Beaten By Goliath
Beaten By Goliath
In one of my previous articles before Christmas, you may or may not remember that I took a different approach to my data driven betting and it is one that saw place a set of bets under the medium of the Super Goliath.
WHAT IS A SUPER GOLIATH?
A Super Goliath is a bet that covers eight picks in the same way as an eight fold accumulator. However, it is allows a modicum of insurance due to the fact that you are betting on all the 247 individual permutations that are involved.
This means, that you bet on 8 singles, all the combinations of doubles, trebles, four-folds and so on and so on. Although because you are betting on 247 individual lines, it also means that the stake per line has to be a lot lower (unless you are a high roller)
WHY THE SUPER GOLIATH?
The reason I opted for the Super Goliath, is because I had managed to scale up operations and that meant the ability to analyse more matches and with the ability to analyse even more, it meant more possibilities in terms of games to bet on.
Therefore after much deliberation and research on the Super Goliath, I served up a ‘HOT 8’ and this ladies and gentlemen was going to be the system to beat all systems…..or was it?
First up, let’s take a recap at the scorching set of picks:
WHAT DID WE LEARN?
First up, never place your bets too early, especially if there is torrential rain plaguing the country.
The reason for this, is that two of the ‘Hot 8’ were considerably cooled by a deluge of bad weather and they were subsequently postponed.
This meant that I was only dealing with six matches instead and of these four of them came good, as you can see in the list below.
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Aston Villa v Southampton – Over/Under Total Goals 2.5Over 2.5 Goals 4/6
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Man City v Leicester – Over/Under Total Goals 2.5Over 2.5 Goals 4/9
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Tottenham v Chelsea – Over/Under Total Goals 2.5Over 2.5 Goals 6/10
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Luton v Swansea – Over/Under Total Goals 2.5Over 2.5 Goals 6/10
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QPR v Charlton – Over/Under Total Goals 2.5Over 2.5 Goals 4/7
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Ebbsfleet Utd v Woking – Over/Under Total Goals 2.5Over 2.5 Goals 8/11
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Torquay v Chesterfield – Over/Under Total Goals 2.5Over 2.5 Goals 4/7
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Solihull Moors v Barrow – Over/Under Total Goals 2.5Over 2.5 Goals 4/5
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This meant that two thirds of the bets were correct and you would think that this would lead to cause for celebration? Unfortunately you would be wrong and even with a 66.6% success rate, I still ended up losing money.
Remember there were 247 individual lines at play here and as I’m not only testing the operation of this at a low level, it meant that the lines were a penny each and of the £2.47 outlay, there was a return of £1.63. A loss of 86p or a minus 34% ROI.
RAIN STOPS PLAY
The fact that two matches were rained off, hampered me slightly and although I did not lose any money due to the bets being voided, it lessend my chances of returning a profit and this meant I was always going to need five out of six bets to be correct for a profit to be returned.
Which also reveals the insight, never rely on your own team to get the one goal that you actually need to make money. Had Tottenham scored or even conceded a third for that matter against Chelsea, then the pendulum would have swung in my favour.
Stil there’s no point worrying about ifs and buts because everyone would be rich if they had just a little bit more fortune. Therefore, I will just have to chalk this one up to a loss and perhaps turn my attention back to a straight accumulator instead.
Happy punting and thanks for reading. Dan
If this has grabbed your interest and you would like to discuss/feedback then please feel free to drop me a message at dan@realfootballman.com. While I am always looking for new football/data projects to work on and if you feel that my skills would be of use, I can be contacted at the same address.
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