It's All A Matter Of Regression

I'll start tonight answering a question I should have answered two days ago but have been too lazy. The question came from Rob, and was a question on my original match odds compiling post:

Are those "noise reduction" figure always the same for the home and away team?

The short answer is, "no". The long answer is that if you really want to be accurate, then you'll need to gather all the goal supremacy data together for each league that you're interested in, and then run a regression analysis on the data to "iron-out" the kinks and remove the noise. The figures I have given you are based on English football and does cover a great deal of data, but data invariablly moves on, and of course there are undoubtedly differences in characteristics between all the different leagues.

The figures I've given you should do a decent job, nonetheless, but the idea behind my posts on this subject (and yes, I do realise that I still have more to do) was to provide as simple a method as possible. The raw goal difference calculation is simple enough, but turning that into match odds is a bit more tricky, and I didn't really want to delve too deeply into it.

If you are interested in looking a bit further into regression analysis, then you can run this in Excel. It's not installed by default but is part of the Analysis Toolpak. In Excel 2010, go to the BackStage view, Options, Add-ins, then make sure the Analysis ToolPak is enabled.

You can also read about regression analysis HERE

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I had a good night on the Europa games tonight. I was very impressed with Athletico Bilbao against Man Utd. Great passing side. Incisive, strong and direct. All their players also looked comfortable with the ball at their feet. Despite the surfeit of goals in the game, I still got a good total out of it, whilst also running my new "flavour of the month" correct score trade on the Man City and Twente matches.

My P&L includes yesterday's efforts also. Wednesday's trading resulted in a £0.75p loss.


Soccer: £172.92 | Tote: |  Total P&L:  £172.92 

 

Soccer Showing 1 - 6 of 6 markets

Market Start time Settled date Profit/loss (£)
Soccer / Man Utd v Ath Bilbao : Correct Score 08-Mar-12 20:05  08-Mar-12 21:58  32.85
Soccer / Man Utd v Ath Bilbao : Over/Under 3.5 Goals 08-Mar-12 20:05  08-Mar-12 21:51  9.21
Soccer / Man Utd v Ath Bilbao : Over/Under 2.5 goals 08-Mar-12 20:05  08-Mar-12 21:33  21.95
Soccer / Sp Lisbon v Man City : Over/Under 1.5 Goals 08-Mar-12 18:00  08-Mar-12 19:59  7.71
Soccer / Sp Lisbon v Man City : Correct Score 08-Mar-12 18:00  08-Mar-12 19:54  50.65
Soccer / Twente v Schalke : Correct Score 08-Mar-12 18:00  08-Mar-12 19:53  50.55