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The 2011 predictions and odds article is here
If your looking to place a bet on the Triple J Hottest 100, then sign up at sportingbet.
The triple J hottest 100 is on again for Australian music fans, and hopefully this year we wont get the result before the result is played. Triple j crew got a major slap on the wrist last year when they accidently posted on their website, several days before the actual release time, that Mumford and Suns song Little Lion Man had won.

Congratulations, went the webpage. Turns out some staff member had already created the winning webpage for the group and had accidently uploaded it a week early. As a consequence, the odds for Momford and Suns went from $11 into $2.20 and then the entire market got taken off the bookmakers.

Will there be any insider trading this year? It takes a brave bookmaker to price up the market, but I guess with small turnover the advertising possibilities outweighs the potential loss. Already I notice, that Sportingbet have odds available and have already done a publicity piece at the herald sun website.

Interestingly, they claim that Big Jet Plane by Angus and Julia Stone has been heavily backed by bookmakers. Surprising this when you consider that their price has actually gone out from a starting price of 3.5 to 3.75. I guess Sportingbet want you to think that they are a good thing. But Angus and Julia stone are also the peoples choice at the hottest 100. Being Australian for starters helps, and also having that urban alternative look and feel adds another positive for them.

On the downside is the fact that their songs on their album, despite being a great collection, don’t really stand out by themselves. This is after all a song contest, not an album contest. No better way of highlighting this is to show the 2.50 favourite Cee-Lo Green’s controversial hit Fuck You. Controversial I guess, only because of the language. But can anyone think of any other songs that Cee-Lo Green has sung? Probably not, although we all should know of his writing of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy.

Keep in mind that Crazy was, also surprisingly, the 2.50 favourite to win in 2006 but came in 6th

So as punters what should we do when betting on the hottest 100? Well, last year, if you had followed the trends you would have collected very well. So what are the trends at the moment? The biggest mover is Duck Sauce’s Barbara Streisand. It started at odds of 51, and is now into 11s.

Had the competition been run a few weeks ago it probably could have won, however, as time goes by, this song gets more annoying, and I can’t see it making the top spot. Plans by Birds of Tokyo has come in from 11 into 6.5. Probably the most liked typical band of the year, the birds are a great chance to take the converted prize. Sparkadia has come in from 26 into 15, whilst John Butlers Revolution has drifted from 9 to 10.

Whilst not being a massive John Butler fan (that’s a surprise to some of you who have seen me I’m sure!), I kinda like his Revolution. Along with Plans, they are the only two songs with a possibility of winning that mould into the older style of triple j music.

So my suggestion? Hmm….I think I’ll watch the markets a little more, and write another post about the countdown soon. Oh and of course, if you make a bet, make sure that you vote for them too!

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Current Odds courtesy of Sportingbet:

Who’s your pick for this years title? Add your selection in the comments section below.

To hedge or not to hedge, that is the question.

One of the decisions that a gambler has to make is if given a winning bet on an outsider, is there an advantage to hedge your bet and take a guaranteed return? Basically hedging means that if you make a pre-match bet, usually on an outsider, and if that player or team plays particularly well, then the odds for that bet will come in. It is now possible to hedge your bet by betting on the opponent, in order to guarantee a win not matter what team wins.

Psychologically, its quite comforting to know that no matter the outcome, we will be taking a collect. It’s a lot more stressful than watching an outsider battle it out. It also takes away the huge disappointment on the off chance that you big outside bet, despite winning well, collapses on the finish line and loses the race which was almost unlosable.

But the question still remains, is it a good way of betting? Sure, it might well help you not lose a few more grey hairs, but mathematically will it help you increase your bank balance?

Some people will say that it really shouldn’t matter, whilst others will say that it helps you increase your bank balance more consistently, which will in turn, help you bet with more money and hence have bigger bet sizes with an increasing bank.

Well, no better way to work it out, then to set up an experiment. And here are the details:

I set up a simulation of 1000 bets, 1000 times. The initial bet was at odds of 3.00, and I assumed that the probability of the bet winning was 35%. Hence here we have a (3.00 x 0.35 – 1) = 5% edge. The bank size I use for the experiment was $1000, and decided to bet with 1/5^th Kelly. Hence the initial bet size is equal to:

1000/5 * .05 / (3-1) = $5

Of course this amount will vary as the bank balance increases and decreases over the 1000 bets. So how did it go?

