2013 : Round 8 - Wagers & Tips

It's been a strange day, it seems, over at TAB Sportsbet. First, it took them 20 minutes to post the line markets, which if not an entirely unusual behaviour is certainly atypical, but they posted 7 of them as "Extra Line" markets and only two of them as the more traditional "Line" markets, a situation that they'd not resolved a considerable time later. Then it took them until 9pm tonight to post the last of the SuperMargin markets.

I was, on behalf of Investors, patiently waiting for this last domino to fall because I wanted in on the SuperMargin market for this ninth contest. As indeed, it turns out, was also the case in all but one of the week's other contests. Yes, we have SuperMargin wagers in 8 of the 9 games. Sixteen in all, representing 20% of the Margin Fund, though only 2% of the entire Recommended Portfolio.

So, whilst those wagers gives breadth to our risk profile, the Margin Fund's weighting at just 10% ensures that it doesn't provide much depth. That responsibility falls to the Line Fund, which has responded by making 7 wagers of its own, a move that demonstrably carries both breadth and depth of risk for Investors. These seven wagers represent 17.5% of the Line Fund and 10.5% of the Recommended Portfolio in total.

Alongside that, the Head-to-Head Fund's sole wager of the Suns at $1.58 seems distinctly pedestrian.

What's especially interesting about the portfolio of Margin Fund wagers this week is the fact that two of the wagers based on the musings of Bookie_9 have secured prices of $8 and $13, both of which are prices you might not associate with wagers predicated on the Bookmaker's own assessments. The reason is that Bookie_9 adds a large dollop of conservatism to those TAB Bookmaker assessments, toning down the estimated extent of any Home team victory, especially in games where there's a very strong Home team favourite.

As a result of this, and of the high levels of activity generally, we have a Ready Reckoner replete with opportunity and angst.

Wins by the Blues, Crows or Swans by 20 to 29 points represent the Round's best outcomes, each promising gains of almost 3c for the Recommended Portfolio. A Suns win by 10 to 19 points would be almost as good and would add 2.6c to this Portfolio's price.

The worst result would be a Gold Coast loss, which would knock 2.7c off the Recommended Portfolio's price, though inopportune outcomes for Hawthorn, Sydney, Carlton, Richmond, Adelaide or Essendon all threaten to each lop 1.8c off this Portfolio's value.

TIPSTERS AND PREDICTORS

Only three Home teams find themselves without solid support from the Head-to-Head Tipsters: West Coast and Carlton, who each still enjoy almost 70% support, and Collingwood, who are the Round's only Home team underdog and also the only team on which no money has been wagered. The Round's most contrarian Head-to-Head Tipster is Easily Impressed I, whose tips differ from the norm by, on average, 33%.

MAFL's Margin Predictors are even more resolute in their support for favourites, with unanimous support for all nine favoured teams. As well, only in the Hawthorn v GWS, and the Richmond v Melbourne games are there double-digit standard deviations for the predicted margins.

Bookie_3 is the Round's most contrarian Margin Predictor, just a little ahead of the Simply Weighted Really Simple Margin Predictor and of Combo_NN2. Bookie_9 is the Round's most conformist Predictor, notwithstanding its margin predictions that have secured prices of $8 and $13 on the SuperMargin market.

Amongst the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors support for the favourites is also apparent. The most aberrant assessments are WinPred's 79% rating of the Suns' chances and its 90% rating of the Blues', plus ProPred's 90% rating of the Crows. Each of these aberrations represent a difference in the strength of opinion about a particular team's chances of victory rather than an indication of doubt about that team's victory chances at all.

WinPred is the Predictor most different this week, and the Overround Equalising variant of the TAB Bookmaker the Predictor least different from the all-Predictor average.

The Line Fund algorithm is once again particularly confident about the line market chances of a number of teams, assessing the Tigers as 76% chances, the Suns as 73%, and the Dons as 65% chances of prevailing on the line markets in their respective games. Let's hope that it's right in these three games as well as in four others.