Pinnacle Sports sold and their future

pinnacle-sports-review-logoIt appears that PinnacleSports has been sold to undisclosed buyers. Whilst rumours are going around that it is a Las Vegas firm, evidence suggests a UK or Ireland company.

And this makes perfect sense. It wasn’t long ago that Pinnacle had to close its doors to all UK customers, and hence would have lost a big chunk of their turnover. Perhaps it’s only a matter of time until other countries follow the same suit. Being based in Curacao – which is in the Caribbean Sea – probably didn’t help their cause, and if they were going to stay ahead of the bunch, then a move, or change of direction really had to occur.

I said, stay ahead of the bunch, because we at Sportpunter rate PinnacleSports the number 1 bookmaker in the globe. Out list of recommended bookies is shown here.

And why not? With up to 102% markets, and their statement that they never ban or limit anyone, there is really no other bookie that comes close.

So how do PinnacleSports survive with such rules? Simple. They don’t advertise offline, which helps keep their costs down, and they rely on high turnover and smart gamblers to make the markets as accurate as possible. Their lines move instantly on any decent bet, more so on some punters than others, and they release odds with small maximum bets early, and increase the amount one can bet until the start of the match, when the odds are more efficient.

But with the UK out of the market, their turnover will be a lot less, and as stated before, if more countries say no to Pinnacle, then their whole model is in ruin. As I said, they rely on high turnover and large limits to smart gamblers.

The sports gambling industry would take a massive blow if PinnacleSports were to exit the scene. Not only because the smart money would have to bet elsewhere and accept lower limits at worse odds, but also because there are many other bookmaker sites that rely on PinnacleSports to frame their own market (Matchbook for one).

So what will happen to Pinnacle from now on? Will it continue to run as is? Well if they can get the UK back, then increased turnover will only help Pinnacle as well as helping out everyone who bets there. But considering that it was sold, most likely, to someone either in the UK or Ireland, will the new owners inforce UK and Ireland bookmaking techniques?

This of course means, banning successful punters and give out bad odds.

Banning successful punters, will at first give PinnacleSports a greater profit, however, without the successful punters framing markets, it will mean that the next string of punters will have better odds to work with and hence it’s hard to say if Pinnacle will increase or decrease profit with this technique.

Having worse odds, maybe equivalent to the standard bookmaker, will make Pinnacle less enticing for smart punters. Whilst the percent made on turnover will increase for Pinnacle, the amount of turnover will decrease, most likely netting the bookmaker with a lower profit overall.

But there is one thing that PinnacleSports could do that will increase turnover.

Advertising.

Holding a licence in the UK (and also Australia, the slowly opening USA and other countries) will welcome back the UK customers, and increase their customers. Surely Pinnacle (who pride themselves on not advertising), will have to come to the conclusion that advertising in countries where they are allowed to operate, will only help their bottom line. Tom Waterhouse is an obvious example here.

Ohh, and a website that doesn’t just look like a list of numbers (us pro punters love it, but it’s boring to the average joe), and a social media onslaught (sporstbet have to be the best in the world at this), would help every little bit.

So let’s hope that the new owners of PinnacleSports have the right idea. Keep the same business model, but increase on it, by obtaining access in the UK, and hopefully a little bit of advertising.

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Rugby Union’s Super 15s 2015

Rob_Horne55Rugby Union’s Super 15s tournament is set to start this weekend, and once again Sportpunter will be providing predictions every weekend.

This will be our 13th season in a row that we are released predictions for S15, and if history repeats itself we should have a very good year indeed. Despite a small season, we have made in total 9.2% ROI from 821 bets over the span that we have been predicting for, with the last two years being in the top 3 as far as profits go.

Matches in which we did well at included a round 6 match between the Western Force and the Chiefs. We had the force a 47.4% chance to win, and at odds of 3.77 it paid very well indeed. That very round the Lions defeated the reds at odds of 2.31 (we rated them a 66% chance to win), and the Hurricanes defeated the Crusaders at odds of 4.01 to cap off a fantastic weekend.