Over the 1000 simulations, the average bank size at the end of the 1000 bets was $1,208.06. So a rather nice 20% increase. 66.7% of the 1000 simulations, or right on two thirds of the time, the bank balance was greater than the initial $1000. So despite the edge, the betting system still lost one in every 3 simulations.

The standard deviation, for those statistically inclined, was 289.81.

Now for the second method which deals with hedging bets. The experiment that I set up for each bet was based on two sides. Each side had to get to 11 points first, and the way the two teams acquire a point is from generating a random uniform number from 0 to 1.

If the random number is less than 0.458527 then the first team scores a point. Otherwise the second team scores a point. As you can probably tell, it is more likely that team 2 scores a point than team 1, and the reason this is, is that the probability of team 1 winning using the above number is exactly 35%. Hence, at odds of 3.00 we have exactly the same scenario as the first experiment.

I then created a rule that if the probability of player 1 winning was greater or equal to 80%, then we hedge our bets. The odds that we bet at are equal to the probability of the opposition.

So for example, if the probability of team1 winning was 85%, then the probability of team2 winning is 15%, and we hedge our bet at odds of 1 / 0.15 = 6.67. The amount we bet, makes it so that the same profit is made on either team.

Sometimes of course, we wont have an opportunity to have a probability of greater than 80%. This being because either the team that we backed did poorly, or perhaps they were tied at 10 all, and it came down to the last point to decide who was the winner.

And the results? Based on 1000 simulations of 1000 bets, the average bank balance at the end was $1,130.65. Thus only a 13% increase in bank balance was achieved compared to the previous method of sticking it out of 20%. Hence we can only come to a conclusion that hedging is an inferior method of gambling.

But that’s not everything. The hedging method recorded a profit in 71.1% of simulations, slightly higher than the first method which recorded 66.7% profits. So perhaps it is more likely to be profitable to hedge the bets, despite an lower than expected profit.

But why is this? The answer is because of the standard deviation. The standard deviation of the hedging method over the course of the simulations was 225. This being significantly lower than the first method of 290.

In other words, the finishing bank of the hedging method was far less variable than the finishing bank of the first method which saw the match play out. This kind of makes sense, because hedging in itself reduces variability in the result.

So hedging may produce less profits, but is more likely to obtain a profit.

Is that all? Well not really. The above simulation assumed that the odds that one could get for hedging was exactly the same as the probability. This is not the case. Even when hedging you are making a bet against the bookmaker, and you lose a little commission in the time being.

Also, it is reasonable to assume, that when you make the hedge bet, that the overlay still exists on the first team that you backed. If there was an overlay before the match on the first team, then there probably is an overlay on the first team at the time of hedging, and hence an underlay on the opponent.

What this means is that the hedge bet that you make, is more than likely to be at an unadvantage. The odds of which you achieve the hedge bet would be lower than that the experiment as outlined above.

Of course this means that the profits in the experiment are also less likely to be as big.

So in conclusion, mathematically it is not a wise decision to hedge your bets. You are essentially betting an underlay, and over the long term the only advantage that you might have by hedging is bragging rights to your friends, and a saving a few grey hairs.

I bet no one saw that coming. I mean seriously, how can Australia get 1 vote, one solitary vote in the first round (which was most probably Oceania), and England get 2 votes. Australia was beaten by a nation that hosted the thing 8 years ago….

I am going to leave one of my European friends to give us the answers with regards to the 2018 bid that went to Russia, as I don’t have the background to understand it. But I can offer something on the Qatar bid.

There are two schools of thought on this incredible decision. One, the pro Australia school, and the other, the pro Qatar school:

School of thought 1: Pro Australia

Fifa produced a report basically picking apart all bids and presenting it to the 22 voting members. This report labelled Australia as “highly recommended”. The report was damning of Qatar’s summer bid due to the extreme heat in the desert region.

Japan received 3 votes in round one (which was the round that Australia was kicked out in). In round 2, they received 2 votes??? One of the voting members changed their first preference between round 1 and 2? Surely you would keep your first preference the same if the country you voted for was still in the competition???

The result was leaked to an Arab radio station over half an hour before the votes were announced. Word is the Qatari Royal family leaked the result, meaning they were some how in the inner sanctum of the Fifa voting system. Frank Lowy admitted that he knew the result when he walked into the auditorium as there were groups already celebrating in the foyer and none of the delegates would look him in the eye. Conspiracy will plague this vote for years.

