Rugby Union Bets 2021

[four-leaf]

On 11/5/2021 at 4:23 PM, harry_rag said:

I nearly asked this as the time and, as I'm still unsure, I might as well ask now! When you say spread betting are we talking about the same thing, the sort of bets offered by Spreadex and Sporting Index where how much you win or lose is unknown until after the event? The reason I ask is because I know the term "points spread" is used in those sports but still refers to fixed odds bets on the outcome of the game (winning margin or total points). A spread bet might be if team x wins by 10 points you win 5 times your stake, 25 points and you win 20 times your stake but if they lost by 10 points you'd lose 15 times stake. A fixed odds bet on the spread would be you win stake x odds if the bet goes over the line and lose your stake if it goes under (possibly with a push if it lands on the line). So 2 or 3 possible outcomes as opposed to essentially infinite.

Spread betting is new to me, I've only done "points spread" betting.

[harry_rag]

10 minutes ago, four-leaf said:

Spread betting is new to me, I've only done "points spread" betting.

 I can recommend it as a betting medium or, even if you don't actually bet on the markets, understanding them relevant to fixed odds prices (e.g. in tennis there could be two games with a similar fixed odds total games lines but one might be a higher price on the spreads which might support or give pause to a bet you were considering taking). It's important to understand the volatility of the markets and get the staking right, so you don't get any losses that you hadn't budgeted for.

Just one try for the hotshots on Friday so a 30 point profit. Dolly did score a try so it would have only been an 8 point gain if selling with the other firm.

[888888]

France - Georgia , anyone liking Georgia +39,5 ?? That is a big number , or half time +18,5

Against strong european teams last year Ireland and Wales Georgia lost 23-10 and 18-0 , so even if France might be a bit stronger than those two that is a big margin with the +39,5

[harry_rag]

7 hours ago, 888888 said:

France - Georgia , anyone liking Georgia +39,5 ?? That is a big number , or half time +18,5

Against strong european teams last year Ireland and Wales Georgia lost 23-10 and 18-0 , so even if France might be a bit stronger than those two that is a big margin with the +39,5

I'll take a gander (for what my opinion is worth)! One for tonight.

Gloucester v Bath: Sell Gloucester hotshots for 1 point at 63 (now 62) with SPIN (25 points per try by Kyle Moyle, Alex Morgan, Tom Seabrook, Jake Morris)

I'm getting a "true" value of 44 and an "at the most" value of 50.

[Fatwomble]

2 hours ago, harry_rag said:

I'll take a gander (for what my opinion is worth)! One for tonight.

Gloucester v Bath: Sell Gloucester hotshots for 1 point at 63 (now 62) with SPIN (25 points per try by Kyle Moyle, Alex Morgan, Tom Seabrook, Jake Morris)

I'm getting a "true" value of 44 and an "at the most" value of 50.

I make that a 13 point win. May I ask how you are calculating your true value? Do you use the fixed odds market or are you modelling expected tries another way?

[harry_rag]

14 hours ago, Fatwomble said:

I make that a 13 point win. May I ask how you are calculating your true value? Do you use the fixed odds market or are you modelling expected tries another way?

Indeed, two tries for a make up of 50 and a 13 point profit. I'll reply to your question when I've got a bit more time. I suppose it deserves a considered response given that you were motivated to make your first post after being a member for 8 years! 

[harry_rag]

17 hours ago, Fatwomble said:

May I ask how you are calculating your true value? Do you use the fixed odds market or are you modelling expected tries another way?

The main thing I use (rightly or wrongly) is the player try minute prices quoted by the spread firms. I've long used those prices (in Union and League, along with player goal and touchdown minute prices in soccer and NFL) to give an indicative fixed odds "anytime" scorer price to try and identify value bets in those markets.

If you can ascribe a value to the minutes price (say 25 minutes = 0.5 of a try/goal/TD) then you can use that to calculate an anytime price via poisson. You can also add the value of 4 players together to get a notional hotshots price.

Put simply, if the 4 players combine for a total value of 2 tries then they have a notional hotshots value of 50. If they were quoted in the region of 48-52 then I'd regard that as a technically correct price (the "true" value being within the spread). If they were quoted at 42-46 that might suggest a buy of hotshots was worth considering whereas a quote of 54-58 might favour a sell.

All of this assumes a degree of accuracy in the player minute prices offered by the firms. It could be that any error was in those prices and that the hotshots price was correct, or there could be a valid reason for offering different prices for groups of 4 players with the same "minutes" value. But having some sort of yardstick seems better than having none and I've been using and adapting this approach for years now.

Hopefully that answers the question! 

[harry_rag]

Sorry @888888 ran out of time for a closer look. Agree it looks big at first glance, maybe something to do with respective team news. The spreads have France as >40 point favourites as well.

I've sold their hotshots for 1 point at 65 with SPIN (Melvyn Jaminet, Damian Penaud, Gael Fickou, Matthis Lebel). My notional "true" value is just under 58.

[Fatwomble]

On 11/13/2021 at 3:47 PM, harry_rag said:

The main thing I use (rightly or wrongly) is the player try minute prices quoted by the spread firms. I've long used those prices (in Union and League, along with player goal and touchdown minute prices in soccer and NFL) to give an indicative fixed odds "anytime" scorer price to try and identify value bets in those markets.