As per normal a lot of the profits came in the early rounds, so make sure that you get in early to get the winning predictions.

Subscriptions are now available on the website. See here for more details: http://www.sportpunter.com/sports/rugby-union/

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Euro Basketball analysis: totals betting

wnba_g_leslie1_576Previously we had a look at how European Basketball had gone betting head to head, and line betting. This article we will look at totals betting with the data shown here.

Overall the model has made 4.5% betting on totals. It seems to be relatively consistent on all probabilities and odds, however a minimum 10% overlay might be preferred. There are as many overs bets as unders, which bucks most of my models trends, and both have performed equally well. What is interesting is that betting over 170 or under 145 both prove losses. And this is significant with 568 bets at 8.9% ROI.

This could be due to team injuries, or a conservative model, but it could be a strategy to eliminate these bets from your portfolio, although it is a relatively small sample size.

A minimum 10% overlay has produced consistent profits over the years and when looking at the results by league as shown on this link, we see no major big winning or losing leagues, thus strengthening the power of our totals European Basketball model

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Euro Basketball analysis: line betting

Richard-Hendrix-2-442x258We previously analysed the h2h betting for European Basketball, and in this article we will have a look at the handicap, or line betting.

As shown on this link, our line betting model has made 3.5% ROI betting overall. Though looking closely, it clearly doesn’t make a profit where the probability is less than 60% to beat the line. This indicates that smaller overlays are not profitable, which is clear when looking at the overlay table. Line bets with less than a 20% overlay have resulted in a 0.5% loss on investment, whilst betting on the line with overlay greater than 20% has produced a 6.6% return on investment from 2169 bets.

Similarly to the results found in h2h betting, the line model doesn’t seem to perform when the line is 5 or greater. In other words it struggles betting on underdogs. Perhaps a minimum overlay of 50%+ is required to bet on teams when their line is greater than 5, but this is only from a small sample size.

A 7.5% or 20% minimum overlay might be preferable overall, and whilst profits might not increase much because of these adjustments, the return on investment will.

Shown here is a list of how each league has gone betting on the line, where bets on Austrian Bundesliga have produced the best results.

The next article will look at European Basketball totals betting.

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Euro Basketball analysis: h2h

hoFznCKE323ngrlERnY8-mSportpunter’s Euro Basketball model has been in operation for free since 2011, and we thought it’s about time that we gave you some analysis of how it has gone. This is the first of a three part article on the statistical analysis of the results. This one will be about head to head betting, whilst the next will be line and then totals betting.

So let’s get started. Shown on this link is a summary of all the data for European Basketball, betting h2h. It shows that the model has made a conservative 2% ROI from over 6000 bets. But when we look a little closer, we notice that it has not done well on underdogs at all. In fact, it has lost 4.9% ROI betting on teams where were rated them less than a 40% chance to win. Conversely, it has made 4.7% ROI from 3400 bets where we rated the team a 40% chance or greater.

Note also the big losses when the odds were over 6. Using a minimum overlay of 12.5% seems to be optimal, and it would seem that there is no minimal overlay to use on underdogs. So suggested bets on teams with probabilities less than 40% would be best to be ignored.

A 6.8% ROI would have been made since 2011 had you bet on European Basketball teams with probabilities greater than 40% with a minimum 12.5% overlay.

Of course, this is very selective, and it’s only because we know the past data that we can analyse it in this way. However it is useful for making a scheme to bet in the future. One has to have a logical reason why the underdogs don’t seem to be winning. If we were to bet blindly on favourites to win $100, then we would have lost 2.2% ROI. However if we were to bet blindly on underdogs, we would have lost 2.1%, so this is quite comparable. However, if we bet to win $100 on every team with odds of greater than 6, we would have lost 17.2% ROI from 842 bets.

