41 year old software developer from Amsterdam with a passion for football and statistics. This last summer I have taken quite a lot of time to work on a model that spits out a number for home win, draw, away win and over/under 2.5 goals for the Premier League, Bundesliga, Primera Division and Eredivisie. The number being the estimated chance of the outcome occurring. And this number can be translated into a price. Sometimes this price, including a safety margin, can be found at one of the bookie websites. More often, it cannot. 

All I can say about the models is that I use statistical analysis and that a lot of time has gone into this project. I will not disclose any details regarding the models I have built and the way I have built them. I am by no means super intelligent but I am passionate about programming, statistics, football and gambling and I am willing to stick with a problem for a long time if I believe it is worth pursuing. The idea of building these models has been on my mind for years. I have read a lot of books, articles and studies on the subject. It is my dream to work on this full-time. 

A lot has been written on the concept of value in betting and for some reason a lot of people think this concept does not apply to football. I could not disagree more. Sure, if I were able to pick winners each and every time, I would not mind getting a price of 1,10 every time. But I am really bad at picking winners. I follow my models' recommendations which will often contain long-shots with bloated prices. And there is always a safety margin in place. When looking at the price of a bet a couple of concepts are important to consider.

Let's look at a fictitious match where the #1 of the Premier League plays at home against the #14. Would you take 1000-1 on the underdog? I would certainly hope that you would. If you could go all-in pre-flop in a Hold'em cash game with deuce seven against AA for a return of 20-1 you would definitely take it every time because 7-2 has almost 12% equity against AA pre-flop. Chances like these arise quite often in a football season. What if FC Barcelona won a 100% of their home games. Football would be very boring indeed.    

For the rest of the season I will be posting recommendations. Maybe, at the end of this season, I will have nothing to show for in which case no one will care about my models and methods anyway and I will be laughed off of this forum  Will I be able to live my dream? Time will tell.   

Until now, with only 12 weeks of live testing I have made a rate of return of 32,12%. This is even less than expected but very hopeful. Some weeks the return is negative and other weeks the return is a huge plus. Short term results will vary hugely but the long term results will reflect the value of the system. You can lose AA vs KK in Texas Hold'em 4 times in a row but you will always take the AA because in the long run you will win.  

There is always variance, ready to kick someone's behind or to hand out presents so short term results don't say very much either way. I realize full well that spitting out a percentage on this forum doesn't mean anything. I could be making it up or exaggerate. You should of course not take my word. 

At the end of this season the final rate of return will show where my models roughly stand. I have tested them against historical data so I know which result I would like to see in the end.  

In the coming months I will be posting my recommendations, probably around every Wednesday. The Dutch and German leagues still have 14 and 16 rounds to play this season, 15 rounds for the Premier League and 17 for the Primera Division. I will probably have between 10 and 15 picks per round resulting in approximately 170 picks until the end of the season. Also I will post the results for the previous round and the overall rate of return. For the overall rate of return I will start at 0 again, needless to say. 

I am very excited and I hope that I have created something valuable, not only for some extra cash but also for the sport of it! The proof of the punting is in the eating! Game on!  

Greetings, 
Noneckdude 
 

PS I want to thank football-data.co.uk for their free data and their fantastic articles 

 

 

Edited March 1, 2016 by noneckdude
Updated total ROI in title field

[noneckdude]

My recommendations for this week: 

Eredivisie

Vitesse - Excelsior AWAY 9,40 

PSV - Graafschap DRAW 13,50 

Roda - Ajax HOME 8,00 

 

Primera Division

Villareal - Granada AWAY 7,80

Real Sociedad - Betis AWAY 5,40 

Sevilla - Levante AWAY 10,00 

Real Madrid - Espanyol AWAY 28,00 

Barcelona - Ath Madrid DRAW 4,60 

Eibar - Malaga OVER 2,46 

Real Madrid - Espanyol UNDER 4,50

 

Bundesliga

Dortmund - Ingolstad AWAY 22,00 

Leverkusen - Hannover DRAW 6,00 

Stuttgart - Hamburg AWAY 4,00 

Bay Munchen - Hoffenheim DRAW 13,50 

Bay Munchen - Hoffenheim UNDER 3,85 

 

Premier League

Leicester - Liverpool HOME 2,58 

Sunderland - Man City HOME 7,20 

 

 

I have found these prices at the betfair exchange at the time of writing