Watching the last of the evening card today ~ Here's the 7;15 Nov. Stakes at Wolv. tonight.
The race offered up a three runner Dutch Frame for me on the margin bet profiting off the first two , break even on the third in the market.
I guess at least 75% of punters would have favoured one of the top three in the market? In fact why guess the Bk value of the Dutch bet was 90% - so 90% of the money was thereabouts if not punters.
Screen shot coming up to the line with Galactic Spirit getting half a length clear in the last few yards. But jock Atzeni persistently used his whip on the right side and barged the favorite while right alongside. Honestly a bit more of it and he would have lost the race to the fav. in second place.
So if you backed the winner was it luck or skill? It was 100% luck and if you don't think so you're kidding yourself.
In 2014 a statistical sports betting site Pyckio was set up a huge hit monitoring sports tipsters and offering their records and selections. Joseph Buchdahl ~ an absolute must read sports stats. guy ~ offered a detailed analysis in 2015. His detailed conclusion over the 6,000+ tipsters registered covering over a million tips was that although 2138 had recorded some sort of profit only around 45 could be statistically proven to be outside the realm of luck. here is Josephs summary.
Time to draw conclusions. If ever there was definitive evidence that almost all sports tipsters do almost nothing more than replicate chance, here it is. Of course, to re-iterate, none of this proves beyond doubt that no skill whatsoever is operating. This statistical analysis has nothing to say about skill, merely whether a performance looks something like that which could be predicted by chance. It is conceivable that amongst the 6,000+ tipsters there may be a small few who are genuinely doing what they do with more than just lady luck looking after them. Indeed the analysis of long-term records containing a 1,000 or more tips shows that, survivorship bias aside, some of them at least might possibly be doing something better than that predicted by chance alone. A bigger and better analysis of more tipsters that can properly take into account the described survivorship bias might reveal a more statistically significant profitable fat tail containing skilful tipsters. And Pyckio being the largest (and most transparent) tipster social network online at present is in the best position to find them. Nevertheless, we are clearly not talking about many as a proportion of the total population of people playing this game.
What have we got to deliver a long term edge Dutching our selected races?
a) Long Term stats. on the high performance of the first three in the market in each of these race type and the reliability of the market.
b) The Favorite-Longshot bias: operating in these betting markets offering a small percentage of value 'within' the top of the market group
c) The elimination of many random events, as per tonight's race stewards enquiry. Or falls, blocked in, unknown ground, distance etc, etc, the endless list.
Then we accurately set the Dutch Frame to match the Shape of the Market in each race and filter out any races as best we can outside the envelope.
The favorite-longshot bias is an aspect of sports markets recognized since the 1950's Buchdahl and many other knowledgeable guys have covered it, both from the punters and the bookmakers influence.
One article that particularly drew me was a 2010 study, "Explaining the Favorite -Long shot Bias"' It's a freely downloadable paper registered on-line as IZA DP No: 4884 from two statisticians covering over 6.5 million runners in the USA.
I got home to an email box full of 'offers' last weekend, not just the usual tipsters with 50 or so results in their track record, but also bots and one that really caught me! An automated version of VDW ~ Van Der Wheil who mesmerized many readers of the Sporting Chronicle in the 1980's and the then editor Tony Peach. There was lots of theory, data which was v hard to collect in those days, mystique, but never quite proof of the end result?
More quietly at the same time from a copy of 1987 'Braddocks' a racing bible of the period which was handed down to me. Here is page 18 drawing attention to 1985-86 previous season novice Hurdle races.
Just about 40% of the races taken by the fav. Currently this has actually risen to an average of 44% over the last 10yrs. Explained by the reduced field sizes we have now compared to 20-30 years ago.
Trust me these long term stats are a solid basis for success!