So clearly the favourite/longshot bias is there in the sport, and it would take a very good model to beat the 17% advantage that the bookmakers have at these high odds. I also have a theory that the model is bound to be conservative for big outsiders because of the assumptions of their distribution.

Shown here is how the model has gone betting on each league, which shows Croatia losing significantly, whilst France LNB Pro A, Spain ACB, and WNBA have had great returns. It might be wise not to read anything too major into these results due to small sample sizes.

Either way, whilst the overall percent return is a modest 2%, one can make significantly more by not betting on large underdogs as well as increasing the minimum overlay.

Our free European Basketball predictions, betting history and analysis can be found on this link.

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2015 Tennis Season and last years analysis

annaivanovichThe 2015 tennis season is about to start this weekend, and once again Sportpunter will be releasing their high quality predictions for every match, including qualifiers and challengers. The Sportpunter tennis model is one of our oldest and most successful spanning over 12 years.

Every single year (with the exception of last year – and we will go into detail about that), our ATP h2h model has made a profit. And whilst we haven’t had great success with women’s h2h betting of late, we have made a profit in every year betting the line in each of the three years we have been predicting for.

Totals betting continues to impress, with the ATP model making 5.3% ROI from 3186 and in three years, with profits every year. Similarly with WTA, a 6.2% ROI has been made in the last three years (all with profit) from 2387 bets. Clearly our totals model is superior to everyone else’s.

However, with further analysis we can produce greater profits or at least stem the tide on losses. Whilst last year’s ATP h2h bets were quite disappointing, we have improved the model with some very important variables, which have proved to be significant. But also when analysing last year’s data we can see that the majority of the losses occurred when betting on underdogs. Whilst with WTA h2h betting, the underdogs did us well, making 9.2% ROI from 523 bets when the probability was less than 50%.

Strangely, it was betting on favourites in the line betting that was particularly useful in the women’s game. We made 5% ROI from 936 when the line for the match was less than zero. This could well be due to our analysis of certain players in the women’s game who have the ability to dominate and win easily, as opposed to those who struggle through victories.

We talked about how good the ATP and WTA totals model is, and whilst the majority of profits came from betting unders, overs still was profitable throughout 2014.

All the analysis can be shown on this link here, on the right hand side under “2014 Analysis”

With the long term betting history behind us, and with still great results betting the tennis, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t jump on board, or resubscribe for 2015.

Subscriptions are now open, and as previously said, the tennis season starts now with predictions already on the webpage

Click here for all the information with regards to the 2015 subs.

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Free European sports predictions

940-france-ukraineIf you are new to Sportpunter, or even if you have subscribed for a long time, then you might not know of some of the FREE predictions that we offer.

European Basketball has always been free on our website and the results so far this year have been fantastic. This is our fourth year in a row that we have had predictions for European baseketball, and we have had an incredible last three weeks. We’ve made 20% ROI from 236 bets on totals, and we do have a long term successful record. All betting histories and current predictions which are updated at 6.15pm (jpg at 6.10pm) are available here:  http://www.sportpunter.com/sports/basketball/euro/

European Ice Hockey is also free of charge and been equally if not better performing. Our model has made 7% ROI betting on the line for 835 bets in the last 2 months. For totals betting, we have made 10% ROI from over 1100 bets since mid September. This also is our fourth year of predicting for European Ice Hockey and the free predictions and betting histories are shown here: http://www.sportpunter.com/sports/ice-hockey/euro/

 

Make sure you download the excel calculator and read through some of the betting analysis.

Best of punting luck

Jonathan

www.sportpunter.com

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How to determine the optimal Kelly fraction

math_formulas___ps_brush_set_by_soulrebel83-d15vjl7As we have discussed previously, the Kelly criterion is mathematically the optimal method of money management when betting. It takes into consideration the probability, and the odds in working out what percentage of your bank one should bet. The higher the overlay (advantage that you have over the bookmaker) and the shorter the odds, the larger the bet size. Whilst the smaller the overlay and bigger the outsider, the smaller the bet.

