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Today (15th June 2019) there is a World Cup cricket game between the Aussies and Sri Lanka. The games is being played in London, England. Play starts at 10:30 am (Local time) and will take about 3.5 hours per innings plus a 40 minute break. Let’s say 8 hours all up.

The weather forecast (from Accuweather) predicts  a 57% chance of rain some time today :

But when you look at their hour by hour rain forecasts they show :

So if we know the chance of rain in each hour in the 8 hour period then we can work out the chance of NO RAIN  for each hour.  Do the maths (multiply the 8 NO RAIN probabilities together) and it shows a less than 1% chance of NO RAIN  in this 8 hour period.

This means there is a 99.7% of SOME RAIN during the game .

Perhaps I don’t understand what Accuweather mean by their hourly precipitation forecasts but if I could get on at 1.75 (aka $75  profit on a $100  bet)  for RAIN AT SOME STAGE IN THE MATCH then I would be very pleased 🙂

Winx’s last 30 starts …

so just $1 invested all up on Winx

over her last 30 starts would have yielded…

$67,100 !

This is easy to calculate by using the E.P.I.  free data service.

Step 1 : click on WINX’s last run and then select the link to take you to ALL of WINX’s runs.

Step 2 : Click on the Export button and download ALL 33 runs. Save as an Excel file .

Step 3 : Open the Excel file and enter a couple of Excel formula to  calculate the ALL-UP return for a $1 bet using TABs and Bookies.
(to make the calc easy I firstly deleted WINX’s other 10 runs).
Click on this link if you want to download the Excel file >>> Winx_ all_up_bet_23_wins

The result ?
Using Bookie Odds the return was $43,933 compared with TAB NSW tote which was $10,520

SANDOWN  QUADDIE 27th May 2017 

MY SELECTIONS 
Today I am using the tips of  Melbourne pro Trevor Lawson who posted on the  Champion Picks  website.

Trevor’s selections were :
3, 5, 10 / 1, 2, 3, 7 / 1, 4, 5, 8 / 1, 3, 7, 11, 14
$240 for 100%

However because of scratchings Trevor’s combinations were reduced to just 192
3, 5, 10 / 1, 2, 3, 7 / 1, 4, 5, 8 / 1, 3, 11, 14
$192 for 100%

THE CALCULATION
I have selected WA TAB for bet placement. It may not be known to many punters but WA TAB (tabtouch.com.au) allow a minimum of 1 cent bets with an increment of 1 cent  … when betting online. This allows 50 x the precision of bet size calculations compared with NSW/VIC TAB with a 50 cent bet minimum. But on all TABs the minimum flexi bet % is still 1%.
The odds I have used in the calculation were the maximum bookie odds. However because my algorithm normalises the odds to 100% it’s only the relative difference in odds  between horses that makes a difference.

MY MAXIMUM DIVVY SELECTED
No maximum dividend is needed as I’m using just 192 combinations.

MY MINIMUM DIVVY SELECTED
As I’m comparing a Box Quaddie with a Dutch book Quaddie no combination will be excluded based on price.

Box Quaddie VS Dutch book Quaddie

Based on bookie win odds, the 192 combinations have an estimated dividend range between $122 and $11,656. That means if you took a Box Quaddie for $192 your payback would be somewhere within this range. But using my Quaddie calculator and betting each combination according to its estimated dividend the estimated return (no matter which combination wins will be about $815 (the estimated range is between $806 and $877).

Below is a snapshot of my Quaddie calculator worksheet and the list of the 192 bets can be found in this text file >>> Quaddie_Trevor27May

Hopefully Trevor’s selections will salute and we can compare the profit from the 2 different strategies

SO WHAT HAPPENED ?
Trevor’s selections were successful with the winning combo being 10, 03, 04, 01. This combo was 7th in order of estimated dividend . My calculator estimated its dividend to  be $224 but it only paid $168 on VIC / WA TAB (even worse on NSW paying $150.50).

• So using a box quaddie you would have outlaid $192 and got back 1 x $168 for a loss of $34 
• But using a dutch quaddie you would have outlaid $192 and got back  3.59 x $168 = $603 for a profit of $411

WHY DO THE BETS HAVE A NEGATIVE EXPECTED RETURN ?
There is a 19% chance of getting back an average $815. There is an 81% chance of losing $192.
Doing the maths  gives an Expected Return of  19%  x $815  -> $155 which means an average loss of $37 on the outlay of $192. This is a loss of around 20% on each $1 invested and represents the TAB take out margin. This is the margin every punter has to overcome to make a profit.
Of course punters punt in the expectation that their bets will win more frequently than expected based on the market odds. And that is when profits will emerge.

CAULFIELD QUADDIE 29^th April 2017 

MY SELECTIONS 
Today I am using the tips of  Melbourne pro Trevor Lawson who posted on the  Champion Picks  website . With wet track hitting the city of Melbourne, Trevor has gone in search of wet-trackers for Saturday’s Caulfield Quaddie.

