The Draws League

[Guest Brightboy Dim]

This is a spin-off from luckycraiguk's thread: "Their are numerous post about differing........." It follows up on Joe's suggested system where we bet on a draw when the away team has 3 away wins from their last 4, which is interesting enough to deserve its own thread.

Now of course whilst this system appears to be statistically significant this does not mean that the underlying hypothesis behind it (good away sides are less likely to lose but will happilly settle for a point) is the real cause. There could be a supurious hidden factor accounting for the 33% strike rate (expected 27%). If this is the case, then one could more readily expect things to go tits up from here on in. Another consideration is that it fails to work in other European leagues...

Good hypothesis, though. I've been thinking about draws lately, and wondering about the divergence between English strike rates and European ones. To begin with I thought it was simply because their leagues are smaller and the difference between the best and worst teams was much less - hence more draws. But that doesn't apply when you look within a limited odds band, as I looked between 2.00 and 3.00. Doing that gives us a level playing field. Even so, European draw rates are still higher. Within that band, 29% of all matches in England last season (all divisions) were draws. In Greece, it was 37%, Netherlands 36%, France 34%, Portugal 33%, Italy and Spain 32%. The odd man out is Germany with a shocking 22%, unexpectedly robbing England of yet another title. Frigging Germans got the towels down again... Putting my thoughts together with your hypothesis I will suggest another hypothesis: in England teams with a good away record in the last 4 games are quite likely to settle for a draw. But this mentality is the exception. Usually, you can expect teams to be going for the win right up to the final whistle. But what in England is a special-case condition is in Europe the usual condition. Nancy-boy continentals give up the fight easier than our hardy English lads... A second hypothesis: settling for a draw is something the Latin temperament is prone to. In colder climes, the mentality is more uncompromising....Hypothesis destroyed by Netherlands, which isn't the least bit Latin. Maybe free love and dope has an effect. Third hypothesis: The largest leagues (England, Germany) have the fewest draws. Hypothesis destroyed by Scottish league (29%), which isn't the least bit large.... Er,....

[Joe]

Re: The Draws League

when the away team has 3 away wins from their last 4

Should actually read, "at least 3 away wins from their last 4 away games." Mick has suggested that continental leagues are less robust because there are one or two sides which dominate. These will make up a sizeable proportion of the selected games and you can more readily expect them to go for another away win. I recall the Scottish Premiership failing for this reason. The German Budesliga fails, but Spain's La Liga is OK (although data sample is too small for confidence), perhaps because it is an equally competitive league as England. Taking Man U out of the equation (the only dominant English side in the last 10 years) does increase the yield but not significantly so. Leagues like Italy are influenced by match fixing and currently you will never get decent draw odds there. I focus on England also because the odds are about as competitive as they can be - all other leagues are less so (with regards odds value). The reason I developed the original hypothesis was because every ratings system I've investigated showed the highest percentage of draws (usually 30 to 31% which is about enough to break even) for moderately negative ratings (i.e. where the away team is stronger then the home team, but not hugely so, as for example Birmingham v Arsenal. Anyway, only time will tell. I personally I'm not going to use this just yet, I'll wait and see how this season finishes first. If and when I do, it would still form more of a sideline of bets, rather than my main focus, because you're not going to get rich quick with it (although I doubt there is any system that will permit that safely).