But can we ever be sure that the probabilities that Sportpunter’s models produce are accurate? No they aren’t. They are never the same as what the actual exact probability of a team to win actually is. This is because there are many things that the Sportpunter’s models cannot take into consideration. Perhaps a player recently got married, or had a family member pass away. There are countless things that make the probability not exactly correct.

However, it doesn’t need to be, and it is impossible for that to happen. What we require is that the probabilities are more accurate than the odds that the bookmakers set. Then we have an overlay and an advantage.

If you were playing certain card games, you may be able to work out the exact probability given certain circumstances, and then could use the full Kelly criterion for betting, but considering that the probability that we produce may not be 100% accurate, how do we use the Kelly criterion for betting? If we use the full Kelly criterion, surely we would be over betting?

And this is the case. A method to reduce this over betting is to use a fractional Kelly – basically decreasing your bet size by a certain factor.

I’ve always said that it is unwise to bet more on any one bet than 5% of your bank, but how do we determine the optimal Kelly fractional for each model?

Let’s have a look at some data and determine this. We are going to look at the MLB Totals model since it went live on 7/5/14, to look at what perhaps might be the optimal Kelly fraction for next year.

Since going live online, the baseball totals model made 7.24% ROI from 719 bets, and the average overlay during this time was 10.7%. This means that the optimal Kelly fractional would be 10.7/7.24 = 1.482.

This at first seems quite low, but that is credit to how well the Sportpunter MLB model went. If in hindsight, you were to use this Kelly fractional during the 2014 season, then you would have turned a $10,000 bank into $53,943. A very nice investment indeed!

However on closer examination, some of the bet sizes might be too large. The maximum bet size suggested using the 1.48 Kelly fractional is 27%. I think a lot of people would feel a bit cautious about betting $2,700 out of their $10,000 bank. However the average bet size is only 7.5%.

If we decide to keep with the previously stated rule, never to bet more than 5% of one’s bank, then we can adjust the optimal Kelly fractional to 0.27/.05 * 1.482 = 8.

This means that the optimal Kelly fraction to bet, so much so that we don’t bet any more than 5% of the bank would be 8. In this scenario, we managed to increase our bank from $10,000 to $19,152, almost doubling the bank in one year.

The maximum bet of the bank was indeed 5%, and the average bet size was 1.4%. Betting an average $140 into a $10,000 bank may not be risky enough for some, and one could adjust as so they desire. Perhaps you would chose a max 7.5% of bank bet which equals Kelly fractional of 5.3, and an end of year bank of $25,145.
Either way, the above calculations, whilst complex for many, show that there is a way of working out the optimal Kelly fraction. If it has all gone over your head, not to worry; just set a Kelly fraction that you feel comfortable betting.

Keep in mind that this includes one massive assumption: that the overlays and profits as seen in the past will continue in the future. Perhaps 719 bets might not be enough to accept this with absolute certainty, and in fact no amount of bets ever will. It’s always better to lean on the side of being conservative, which, for many punters, is a very hard thing to do.

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Our new player based NBA Model

nba-logoWe talked previously about how Sportpunter’s NBA model excels early in the season. But today we are going to talk about Sportpunter’s new player based NBA Model. The only thing required at this stage is to estimate what the starting 5 lineup will be for each team. Given this we should see some greatly improved betting results. Keep in mind that all statistical analysis uses a hold out sample and progressive models every year.

Looking back sportpunter’s betting history, our previous model (with the data that we have played based information on) made around 1.3% ROI betting head to head since the 2011/12 season. However with the player based data, we managed to increase this to 4.7% ROI. However we did still record a loss from February onwards.
Betting on the line recorded a 0.8% ROI profit with the old model, and a 2.9% ROI profit with the new model. Similarly, a loss was recorded from Feb onwards.

