Butland or Schmeichel?

Great read. Thankyou.

Giggity

Sorry,but think this article is ...

Great idea, hope you do this throughout the season!

Would you play cresswell and cedric if you had them?

Great read YMA. Cheers.I will definitely look forward for your article every week.

Thanks for continuing this article. 🙂

Love it, especially I don't need to worry about how to read the odds now with you providing the scoreline verdict (interpreted from the odds itself).

PLEASE rate my team wild card is still available, so feel free to let me know whether to make changes or not and who...
Gk: Fabianski, Butland
Def : Kompany, Jenkinson, Cedric, Gomez and Richards Mid : Sanchez, Yaya, Payet, Mahrez, Montero
Att : Aguero, Gomis, Diouf Fixtures for the next 5 gameweeks seem good for rotation. . .

"Manchester United (1/3) vs Newcastle United (8/1). Bookies verdict – 2-0. FPL Verdict – play your United assets, even captain them."

"Everton (3/4) vs Manchester City (4/6). Bookies verdict – 2-1 City. FPL Verdict, strong captaincy option with Aguero."

"West Brom (5/1) vs Chelsea (4/6). Bookies verdict – 2-0 Chelsea. FPL verdict – caution with Chelsea options, definitely not captaincy material."

OK, so now let me pick some holes in this nonsense.

1. The Everton/City odds are impossible and I can tell that without even checking. If City are 4/6 then Everton must be around 5/1.

2. The bookies don't predict scorelines. They just don't do that. They offer bets on all scorelines based mainly on the statistical likelihood of those scorelines. 1-0, 1-1 and 2-1 are by far the most common scorelines over the 380 games of a season.

3. Even if your comments about likely scorelines are accepted, you have City, United and Chelsea all scoring twice. So how do you get to the idea that captaining United and City options is a good idea but Chelsea ones should be treated with caution and definitely not captained? This is a personal opinion you are stating and it has absolutely nothing to do with bookmakers' odds.

4. Aguero is generally priced between 7/2 and 4/1 to score 2 or more and Rooney is exactly the same. Costa is generally between 4/1 and 5/1. Taking the over-round into account that says that the bookies are estimating Rooney and Aguero to both have a similar chance of a brace (around a 16% chance) whilst Costa's chance of doing so is around 15%. If you think there's enough difference there to draw a conclusion from then good luck to you.

5. Please, please do not mislead people with articles based on bookmakers' odds when you don't really understand how bookmakers work and what their odds mean. I worked for a bookmaker while I was at University and full time in my holidays and was properly trained in how bookmaking works - a 2 week residential course. My great uncle owned and ran a chain of betting shops and drove around in a Rolls Royce "paid for by mug punters" (as he told me when I was a child). And I can honestly tell you that some of the things you are saying are illiterate to anyone that actually knows the business.

Edit: Amavi is 5.0 not 4.5. That puts him among the likes of Lovren, Williams and Sagna.

Which option is better:-

A - Oxford, Gomez, Sagna & Mahrez
B - Morgan, Lovren, Reid & Hoolahan

Repost#
Who to play?
1)Coates(Swansea Home)
or
2)Huth(Tottenham Home)

My uncle was sheep dog
And I once spent three weeks stuck in a field
I cannot understand why local butcher won't let me try out the sausages when I am such an expert

So Surman A better £4.5m mid that Westwood or Wanyame or even Anya ?

i know its only bench fodder, but while Surman has more of a goal threat and better fixtures, Westy seems to be on all set pieces bar pens .

Thoughts ?

I haven't even read this article and I gained something from it being posted

Brilliant article YMA, best of the week. Not to worry about a few dubious bookies odds; this article is a great one-stop-shop to help make up ones mind on captain and defender picks. Keep up the good work and don't let any rude responses grind you down.

Ruddy or Butland this week folks?x

Sagna sure thing with Zab ruled out for a while? Pretty tasty at only 5.0.

[Puts down popcorn]

Planned captains for UPLers?

Butland, McCarthy
Sagna, Jenkinson, Azpli, / Richards, Targett
Sanchez, Toure, Cabye, Mahrez / Westwood
Rooney, Augero Gomiz

Any thoughts welcome on this WC team

Best article of the week! Here's to a high scoring weeekend!

What am i to do with this popcorn now

Hi Ruth, thanks for the comments on the article, I do agree with some of the points you have made but obviously disagree with how you have said them, there really is no need to be rude, however right you may or may not be. Everton were 4/1 not 3/4, just a typo of course. The article has clearly provoked discussion which can only be a good thing, obviously the views are my own and people can make their own decisions on what they have read, I'm sure they can think for themselves. Enjoy your evening. YMA

Thanks for the article YMA, good read.

