I have just finished a study of the results of betting under/over margin for afl matches from 2001-2003.

They are:

Under 391/2 342/555 61.6% s.r
Over 391/2 208/555 37.4% s.r

All I need now is a money management/staking plan. Any suggestions.


Mad Gambler

I believe you need more than that brother.
There are a lot more smarter people out there than you and me.
When you place a bet,you are not betting against a bookmaker.You are in fact betting against the other punters.
It's taken me 30 years to realize this fact!

Can you please explain further. How many seasons should I look at?

It was just a thought.


Mad Gambler

Not bagging you buddy.
Keep doing what you're doing.
After 30 years of ********farting around and about a million dollars worth of losing,you'll know what I mean.
Can you see that if you find the answer after very little effort,why is it that you found something that no-one else has since Adam was a boy.
There are a lot of other factors you need to assess.
Like which teams are playing for a start.
Yet,Sportznut swears by the Homedog system.
Good Luck but.Any other questions I would love to help.

Mad Gambler,

Commend your initiative in looking for some stats that may highlight trends etc.However there is some wisdom in what Moeee says. What exactly have you found there?

As far as i can tell, apologies if i'm wrong, it is a breakdown of the winning margins of three years of AFL. Doesn't tell me how's gonna win next week though.

I would be considering Head to Head first, who is most likely to win and then worry about the margin

Just my two cents worth

WHO NOT HOW

Collect data on the head to head match ups, because without this info you simply won't win and then use median totals rather than margins as medians are a better indicator of totals. This may sound simple but it's a bit harder in practice and it's very time consuming, and time is a commodity most gamblers just don't have. I would recommend 5-6 season seasons as a smaller sample may be skewed. My 2c.

PS you will need to test your hypothesis as well

Can you give an example of the medien total and how to calculate it.

How do i go about collecting the hth results. How many seasons should i check.


Mad Gambler

Mad

The median is the central value of a data set where half the observations are higher and half are lower, e.g. 2 5 3 6 7 2 1 10 becomes: 1 2 2 3 5 6 7 10 and the median is 3 & 5 which equals “4”.

I use http://stats.rleague.com/ for my AFL and NRL stats. Gives me most of what I want. I would recommend taking data from Y2K- current. You will need team totals (scores) for each team (do not combine to make one total) vs all opponents, and at each venue.

E.g. Adelaide vs (Brisbane, Carlton, Collingwood, etc). I use average totals but my action is against the spread (ATS), rather than margins. For margins you will need to keep a running total of individual scores and either work out the median ‘by hand’ or use Excel (Data Analysis toolkit).

Bear in mind that you will also need to know the key match-ups between the teams, and who the major players/scorers are. If the big units are injured is there sufficient backup to score points or will it be a potentially low scoring feature? And so on.

Hope this is enough to get you started.

Mad Gambler,

Fast Eddy is spot on, although i must say i never use such in-depth quantitative analysis when examining each game. Perhaps i should as i bet with reasonable confidence following a couple of teams that i enjoy following. The rest i really have little knowledge of.

My only suggestion to you is to consider each variable you wish to analyse over several years if you wish, but do not forget the impact of up and coming teams or teams that have changed their style of play.

E.G As a crows fan i can say that the level of scoring both in defence and in attack has changed significantly, certainly defence, from last couple of years. Western Bulldogs although perhaps not premiership contenders this year have also improved over last few years, similarly Richmond. That being said Fast Eddy could highlight these key improvements using his stats which unfortunately i cannot.

Make any sense or blabbering?