Trevor’s selections were :
1, 8, 9 / 2, 6, 8, 10 / 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 10 / 9, 11
$144 for 100%

However because of scratchings Trevor’s combinations were reduced to just 90.
1, 8, 9 / 2, 6, 10 / 1, 2, 5, 7,  10 / 9, 11
$90 for 100%

THE CALCULATION
I have selected WA TAB for bet placement. It may not be known to many punters but WA TAB (tabtouch.com.au) allow a minimum of 1 cent bets with an increment of 1 cent  … when betting online. This allows 50 x the precision of bet size calculations compared with NSW/VIC TAB with a 50 cent bet minimum. But on all TABs the minimum flexi bet % is still 1%.
The odds I have used in the calculation are the maximum bookie odds available at about midday Saturday.

MY MAXIMUM DIVVY SELECTED
No maximum dividend is needed as I’m using just 90 combinations.

MY MINIMUM DIVVY SELECTED
As I’m comparing a Box Quaddie with a Dutch book Quaddie no combination will be excluded based on price.

Box Quaddie VS Dutch book Quaddie

Based on bookie win odds, the 90 combinations have an estimated dividend range between $100 and $3000. That means if you took a Box Quaddie for $90 your payback would be something between this range. But using my Quaddie calculator and betting each combination according to its estimated dividend the payout, no matter which combination is successful,  will be about $460 (actually the estimated range is between $450 and $475)

Below is a snapshot of my Quaddie calculator worksheet and the list of the 90 bets can be found in this text file >>> Quaddie_Trevor29Apr

Hopefully Trevor’s selections will salute and we can compare the profit from the 2 different strategies.

Footnote :  Trevor got up the first 3 legs but missed the winner in the last leg.

With the likely prospect of a wet track this Saturday in Sydney for the Golden Slipper dash I thought I would use EPI to  give me the answer.

I have now included “Track Condition” as a slicer  in my Jockey-Trainer analysis page. The steps I  used were :

• Select Metrop in the “Grade” slicer
• Select Randwick and Rosehill in the “Venues” slicer
• Select Slow and Heavy  in the “Track Condition” slicer
• Sort the resulting jockey list by the “Runs” column in descending order. This means that the jockeys with most rides are on top of list.

Now look down the list for jockeys that have a green shade in both Strike rate and A2E columns and voila !
The best mixture of Strike rate and A2E is not unsurprisingly TOMMY BERRY  !
And anyone who saw his ride on Frolic last start to beat She Will Reign would agree … it was a genius ride !

I have also matched the top 4 jockeys with their GS rides so you can see where the value bets are. It would make for a nice First4 divy 🙂

Leith Innes is one of New Zealand’s most consistent male jockeys and rides mainly in the North Island Region. Since April 2015 Leith has had 775 rides for a strike rate of 17% and a -1% A2E based on Top3 Tote. This compares favorably with the average -9% A2E.

With the advent of Betfair and off-course Corporate Bookies offering all sorts of betting products  the pricing of horses by the time race starts  is so much more accurate than what it was 20 years ago. So does this mean that the best odds available on a horse is much closer to the real price that the horse should be ? In other words does Favourite-Longshot Bias still exist ?

Well I have just done an analysis of the last half million horse starts run in Australasia since 2014 and have published the results on the E.P.I. website.  To find out the answer to this age old question … plus be able to ask and answer your own FLB queries (e.g. do provincial races show the same level of bias as metropolitan races) then just register (its FREE) and go for it !

I took 120 combos . My outlay was $50. Dutchbook % on combos varied from 2% up to 425%. I had a 23% chance of collect and my expected return was $175.

It is a long way from County Meath in Ireland to Morphettville Racecourse in Adelaide but for apprentice jockey Emily Finnegan the journey has been worth it. The 21-year-old is making a name for herself, riding a series of winners in South Australian metropolitan and country race meets.
Less than two years ago, she arrived in Adelaide to try her luck after her riding career in Ireland stalled.
“In Ireland, racing is very male-dominated,” she said.
“There are not a lot of females riding at all. I can only think of three and they are not really getting many rides.

“It is more of a hobby for them than a career and I wanted a career.”

Well Emily who still claims 1.5 kg as an apprentice has been making great progress in Oz over the last 12 months. Her strike rate over last 514 rides is 16.3% (as good as Hughie Bowman) but has returned a whooping +27.1 % A2E based on TopTote3 which for all runners shows a loss of -9%.

Emily has 2 rides today 4/3/2017 at Morphettville

• 12:53 pm Morphettville R1
  Morphettville R01 Schweppes Hcp 1050m Open 3yo 12:53 PM SOFT (6->5)
  04 Nodoubtaboutit 3yo f (Emily_Finnegan) Odds 5.0
• 5:53 pm Morphettville R9
  Morphettville R09 Mac: Stop Drug Driving (Bm70) 1800m BM70 5:53 PM SOFT (17->13)
  11 Celestial Story 4yo g (Emily_Finnegan) Odds 13.0

A snapshot of Emily’s stats is shown below :