2012 Round 5 : Wagers & Tips

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Contrary to his more recent habit of shunning the Giants' games, the TAB Bookmaker posted a head-to-head market for all nine contests this week. He didn't even rate the Giants as this week's "team least likely to succeed", their $11 price comfortably shorter than the Suns' $17.

Until next week though, head-to-head prices are of no concern to Investors, since it's not until then that the Head-to-Head Fund starts plying its trade.

The Line Fund is now, however, open for business and likes the look of GWS with 65.5 points start. It also likes the prospects for Fremantle (+4.5), Melbourne (+39.5), Brisbane (+23.5), Hawthorn (-20.5), and Adelaide (-13.5). In total then, including today's unsuccessful wager on the Pies, that makes seven wagers in nine games in the Line Fund's first foray into the market. Confident or arrogant? You be the judge.

Investors' other active fund,, the Margin Fund has placed wagers at $7 on the Hawks to win by 30-39 points and on Adelaide to win by 10-19 points. If and when the SuperMargin market for the Roos v Suns game is posted, it'll also be on the Roos to win by 30-39 points.

Here's the detail:

Now that the Line and Margin Funds are both active, working through the financial implications of the possible outcomes in each game becomes more challenging, so I've put together the following simple Ready Reckoner, which might help:

The results of each game can now be thought of as landing in one of four zones: 

  • A zone where both the Line and Margin Fund wagers lose (The Chasm of Disappointment)
  • A zone where both the Line and Margin Fund wagers win (The Hallelujah Strip)
  • Two zones where the Line Fund wager wins and the Margin Fund wager loses (The Profit Precincts)

Only for those matches in which there's a Line and a Margin Fund wager will there be these four distinct zones; otherwise only two or three zones will be defined.

Our Head-to-Head Tipsters broadly agree, with HSH the lone dissenter, in three of the Round's 9 contests, and are unanimous in two more. In the remaining four contests the vote is 8 to 5 in three of them (including in the Pies v Dons game played today, Wednesday), and 9 to 4 in the other.

At last then we'll have an opportunity to separate the Tipsters on the MAFL Leaderboard.

In six games the majority Margin Predictor opinion matches that of the majority Head-to-Head Tipster opinion, but in the other three matches the Margin Predictors are unanimous, or nearly so, in supporting the team opposing the Head-to-Head Tipsters' preferred choice: the Margin Predictors are unanimous in their support of the Cats and the Hawks, and they're 11-2 supporters of the Blues.

All told, the Margin Predictors are unanimous in seven contests, and at most two Predictors are contrarian in the two other games.

Head-to-Head Probability Predictors are also of broadly uniform opinion, perhaps this round more so than in any other this season.

Any divergence of opinion is best characterised as mild, with ProPred, WinPred and H2H all rating slightly more highly than the TAB the chances of the Pies, GWS, the Roos, Melbourne, Richmond and Adelaide, as well as rating the chances of Fremantle less highly than the TAB. In the other two contests, ProPred and WinPred rate the Lions' chances less highly than does the TAB, while H2H rates them more highly; and ProPred rates the Hawks' chances more highly than does the TAB, while WinPred and H2H rate them less highly. 

The Line Fund's probability assessments are particularly interesting this week when you bear in mind that a probability estimate of at least 52.63% for the Home team is required to induce a wager.It rates Collingwood as 53.36% chances on the line market, Fremantle as 53.21%, Melbourne as 53.68%, and Hawthorn as 54.08%.

Had we, as last year, been Kelly Staking the Line Fund, these probability assessments would have meant that the wagers on Collingwood, Fremantle, Melbourne and Hawthorn would have been very small. But we're Level Staking the Line Fund this year, so the wagers on these teams, as those on GWS, Brisbane and Adelaide, are for 5% of the Fund. There'll be no recognition of nuanced opinion from the Line Fund this year.

Another 5% of the Line Fund was also very nearly lavished on the Roos, which the Fund algorithm eventually rated as 52.56% chances, just 0.07% below the cut-off. Up until the final market updates prior to wagering, the Line Fund algorithm was rating the Roos' chances as fractionally above this cut-off. This week then will be an interesting initial - though not definitive - test of the wisdom of switching the Line Fund from Kelly to Level Staking.