If you can ascribe a value to the minutes price (say 25 minutes = 0.5 of a try/goal/TD) then you can use that to calculate an anytime price via poisson. You can also add the value of 4 players together to get a notional hotshots price.

Put simply, if the 4 players combine for a total value of 2 tries then they have a notional hotshots value of 50. If they were quoted in the region of 48-52 then I'd regard that as a technically correct price (the "true" value being within the spread). If they were quoted at 42-46 that might suggest a buy of hotshots was worth considering whereas a quote of 54-58 might favour a sell.

All of this assumes a degree of accuracy in the player minute prices offered by the firms. It could be that any error was in those prices and that the hotshots price was correct, or there could be a valid reason for offering different prices for groups of 4 players with the same "minutes" value. But having some sort of yardstick seems better than having none and I've been using and adapting this approach for years now.

Hopefully that answers the question! 

Thanks for getting back to me. Your posts on this forum have been very insightful - particularly on spread betting. I'll try not to wait another 8 years before my next post! ?

[Fatwomble]

@harry_ragI've been thinking about the above over the past few weeks. Its interesting you use the player minutes to determine an expected number of tries. I would have thought the fixed odds try-scorer market might be preferred? Given you already convert player try minutes to expected tries. Plus there is more liquidity in the fixed-odds market vs the spread market? Would the fixed-odds market therefore reflect a "truer" value? I did start putting a model together in lockdown but life got in the way. I'll have to give it another go when I can find the time. If my model can obtain half the success of your previous bets I'd be chuffed!

 

 

Edited November 26, 2021 by Fatwomble

[harry_rag]

@Fatwomble Well I’d certainly be interested in anything that measured the accuracy of the anytime fixed odds prices and assessed their value as a tool for arriving at true odds. What I would say is that the spreads are “two way” as you can buy or sell and you’d assume, to some extent, that keeps the prices reasonably “honest”. Fixed odds is “one way” (no price offered for a player not to score) so they can get away with offering rank bad value. If I thought a player was a true 2/1 shot and the spreads rated him at evens then that would offer a potential value sell of his try minutes. If the fixed odds firms only offered evens they wouldn’t be offering me 8/11 for him not to score.

The main point I’ve made with the bets in this thread is that the hotshots price looks high compared to the spread firms’ assessment of the same players in the try minutes market. You could use the try minutes prices to calculate a top, middle and bottom value for the hotshots (based respectively on the highest buy price, midpoint and lowest sell price for each player). I suspect that, in the long term, the bottom value would be the most accurate prediction of what is going to happen. For that reason, a hotshots price that is higher than the top value will always appeal as a potential sell.

I’ll leave it there for now but will add some further thoughts later.

[harry_rag]

Barbarians v Samoa: Sell Barbarians hotshots for 1 point at 73 with SPIN (Tom Wright, Marcos Moneta, Len Ikitau, Filipo Daugunu)

SPIN go 73-78 while SX are 69-74 for the same 4 players so the market price is 73-4.

I get a "true" price (based on midpoint of try minutes) of 61.6 with a high value of 66.9 and a low of 56.4.

If I look at the anytime tryscorer prices I get a hotshots value of 72.7, so broadly in line with what the firms quote. The most interesting player price is Moneta; the fixed odds firms go 7/10 best for both him and Daugunu but Moneta's try minutes can be bought at 27 while Daugunu's are 36 at best. If you wanted to back the latter player then there wouldn't be much in it between a spread bet or fixed odds but if you wanted to back the former then the buy at 27 is clearly the better proposition.

[harry_rag]

All academic as game off due to Covid cases in the Barbarians camp!

[harry_rag]

On 11/26/2021 at 9:57 PM, Fatwomble said:

I would have thought the fixed odds try-scorer market might be preferred? Given you already convert player try minutes to expected tries. Plus there is more liquidity in the fixed-odds market vs the spread market? Would the fixed-odds market therefore reflect a "truer" value?

A quick observation on that subject based on some data I'm collecting at the moment for football and NFL. Both samples currently around the 500 player mark.

For football I'm looking at players whose goal minutes are quoted in the range of 20 to 35 by the spread firms and for NFL players whose TD minutes are quoted at 10+. The following are the ROI for various prices with the football figures followed by the NFL figures in brackets. (Lay and back odds are fair odds with a 10% edge factored in.)

Backing at my "fair" odds: +2.19% (-18.64%)

Laying at my "lay" odds: +5.08% (+17.24%)

Backing at my "back" odds: +12.39% (-10.51%)

Backing at best bookies odds: +0.3% (-14.35%)

At first glance you could conclude that the football markets are reasonably accurate while the NFL markets are way out. Only fair to say that the first 3 sets of figures depend on two things (the accuracy of the spread prices and of my calculation for converting them into fixed odds prices) but the difference in the accuracy of the best bookies odds is fairly stark and supports the conclusion. My gut feel is that the fixed odds tryscorer prices would look more like the NFL numbers but that's, perhaps, something for another day!