Despite His White Boots

Football, football, football and, if the mood takes me, more football.

Monday, March 03, 2008

That's Specious Reasoning Dad. Thanks Honey !

OK my bets suck but at least I'm not employed by Betfair to explain them with completely spurious logic. Check this out :

Using The Stats To Profit On In Running Football

Here are the salient extracts :

- "You'll note the performance of Everton. In terms of percentages, when the Toffees score first in a match they go on to win it 88% of the time." Or 16 times out of 18 for those of us who think sample size is relevant.

- "that figure suggests they should have been around (1.13) to win as soon as they took the lead." Doesn't sound totally unreasonable if you put it like that.

- "Furthermore ... you could have gone in again at much bigger odds even after Pompey drew level. Why? Because the statistics show that Everton win 88% of these matches. That includes matches where the opposition don't score at all or draw level (even if they go ahead)." Doh ! Yes, that includes matches where the opposition don't score at all. Which this isn't. So they don't count. The relevant stat now, if it is at all relevant, is how many matches Everton win when they score first and the other team equalise which, as I have nothing better to do right now, is 3/5. And while looking at these stats, I notice that the 88% includes cup games against Metallist Kharkhiv, Larissa, Luton Town, etc.

Still it's more amusing than annoying. I'll have to keep an eye out on Betfair for this guy wanting to back Everton @ 1.2 when they're 4-1 down with 10 minutes left after scoring first. Value IMO, whatever the stats say.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home