The Wrong Combination
The Wrong Combination
If you read my previous article you will know that I attempted a new betting method and one that saw my focus move from the English Premier League to the Scottish Premiership, with the reason being that a smaller league may mean a greater chance of data driven betting victory.
In moving north of the border as it were, it meant that there were far less possible permutations for winning a league wide bet. With 12 teams in the division, that’s six matches and that means 729 different combinations.
The same amount of combinations that if you were to ‘assume’ the top four of the Premier League were to win in a given gameweek and then attempt to try and pick the other six remaining matches correctly.
However, to do that would take a fair amount of time and not to mention a lot out outlay – 10p a line for each of 729 combinations would set you back £72.90, meaning you would need a winning combination of at least 72/1 to come good.
Admittedly you would get that because as a ten-fold (even when backing all the favourites) would come to around 300/1 or so – but there’s also the additional caveat of needing the four assumed teams to come good as well.
Which even that in itself can be quite a big ask, therefore trying to map out a winning ten-fold bet with all the possible permutations is probably just the wrong side of risk vs reward, but what if we narrowed things down.
SCALED DOWN SLIGHTLY
Therefore by using that theory of assuming teams will win, it means that the Scottish Premiership is the perfect fertile ground for this project to work on and with Rangers and Celtic pulling so far clear of the pack, it means that there are only four outcomes to pick.
Of course that does also come with the caveat that Rangers and Celtic also need to win their matches, for it to unlock the next phase of operations. But by and large they do and that means we then only have 81 permutations, rather than the 729 mentioned above.
Now if we were to bet on each of those 81 permutations, we would eventually find a winner but we would not necessarily find profit. The reason for that is not all the six-folds (with Rangers and Celtic pre-selected) would be more than 81/1.
A WINNER MAYBE, PROFIT PERHAPS
Which meant before placing any of these bets I had to work out all the odds of each of the 81 possible combinations and rank them from longest to shortest and if the six-fold was less than 81/1 it would not make the betting threshold.
This meant that 56 bets were good to go, with the odds ranging from 92/1 to 586/1 and as long as the two-steps came in:
Rangers and Celtic Win – Move To Level Two
One Of The 56 combinations (out of 81) play out – Collect Winnings.
HOW DID IT GO?
Rangers and Celtic both won – Move To Level Two
Ross County/Hearts – Draw (Good)
Livingston Win – (Good)
Motherwell Win – (Good)
Hiberinian Win – (Bad)
Out of the 81 combinations, 56 would have turned a profitable winner – more than a 66.6% chance of this happening. Unfortunately in week one of the project, it managed to find one of the 25 combinations that would have not returned a profit.
Therefore as it did not meet the original threshold, there was no bet placed and that meant that it was to be a complete bust. Had Hibernian either drawn or lost to Hamiltion, then I would have won:
Hamilton Win – 238/1
Draw With Hibs – 153/3
Hibs beat Hamitlon 2-1 and therefore the hopes of this method getting off to a winning start was one that was scuppered, although it does suggest that is not the worst idea in the world. Because if Ranggers and Celtic keep winning, it’s not that hard to find the six-fold.
I’ll take a look at the fixtures this week, although you could scale it back even further and move into the Scottish League Two landscape instead by assuming that Cove Rangers will win every week and then work out the final four legs in your five-fold.
Of course, the odds would be far less because you are working with one less game per week. However the assumption of dominance can be a huge benefit, especially in such a volatile league (outsiders can win quite easily), you just have to hope you find the right combination in the end.
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 [email protected]. 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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