I've often mentioned here the importance of psychology in investing, and probably the top expert in "the field of psychology of judgment and decision-making" passed away yesterday. I've mentioned Daniel Kahneman him several times over the years, and if you haven't read his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, you should. It’s a book that will take some effort to read because the ideas are dense, and even though they are well-presented, they’re not cloaked in the clothes of story. If you’re willing to do the work, though, Thinking Fast and Slow may be one of the most important books you ever read. Hi ..read more

Back in November, I mentioned a fairly well known tipster who, during a poor run of results, suggested that increasing stakes might be a good idea. We're currently a few points down for the season with both official and unofficial picks, so if you've been thinking about upping the stakes at some point, this should prove to be a great time to do that. I pushed back on this idea for what I hope are obvious reasons, but if anyone did actually follow this poor advice, they would be seriously regretting that decision. Hopefully many took a 'good money after bad' approach and scaled down the size of ..read more

This blog is now into its 17th year, and not too many sports investing blogs can claim this longevity.  Matekus' Sports Trader blog has been going since September 24th, 2009 which by some incredible coincidence is the exact same date as Steve Mullington posted his first entry on the Horse Racing oriented Mull it Over blog. The latter is updated almost daily while Sports Trader is a little less frequent with his posts. Wayward Lad began posting in March 2010, with his Pension Builder blog making its debut in August 2013. There may be other long-standing blogs out there, and if ..read more

Major League Baseball is back, sort of, with a couple of games this week in South Korea before the season starts for real next Thursday with all 30 teams in action. With the recent rule changes, years of data has become pretty much valueless, and the last couple of years have been challenging to say the least.  The totals markets are the ones where the most disruption would be expected and the table below shows the results over the past ten seasons for a couple of Totals systems (one Overs, one Unders) that, once upon a time, were good: 2020 was the shortened COVID season, but the golde ..read more

I also took a further look at how Big 6 matchups played out when the teams meet in the late stages of domestic cups (FA Cup Quarter-Finals, Semi-Finals and Finals, League Cup Semi-Finals and Finals, and Community Shield games) and the Draw over 76 matches has an ROI of 39%. Manchester United host Liverpool in the FA Cup Quarter-Final this weekend, with the visitors currently odds-on favourites. Once again, the Big 6 produced a winning Draw for us on Sunday, taking the ROI from now 77 matches in the above categories to 43%.  For the 2023-24 season, in all competitions, the ROI is an ..read more

A unique scenario in the Europa Conference League last night as Olympiacos became the first team in European Competition spreadsheet history, i.e. since 2004, to overcome a three goal deficit from the First Leg. It's not uncommon for a team with a comfortable lead from the First Leg to lose, but previously losses have never prevented the team from advancing.      Maccabi Tel Aviv were handicapped by having to play their "Home" Leg in Serbia and after winning the First Leg 4:1 in Greece, they proceeded to lose 1:6 at "Home" in the Second Leg after extra time - the score was 1:4 ..read more

As I mentioned last week, backing the Draw in "Big 6" matches this season has been rather rewarding, and the Liverpool v Manchester City game on Sunday boosted the bank even further, with the biggest surprise perhaps that the starting price was around 4.0 on Betfair, although I could 'only' get matched at 3.95. Pinnacle's Closing Odds had the Draw at 3.9.  In the "Big 4/6" era, the league matches between these two clubs are the best of the 15 combinations for the Draw historically with an ROI of 50% from the 30 games played. Chelsea against Manchester United is second at 43% with Arsenal ..read more

I'm a little bit late with this update, but February was an interesting month. It had the extra Leap Day this year, which to salaried employees like myself is a slight irritation as it's a day we don't get paid for, but that wasn't what made it interesting. As I mentioned before, I started the ball rolling on one of life's big decisions, i.e. retirement, and March could be an even more interesting month, although I'm not sure how quickly such a ball gathers momentum, nor which slot on the wheel of life it will ultimately land in.  Given a few recent issues with the company - there are s ..read more

Betfair's official Starting Price for the League Cup Final between Liverpool and Chelsea yesterday was 3.8, while the 'official' odds I record using the Odds Portal average price was 3.73. For the Under 2.5 markets, an alternative - lower volatility - way of investing in these selections, the most traded price on Betfair was 2.52 with 2.4 the average on Odds Portal. A winning result for both investments, with another 'perfect' draw, and the ROI on the last 20 League Cup Finals increases to 56%, and that from the Under 2.5 (only 16 Finals available) to 19% using my conservative numbers which ..read more

weirimdi followed up on his teaser of a comment regarding Cup competitions with some more data and some additional observations. He wrote:  Hello again, thank you for responding to my comment in your recent post. As you suggested I looked at the ROIs of the respective leagues. Here is a link the screenshot. https://prnt.sc/wAmY8WxJd54D In addition to that you might want to look up the performance of major leagues in the Champions League when they play as an Away Team. https://prnt.sc/u5y1fIA954AO Another interesting angle here is that most of the Home Teams are underperforming ..read more