Odds Predictor

[OddsPredictor]

New here so hopefully I will not fall foul of the Forum rules but please let me know if I do. I created this system for my own amusement with my only profit hopefully coming from the Bookmakers.

My OddsPredictor System works by rating each team. Teams for season 2014/15 were given the same rating. After each game the teams have a rating gain or rating loss based upon a statistical table. At the end of the season the ratings are carried forward. The Teams' Ratings change after each Result and the Prediction of likely results can be obtained from the difference in rating between the teams in a similar way as the International Chess Rating system works..

 

The idea arose from an interest in sports gambling combined with playing competitive chess where players are rated according to past results.

 

With bookmakers' odds offered on football matches influenced by non statistical factors such as the level of betting by fans which in turn is influenced by popularity of teams and fanatical optimism, it would be expected that opportunities would arise to take advantage of these factors.

 

The other side of the coin is that a pure statistical view such as calculated by OddsPredictor may miss changes to teams such as key player injuries, new signings, a new manager or the resting of players due to an upcoming important European or Cup match. So the OddsPredictor system allows adjustments to teams ratings for such known events.

 

Currently the only active league in my portfolio of 19 Leagues is the Chinese Super League so I will post my predictions in the correct Forum thread for that League usually on Fridays when the main Bookmakers release their odds for the Super League.

 

See the following table of each teams' rating at the start of the season and after Game 13.

Edited June 24, 2019 by OddsPredictor
typos

[Sir Puntalot]

Your website seems to be down, but if it re-appears, all we ask is that it's free and not subscription based.

Good luck.  

[OddsPredictor]

Yes it is free just my personal site - not down it is an org.uk extension

Edited June 18, 2019 by OddsPredictor

[OddsPredictor]

For the OddsPredictor system to work a number of variables must be set in the spreadsheet as well as the carrying forward of team ratings from previous years. Defaults have been set for each league but users can amend these variables and therefore affect the number of predictions and level of stakes. Here are a few of the variables that can be changed;

Stake is the maximum amount to risk per game. Typically recommended stakes will be 50% of this amount. This allows you to match OddsPredictor to suit your pocket. Alternatively you may wish to stake less on the lower leagues as bookmakers can sometimes cap these bets to as low as £50 per game.

Rating Factor is the maximum rating change that can occur from one game to the next. So for example if the team's success is expected to be t% and the team wins then the team's rating will increase by (100-h)% of the R Factor.

Bonus is the amount added to the rating change for victories by more than 2.5 goals.

Draw Factor and Draw Change Factor is the average draw % for the league and weighting towards the draw % for individual teams. The individual percentage for each match is calculated from the rating difference of the teams, number of draws achieved by each team and the D and DC Factors. Alternatively if Bookmakers odds have been entered and the Bookmaker Draw Flag has been designated as 'Book' then the expected draw % will be based upon the bookmakers odds.

H-A Factor resets for the start of the season the difference in ratings for Home and Away games. Enter -1 to ignore this factor.

Ind Factor is the independence between home and away results. 100% fully independent.

[OddsPredictor]

Just spent a spare few minutes browsing this forum topic and I find a number of Newbie posts who were full of optimism at the beginning with tales of profits over the years and then after a few losses they just disappear. I do not intend to join this group as losses are simply a spur to improve.

In anycase with a tweak of a few different variables you should be able to turn a past loss into a past profit and once again hope is eternal and off you can go again believing these new variables will create a profit in the future rather than in the past.

Just to bore the world here are a few more variables that can be adjusted on the spreadsheet to make everyone's predictions their very own take on the future. It really is worth a look and maybe take a peek at the few predictions I am posting for the China Super League on that Topic.

Risk Percentage represents the level of difference between the predicted odds and the bookmakers odds before a result is eligible for prediction. The higher this factor the fewer but more likely predictions are made.

