Compiling Soccer Odds for Dummies, part 2

In the last article we saw how we could easily convert form data to match outcome probabilities and these probabilities to odds. In this one we will see how we could use tables to approximate bookmakers’ prices for a game. In the next, we will look at another application of tables.

"The example here is taken from Bill Hunter’s “Football Fortunes”, an excellent book for the beginner."

Bookmakers work with a limited range of prices for football matches so the full set is easily tabulated. The example here is taken from Bill Hunter’s “Football Fortunes”, an excellent book for the beginner, where the full table can be found.

An extract from the table is shown below. In the first column the true chance of a home win can be found, in the second the equivalent bookmakers’ prices with overround applied, shown in red. On the top row, in blue, can be found the narrow range of prices normally associated with the draw. On the left is the shortest price representing the highest chance of a draw and on the right the longest representing the lowest chance.

To use the table we must first estimate the true chance of the home win for the match in question. Having borrowed Bill’s table we may as well introduce one of his simple methods for doing just that.

"The away odds are then read from the intersection of our selected row and columns shown in grey."

Consider two teams, Team1 at home to Team2. Team1’s last 21 home games have resulted in 12 wins, 6 draws and 3 defeats. Team2’s last 21 away games have resulted in 4 wins, 6 draw and 11 defeats.

The number of home wins of the home team is added to the away losses of the away team. This is then multiplied by 100 and divided by the number of games played by both teams. Thus we get:

((12+11)*100)/42 = 54.7%

The next step is to locate in the first column of the table the value nearest to our estimate, in this case 54%. Reading from the second column gives us the home price of 4/6. Now we must decide if there is a high or low likelihood of a draw. Let’s say we expect this to be a low scoring encounter from past meetings between the teams and knowing that low goals leads to more draws we judge that 2/1 is about right for the draw. The away odds are then read from the intersection of our selected row and columns shown in grey.

The full set of bookmakers’ prices is:

Home 4/6, Araw 2/1, Away 9/2 giving a book of 111.5%.

The decimal equivalent is 1.67, 3 and 5.5.

Next time we’ll look at different type of price table.