Walcott Out - Ozil or Eriksen in

Bookmaking for Dummies - Part I - The Over-Round

If you have 5 horses in a race with equal chances of winning, the true odds for each of them are 4/1. Each has 4 chances of defeat against 1 of winning. The probability represented by the odds of 4/1 is 20%.

If bookies offered 4/1 each of 5 they would never make money. Everything they made on the 4 losers they would pay out on the winner. In bookmakers' parlance 4/1 each of 5 is known as a 100% book.

In order to make money they need to "over-round" the book so that it is, typically, a 120% book. A 120% book would mean they take in £120 for every £100 they have to pay out.

The simplest way to do this is to shorten all 5 horses to 10/3. That would be a 115% over-round and give them (in theory) a 15% profit whatever the outcome.

However, the events when all 5 options are equally probable are rare. So you won't see 10/3 each of 5. You'll see a combination of odds (based partly on the varying probabilities of each outcome) that add up to around the 120% over-round they want.

For ease of reference, here are the pure probabilities associated with particular odds:

Evens (1/1) = 50%
5/4 = 44%
6/4 = 40%
7/4 = 36%
2/1 = 33%
5/2 = 29%
3/1 = 25%
4/1 = 20%
5/1 = 17%
6/1 = 14%
7/1 = 12%
8/1 = 11%
9/1 = 10% and so on.

So, a possible book for for a 5-runner race would be 6/4, 5/2, 7/2, 4/1, 10/1. And that would be a 120% book. If they can take the right weight of money on each outcome the bookies will make a 20% profit come what may.

Please note that the above is simplified because I don't want to make this too complex to start with. Part II (which will follow later) will concern the betting market and how weight of money (punter preferences) affects things.

Thought this was a really good article and would love to see it as a weekly feature. Doesn't matter how scientifically airtight it is, it's helpful/interesting to know where the bookies stand each week.

Bookmaking for Dummies - Part II - Weight of Money

Note beforehand... I am using horse racing as an example for these explanations because it is simpler to do so. The same principles apply for football betting but with a couple of additional complexities. I will cover these later, getting the simple basics established is necessary first.

So... In part one I gave a sample book for a 5 horse race. We now need to look a bit closer.

The odds I gave as a sample were 6/4 (40%, horse A), 5/2 (29%, B), 7/2 (22%, C), 4/1 (20%, D) and 10/1 (9%, E). Add those percentages up and you get the 120% over-round.

But this only works in practise if the bookmaker takes in the right amount of bets on each horse (weight of money). For every £40 bet on horse A he needs £29 staked on horse B, £22 on C, £20 on D and £9 on E. If he gets that he will take in £120 and pay out £100 whichever horse wins.

The problem is that punters don't bet according to the bookies' wishes. Maybe they will place a lot of bets on Horse A - maybe even 50% of all the money will be bet on on horse A. Sometimes this happens in big races like the Grand National - the public gets some horse or other (maybe because it's a Grey, maybe because of the jockey, maybe because of the name, who knows) into it's collective mind and it becomes a public gamble with every one telling their mates to get on.

When this happens that horse quickly becomes a loser for the bookies. They don't want it to win because they will lose money if it does. But at the same time, their profits if one of the others win will be better than the standard 20%, maybe much better.

How do the bookies manage this problem of weight of money (also known as balancing the book)? Well there are 3 main ways.

1. In a horse race they will adjust the odds as bets come in. In simplistic terms, if too much weight of money is coming on horse A they will reduce the odds, to 5/4 maybe and then to Evens. This has the double benefit of slowing down the weight of money coming onto that horse (because punters see less value) and ensuring that new bets placed are at more favourable terms for the bookies.

2. At the same time they may lengthen the price of the other runners they want to encourage bets on. The 10/1 shot may go out to 12/1 or 14/1. But they have to be careful with this. If they take big weight of money on horse A at 6/4 and then lengthen the odds on others too much to encourage bets on them, they can actually end up with a book where they will lose whichever horse wins.

As a result of this, bookies have to try to do two things. They have to have an idea of how probable the outcomes are but even more important they have to have a good idea on what punter preferences will be. The 6/4 horse isn't actually the one they think has a 40% chance of winning. It is the one they think 40% (or 33% if you take the over-round into account) of the money bet will be placed on.

The bookies don't care if the 6/4 favourite is the right favourite. They only care that 33% of the money bet is placed on it. That's all that matters.