Start is the number of rounds that must be played in a season before predictions are made. This allows time for the predictions to adjust for changes in teams strength from one season to the next.

End is the number of rounds at the end of the season where predictions are not made. This disallows those games which may be affected by end of season anomalies.

Ex From and Ex To allows an exclusion period for a holiday period such as Christmas and New Year.

Longshot Home is the lowest forecast likelihood of a home win before excluding a prediction as a longshot.
Enter 0% to allow all predictions.

Longshot Away is the lowest forecast likelihood of an away win before excluding a prediction as a longshot.
Enter 0% to allow all predictions.

Introduced in season 2017-18 is a graphic display of OddsPredictor's performance compared to a target.
This Target can be set on the Chart tab.

 

Edited June 24, 2019 by OddsPredictor
typos

[OddsPredictor]

Here are some more variables that can be set in the spreadsheet just in case the reader thought that the above choices were not enough.

Draw No Bet Insurance on the Data Entry Tab the system automatically enters Y if DNB is recommended for the match. The level of stake required on the draw is shown and cost or return of insurance will be recorded automatically.

Holiday Exclusion Period if the results are unpredictable at holiday periods such as Christmas and New Year an exclusion period can be added with From and To dates added on the header page. Between and including these dates no predictions will be made. This is also useful if you yourself are taking a vacation and cannot place any bets.

Rating Adjustments two options to adjust ratings during the season are available.

• A global effect where all the teams ratings are adjusted from a given Reset round number.
•  Individual teams can be adjusted +/- from a given point.

Home Away Factor enter a rating difference on the Header page to set the difference between Home and Away ratings at the beginning of the season. Default will retain the rating difference from the previous season.

[OddsPredictor]

The last few variables are ;

Independence Factor is the independence between home and away results.
If set to 100% then for example an away result will have no affect on any expected future home performance.
If set to 0% then home and away are full dependent so any home result affects the home and away performance.
At 75% for example a home win will increase the home rating by more than the away rating.

Bookmaker Knowledge is a measure of how much bookmaker knowledge alters future team ratings if proven correct.
Enter 0 for no affect and 30 for the maximum allowed affect.

Wiggle Room is a variable to allow the spreadsheet to modify the Longshot variables depending upon the margin of confidence. Enter 0% for no Wiggle Room and upto 100% for varying levels of Wiggle Room.

[OddsPredictor]

The fixture lists are filling up nicely with the last of the English Leagues due to publish their fixtures this week and we are just waiting for Serie A and Serie B in the European Leagues that we cover. Otherwise our spreadsheets include all the match fixture dates.

The table below displays the variable settings that I have chosen as the default though of course the beauty of the system is that you can set your own variables and produce your very own unique predictions.

[OddsPredictor]

Over 10,000 match results in the seasons 2016-17 and 2017-18 were analysed and a curve of best fit calculated. This curve was used to create a table for all rating differences and the related likelihood of the result. This table is used to calculate;

1. The predicted percentages for each result
2. The change to ratings for a given result.

The graph below shows how the 7,800 results in Season 2018-19 compared to this curve.

[liero1]

On 7/16/2019 at 4:17 PM, OddsPredictor said:

Over 10,000 match results in the seasons 2016-17 and 2017-18 were analysed and a curve of best fit calculated. This curve was used to create a table for all rating differences and the related likelihood of the result. This table is used to calculate;

1. The predicted percentages for each result
2. The change to ratings for a given result.

The graph below shows how the 7,800 results in Season 2018-19 compared to this curve.

Very interesting = although, how does this beat the odds (if it beats them at all?). Are you able to use it profitable?

[OddsPredictor]

The system attempts to predict the 'TRUE' 1X2 odds of a match if such a thing actually exists.

With bookmakers' odds offered on football matches influenced by non statistical factors such as the level of betting by fans which in turn is influenced by popularity of teams and fanatical optimism, it would be expected that opportunities would arise to take advantage of these factors.