And for totals betting, a 2.5% ROI profit was recorded with the old model, compared to a 3.8% ROI profit with the new player based model. The new and old models both recorded profits throughout the year.

Of course the above stats don’t include our best year betting the NBA model, the 2010/11 season.
So what does this mean? Well if we can accurately predict the starting line ups of each team we should be able to have an increased profit with the new player based model. Head to head betting and line betting is only recommended to follow until late January, whilst totals betting should be fine to go all the way throughout the season.

Subscriptions are available from the following website: http://www.sportpunter.com/sports/basketball/nba/

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NBA Season 2014-15, weekly past analysis

nba201415The NBA season starts in just over a week, and once again Sportpunter will be providing predictions. Predictions will be updated on a regular basis every day between 5pm and 6pm AEDT.

Our record has been extremely good as our betting history suggests here:
http://www.sportpunter.com/sports/basketball/nba/ with h2h betting making 1.6% ROI, line betting making 0.9% ROI and totals betting making 3.2% ROI.

Whilst those numbers might seem small compared to the rest of Sportpunter’s models, the truth is, is that traditionally over the past four years, almost all the profit has come in the first few months of betting, where the return of investment is far higher than later months.

And to prove this point, we have analysed the Sportpunter NBA model by weeks since the start of the season, and the results are shown in the tables below.

Firstly, betting the line. Shown in the right columns is the cumulative profit and %ROI which we can see reaches a peak after 7 weeks at $17,553. This means that in the past, the Sportpunter NBA line betting model has made 9% ROI in the first 8 weeks. That’s some decent profit. After this time, the model doesn’t do as well, and clearly profits decrease. There are number of reasons for this which we shall discuss in the next article.

Weeks#Bets$Bet$Profit%ROICumulative ProfitCumulative %ROI
0108 $26,696.39 $623.872%$623.872.3%
1101 $23,588.93 $1,980.84 8% $2,604.71 5.2%
2107 $24,715.85 $2,050.40 8% $4,655.11 6.2%
3126 $23,737.58 $2,735.42 12% $7,390.53 7.5%
4132 $26,246.38 $4,038.65 15% $11,429.18 9.1%
5153 $28,576.36 $3,735.78 13% $15,164.96 9.9%
6127 $22,696.21 $2,029.34 9% $17,194.29 9.8%
7125 $19,748.86 $359.502% $17,553.80 9.0%
8119 $19,646.16 -$903.72-5% $16,650.08 7.7%
9124 $20,943.01 -$1,909.26 -9% $14,740.81 6.2%
10129 $20,147.06 -$3,626.56 -18% $11,114.25 4.3%
11121 $20,444.99 -$3,060.87 -15% $8,053.38 2.9%
12119 $17,588.85 -$1,261.39 -7% $6,791.99 2.3%
13106 $17,408.98 -$1,490.73 -9% $5,301.26 1.7%
14119 $20,086.78 $1,946.89 10% $7,248.15 2.2%
15107 $17,986.24 $1,185.14 7% $8,433.29 2.4%
16101 $17,982.22 $1,287.34 7% $9,720.63 2.6%
1796 $15,337.28 -$93.46-1% $9,627.17 2.5%
18106 $18,547.34 -$2,877.50 -16% $6,749.67 1.7%
1997 $15,631.37 -$2,269.42 -15% $4,480.25 1.1%
2099 $15,301.91 $4,825.99 32% $9,306.24 2.1%
2188 $13,611.04 -$1,296.72 -10% $8,009.52 1.8%
2277 $12,343.56 -$45.430% $7,964.09 1.7%
2371 $11,388.85 -$484.63-4% $7,479.46 1.6%
2434 $9,803.15 -$2,316.83 -24% $5,162.64 1.1%
2522 $4,472.74 -$631.50-14% $4,531.14 0.9%
269 $1,325.51 $71.765% $4,602.89 0.9%
2711 $2,137.59 -$786.68-37% $3,816.22 0.8%
287$891.16-$180.30-20% $3,635.91 0.7%
295$541.79$280.2152% $3,916.12 0.8%
302$145.28-$145.28-100% $3,770.84 0.8%
312$298.15-$100.66-34% $3,670.18 0.7%
325$705.05$221.4431% $3,891.63 0.8%
332$449.96-$40.96-9% $3,850.66 0.8%

