2012 Round 6 : Wagers & Tips - It's Complicated

The TAB Sportsbet Bookmaker is behaving differently this year, especially in recent weeks: 

• He's deciding not to post all Line markets at noon on Wednesday
• He's providing head-to-head markets with drastically reduced overround as the week progresses, including an overround overhaul usually between 12noon and 1pm on the Wednesday
• He's taking his time in posting SuperMargin markets and, in some cases, not posting them until the Friday before the game

All of which is making it far more difficult to lock in wagers earlier in the week, and to lock in wagers in one market using the same data as was used to lock in wagers in another market. But that, of course, is my problem.

As it stands now, there's only one wager that we're still waiting to make on a market that's unavailable: a SuperMargin wager on the Blues to beat GWS by only 20-29 points. With luck, we'll get to make that wager tomorrow (Friday).

Even without that bet though, with all three Funds now active there's plenty to hold Investors' attention:

Only the Port Adelaide v Richmond game remains wagerless and, in total, we've six line bets, one head-to-head bet, and four (eventually probably five) SuperMargin wagers.

Should we be able to place our desired wager on the Blues in the SuperMargin market, almost certainly that game will offer the greatest upside, but for now that designation rests virtually jointly with the Essendon  v Lions game, where a Dons win by 40-49 points would be worth 5.5c to Investors, and the Saints v Hawks clash, where a Saints win would be worth about 5.4c.

Downside risk is greatest for the Dons v Lions, Cats v Dees and, probably, Blues v Giants matchups, in all of which an unfortunate result will cost Investors 3c.

The MAFL Head-to-Head Tipsters are of mostly one mind in every game except Friday's Dogs v Pies encounter where they're split 7-6 in favour of the Pies. In all games except Saints v Hawks, majority support is behind the favourite.

Note that, this week, to help you appropriately weight the opinions of the different Tipsters, I've included each Tipster's season-long record in terms of percentage accuracy and ranking amongst all MAFL Head-to-Head Tipsters. You might, for example, want to do other than mimic HSH's tips.

MAFL Margin Predictors are even more united in their collective opinion:

In every game except Port v Tigers, the Margin Predictors unanimously predict the favourites - a very safe course of action given the way this season has panned out so far. In the Port Adelaide v Richmond game, there's just a lone dissenter: CN1 has seen fit to predict an upset Port victory by 19 points. That's what you sometimes get when you let in non-linear predictors: something that takes as inputs "Tigers victory" and that throws back as prediction "Tigers loss".

Once again, in most games there's also little disagreement about the predicted margin of victory. The Blues v GWS game (for which, I should note, absent a real head-to-head market, I've used $1.01/$21 as has been my custom this season in previous, similar circumstances) has the numerically largest level of disagreement, with predicted Blues victory margins ranging from 28 (CN2) to 78 (B3) points. CN2 is the other highly non-linear predictor - so much so, in fact, that were I to lower Carlton's price and raise GWS' I could eventually encourage CN2 to tip a GWS win. It can be dangerous - very dangerous - to seek the opinion of a predictive model about circumstances it's never seen before, such as a super longshot facing a strong competitor with a MARS Rating 130 points higher than its own.

If it's a draw you're after, the Port v Tigers game seems to offer the greatest potential, though the Saints v Hawks game is not without prospect if you believe the prognostications of the Head-to-Head based Predictors.

Note that, for this table too, I've provided each Predictor's season-long performance statistics, both in terms of correctly predicting  the outright winner and the final game margin.

Finally, let's review the Probability Predictors, where once again agreement reigns amongst the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors.

Forced to find differences you might note that ProPred, WinPred and H2H all rate Essendon and the Gold Coast as better chances than does the TAB Bookmaker, that ProPred and H2H also rate the Saints more highly than does the TAB, that ProPred similarly rates Port's chances more highly, and that ProPred & WinPred rate the Eagles as better chances too. In no game, however, does any of the Probability Predictors have a different favoured team.

Amongst Home teams, the Line Fund algorithm is especially keen on the line betting prospects of Geelong (71%), Carlton (65%), the Dogs and Saints (61% each), and Essendon (58%), these five teams making up all but one of the Investors' stable of line wagers for the week. The algorithm is also enamoured of Richmond's (66%) and the Roos' (57%) chances but, being Away teams, no money shall be cast in their direction.

As is now becoming custom, I will post an update sometime tomorrow should the Blues v Giants SuperMargin market appear.