 

Alternatively a pure statistical view such as calculated by Odds Predictor may miss changes to teams such as key player injuries, new signings, a new manager or the resting of players due to an upcoming important European or Cup match. So the OddsPredictor spreadsheets allow you add adjustments to teams ratings for such known events.

 

The big question of course is whether the OddsPredictor model is profitable or not?

 

The problem is that if such a model was successful then others would be using the same principals and this would influence the odds and given the margin taken by the bookmakers the system would by definition be unprofitable.

 

We could discuss early market betting but these are usually unavailable to the general public and so the conclusion is that you must be lucky to win and that is reflected in this system where by setting the variables as you see fit everyone can create their own predictions.

 

Hope that helps. Re profitability I am currently posting 'my' selections in the 'Chinese Football Predictions' section on this forum or feel free to download my spreadsheets from the OddsPredictor.Org.UK website which is of course completely free.

 

Thank you for your question I was wondering if I had bored everyone to death.

Edited July 18, 2019 by OddsPredictor

[liero1]

Thanks man. Will have a good deep look this week at your file. Amazing work already. 

 

Completely agree to everything you said before by the way. And regarding profit / well your ‘technique’ Just needs to be able to be better at the probability prediction than the market. Which in the big picture is impossible. But god knows maybe it does have an angle somewhere. 

[OddsPredictor]

Enjoy - if you are a spreadsheetophile all the better - would appreciate any constructive comments.

PS the Workbook is protected - private mail me if you would like to look deeper into the calculations.

Edited July 21, 2019 by OddsPredictor

[liero1]

Another question would be - what bookies are used to show the odds available? If these are soft books the chance to actually put bets through them longterm is minimal.. If betfair or pinnacle this would be interesting

Cheers

[OddsPredictor]

The short answer is 'soft' though of course the system allows you to enter your own odds that are available to yourself at the time with your bokkmaker of choice. The odds included in the downloads are the ones available to myself at the time I updated the sheet. But who cares about the past the future is all that is important - the past can always be twisted.

I use UK bookmaker's that I place my small bets on. I don't mention names as I do not wish to advertise bookmakers who are all despicable in their own way.

On the 1st October 2018 all UK Bookmakers in what looked like a coordinated event increased their margins on football matches.
Such stealth price changes are certainly not customer friendly.

This was probably the introduction of a minimum betting margin cartel by the bookmakers following the government's restrictions of stakes on Fixed Odds Betting Terminals to £2 ? There has been comment by the Horse Racing fraternity that tight margins on sports events had previously been used as a loss leader to attract customers in so as to then fleece them on the fixed odds games.

Whatever the reason making a profit has certainly got more difficult. See table below.

Edited July 22, 2019 by OddsPredictor

[OddsPredictor]

This Saturday sees the first trickle of Selections for the new 2019-20 football season and these only for the English minor leagues of National League North & South.

I have set a 10 match moratorium before making selections in the Uk Major Leagues and 7 for the European Leagues so it will be a few weeks yet before selections are made in these leagues.

However you can download the spreadsheets and change the variables if you wish. See the totally free oddspredictor.org.uk web site for details.

I have been posting selections for the China Super League and will continue to do so under the appropriate Forum topic but cannot list all the UK and European predictions here as far too numerous. Sorry.

[OddsPredictor]

Just a reminder that a PDF of selections for the weekend's football can be downloaded from the OddsPredictor.Org.Uk web site on a Thursday.

The 10 match delay before predicting the top leagues is coming to an end so the number of selections will expand over the coming weeks.

As always the spreadsheets and everything else is free to download and can be useful as a data resource in its own right.

As a one off I am posting this weekends selections here. Good luck everyone.

Edited October 3, 2019 by OddsPredictor

[OddsPredictor]

and for the record

[OddsPredictor]

A busy November weekend with selections on many of the UK and European football leagues available for free download from the OddsPredictor.Org.Uk web site.