As a result of the difficulty of manipulating and/or predicting weight of money perfectly, most bookmakers will have one or two losers in every race and others that are bigger winners for them. So they have to take a longer view. They expect, or aim to make their 120% book pay off over a sequence of 10 or 100 races or events. They don't expect to win every time, however, although that's the theoretical ideal they are aiming for.

When there is a gamble on a particular horse, with too much weight of money on it, bookmakers will usually therefore do something called "standing the gamble". This means accepting that they will lose if that horse wins. They will shorten the price and shorten it again but they will keep taking the bets. They know that for every such gamble the public gets behind that succeeds another two, three or four such gambles will fail. As my ill-reputed Great-Uncle (referred to earlier) said to me as a child: "Do you know what the bookies' cigars are made of?" "Tobacco?" "No, they are made of failed gambles".

It's amazing that he told me this at the age of 9 (the first and only time I ever met him) at the funeral of my Grandfather and when I had no clue whatsoever what he was talking about. 😕 But that's bookmakers for you. 😉

Anyway, standing the gamble is what it is called. But sometimes the liability becomes more than that bookmaker can bear (or is willing to bear). Then they go onto solution 3.

3. If the bookmaker has a bigger liability (potential loss) on one horse or one outcome than they are willing to live with they will "lay off" some of that liability. They do this by backing that horse with another bookmaker, thus effectively transferring the liability (or part of it) to them. By doing so they reduce their potential profits but also reduce (or eliminate) their potential losses.

Where the threshold for "laying off" money lies depends on the size of the bookmaker. The huge multiples like Ladbrokes, Hills, Coral and Paddy Power can stand much bigger losses on any one race or event than the smaller ones. On a racecourse they stand in a different place (they are known as "rails bookmakers") and act as a resort for smaller bookmakers to get rid of weight of money they don't want, although usually at worse odds than the original bookmaker took the bets at. In this sense they act as a kind of insurance service.

The big multiples are able to stand losses of £500k or £1m on any particular race and sometimes do. Their revenues are such that they can live with that because over 10 races or 100 races they will be coming out in front. A bookmaker always will providing he doesn't have a bad run that sees him run out of cash before the run turns.

Because they can afford to stand bigger gambles the big multiples prefer to control their book through price manipulation. And by using that word I don't mean to suggest anything illegal. I just mean that they will see to it that horses where the weight of money is high are shortened in price a long way. The betting market is volatile and if the general bookies see the rails bookies shortening the price of a horse fast they will follow suit, they can't afford not to.

In many other businesses this would be seen as a cartel arrangement. But not in bookmaking because there is no compulsion or need whatsoever for the punter to place a bet if they don't like the odds. The fact that punters worry much more (generally) about picking the winner than the value of the odds they are getting is their fault, not the bookies'.

Professional gamblers (and there are some successful ones) are very different. They will never bet on a horse (or anything else) just because they think it will win. They bet on it only when the odds on offer underestimate the probability of success by a clear margin (in their view). This is called betting for value. And a professional gambler will have very specific criteria for when they will bet and on what. Many of them (those that make a living from it) will only have 8 or 10 bets in a whole year and will be willing to travel to Taunton on a wet Wednesday to back a horse only to keep their money in their pocket because the odds were too short. It takes great discipline.

Actually the bookmakers like the professional gamblers because they put the bookies in the know. The bookmakers don't care about losing £100k to them now and then. Their business is based on taking the 20% juice from the majority of punters who are either gambling recreationally, addictively or just plain stupidly.

In summary,you have to understand that the psychology of the bookmaker is diametrically opposite to the psychology of the punter. The punter is trying to pick the winner. The bookie doesn't fundamentally care who wins. The bookmaker is trying to ensure that their book works with the right weight of money on each runner or option so they can take home the 20% "juice" and they are happy to do this over 100 races or events because they know they can't do it on every single one.

OK, so Parts I and II have sketched out the basics. In part III I will start to look at how these apply in the specific area of football betting. But that may have to wait until next week.

Point 1
Kudos to YMA for taking the time to put this together

Point2
Ruth like it or not your writing style rubs people up the wrong way, please dont assume that we are all stupid, i cant see how anyone with more than 3 braincells could read this article and think the predicted scorelines are more likely to happen because the bookies say so

Point3
You are right to point out the mathematical innacuarcies in this post and I applaud you for that

Point4
Maybe in the future this article should make it clearer that this is YMA's take on the bookies odds (by changing the title)

Point 5
Whilst its true that the odds are not predictions it is true that they reflect the opinions of punters who are willing to put their money on the outcome, if everyone who voted in the captain poll put a uniform sized bet on their pick then the most picked would be the shortest odds. Therefore the odds reflect the most popular outcome, that has to be a helpful tool for this community