Qatar has oil, and pumped millions (that we know of anyway) into the voting members (not just the bid itself).

Qatar is an Arabic Muslim country and their main ally is IRAN!!! They even share defence projects with them, and Iran has one of the most unloved extremist leaders of all time! I am assuming all women will need to cover up, I am assuming their will be no alcohol on the streets and there are no pubs there (drinking is usually saved for the 5 star western hotel foyers) due to Muslim beliefs. My experience with the World Cup in Germany was that beer, merriment and football go hand in hand. I’m not sure how many families will be making the trip to the Qatari desert to watch a Belgium V Paraguay clash.

There are less than 2 million people in Qatar. Their population will probably double over the four week period of the cup.

They have never qualified for a world cup. Never….. Their national team is rubbish

School of thought 2:

Like South Africa, Fifa believe that they are much more than just a governing sports body. They believe they are a blue print for world peace and social harmony. For Fifa to claim that they really do run the world game, they needed to tick off Africa and the Middle East. They chose the two most accessible and western countries available. Qatar will allow them to tick the Middle East off forever and then they can get back to Europe for the next 50 years. Qatar is safe, fairly conservative and very much already a corridor for western traffic.

They have the infrastructure to manage the world cup because it will not be very big. There is no room and their will not be the tourism of say a Germany or a Brazil. It will be a small, quiant and compact world cup, which will focus mainly on the TV coverage which is where the money is anyway.

They are so abundantly rich that their bid was out of this world. They have promised incredible stadiums, which get this, when the tournament is over, they will pull down and give to poor developing countries and help them rebuild them!!! Beat that Australia. All stadiums will be fully air conditioned!!!

The Arab history, colour and culture are insanely beautiful, and it will be easy to come up with opening and closing ceremonies that Australia could never compete with. No Kangaroos on mountain bikes here!!!!

And finally, and most importantly in my eyes, Qatar is a football loving nation. They are mad, one eyed and all consuming football lovers. When the news of the bid for Australia was announced, AFL major toss bag raised his eyebrow and stated smugly that AFL has a legally binding contract over the two biggest stadiums in Australia. The NRL played a similar tune and most Australian’s said, yeah great if we get it, but you know…. When Qatar won the bid, almost 1 million people hit the streets and will celebrate for a month. In Melbourne, 3.9 million Melbournians did not know the result until 8:00AM this morning when they turned on their car radio, and the couple of hundred people that showed up to Fed square to watch the vote, surely will feel disappointed, but know deep down that the support of the nation is not there. Any one doubting this needs only look at the A-league attendances this year.

The above is written by Dylan Evans, a friend of Sportpunter.com

Sportpunter is turning 9! That’s nine years of successful predictions and great sports betting profits. We’ve come a long way since the early days of tennis and cricket on the Swinburne website, and are now giving predictions for more sports than ever. It may be tough for new people to keep up with all the predictions that we give, so we are going to give away a tip of the day from one of our sports to you for free. This tip will be given away on facebook and we’ll also have a webpage at sportpunter soon showing you how they have gone. The betting history will be up on the webpage showing you how we have gone with these.

These picks of the day will come out semi-daily, and are a great way for new punters, who perhaps don’t understand a lot of the mathematics of gambling, to get started. So far we’ve only made two picks, 1 NBL pick that won and an NHL ice hockey pick that is still currently playing.

We also plan on having a more professional all round tipping service where punters can subscribe to up to 10-15 tips per week. This will be on a variety of sports, and is a step up on the previous tip of the day method. Of course, all the long term regulars would no doubt be more interested in getting the whole package, and various sports.

But the good news is, to celebrate Sportpunter’s 9^th birthday, we are going to give one of these packages away for free. Simple become a fan of the Sportpunter facebook page (as shown here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sportpunter/162437893783053?v=wall ), as well as making a few comments on some of the picks, and you can win a sports subscription for a year of your choice. Choose between AFL, NRL, NBL, NHL or Tennis.

Simply become a fan of Sportpunter on facebook, reply with a few comments, and within the next week we will be giving away a free subscription.

Happy birthday to Sportpunter, and best of punting luck

Jonathan

www.sportpunter.com