But before that, let’s look at totals betting. Shown in the table below is our record betting totals week by week. Profits increase until about 11 weeks after the start of the season (or week 12). Here a $18.760 profit is made at 6.1% ROI. Profits decrease after this amount, but not as dramatically as line betting.

Weeks#Bets$Bet$Profit%ROICumulative ProfitCumulative %ROI
0104 $30,006.42 $2,103.99 7% $2,103.99 7.0%
1114 $27,450.60 $1,867.15 7% $3,971.14 6.9%
2106 $27,203.04 $572.472% $4,543.61 5.4%
3116 $26,968.47 $2,229.30 8% $6,772.91 6.1%
4128 $26,913.98 $1,061.37 4% $7,834.28 5.7%
5147 $29,767.31 -$203.80-1% $7,630.48 4.5%
6130 $24,119.15 $2,191.77 9% $9,822.25 5.1%
7132 $22,388.13 $1,380.54 6% $11,202.79 5.2%
8110 $18,334.06 $2,961.97 16% $14,164.76 6.1%
9112 $20,155.26 $1,757.57 9% $15,922.32 6.3%
10109 $16,336.10 $1,275.16 8% $17,197.49 6.4%
11108 $19,015.21 $1,863.57 10% $19,061.06 6.6%
12120 $19,194.24 -$300.61-2% $18,760.44 6.1%
13119 $18,187.20 -$3,387.77 -19% $15,372.68 4.7%
14120 $20,940.50 $1,576.51 8% $16,949.18 4.9%
1598 $15,568.35 -$2,590.65 -17% $14,358.53 4.0%
1685 $13,972.67 -$76.51-1% $14,282.02 3.8%
17100 $13,833.64 -$471.41-3% $13,810.61 3.5%
18107 $17,476.89 -$1,339.36 -8% $12,471.25 3.1%
1993 $16,384.96 -$146.29-1% $12,324.96 2.9%
2089 $13,236.62 -$2,122.22 -16% $10,202.73 2.3%
2191 $15,576.76 $967.986% $11,170.71 2.5%
2275 $11,191.82 $1,360.43 12% $12,531.14 2.7%
2364 $9,315.16 -$638.90-7% $11,892.24 2.5%
2435 $7,497.02 -$331.03-4% $11,561.20 2.4%
2532 $7,405.82 $188.333% $11,749.53 2.4%
2613 $2,917.35 $239.478% $11,989.00 2.4%
278$836.63-$19.58-2% $11,969.42 2.4%
2811 $1,889.43 $49.133% $12,018.55 2.4%
2910 $2,092.82 $878.6442% $12,897.19 2.6%
307 $1,557.30 -$756.53-49% $12,140.66 2.4%
313$568.93-$568.93-100% $11,571.73 2.3%
325$745.12$710.9795% $12,282.69 2.5%
332$342.33-$118.43-35% $12,164.26 2.4%

So what is to make of this? Clearly the Sportpunter NBA model has been very profitable in the early stages, and hopefully will be again. It is recommended to stop betting the NBA model at the stages listed above, and hopefully by then our banks will be thanking us.

However, there is another news in regards to the Sportpunter NBA Model, and that is the Sportpunter upgraded player based model….which will be talked about in the next article.
Check out all the Sportpunter NBA information here: http://www.sportpunter.com/sports/basketball/nba/

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