2014 - Round 24 : Not Much Ventured, Not Much To Gain

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Though the aggregate amount wagered has, as expected, declined markedly this week - a combination of fewer games to bet on and a further ratcheting down of the Fund parameters that control individual bet sizes - Investors still find themselves with an interest in every game.

But for a reduction in the prices of the Hawks and the Swans below the $1.50 threshold, they'd have had greater interest still with Head-to-Head wagers on both of these teams to go with their eventual lone Head-to-Head wager on the Roos at $1.65, their Line bets on every game bar the last, and their SuperMargin bets in every contest.

Collectively, the 12 wagers that we have this week represent just 3.4% of the original Recommended Portfolio and carry a maximum upside of just under 5%. 

The best possible result for Investors this weekend would be a Roos win by 7 to 19 points, which would add 1.9c to the value of the Recommended Portfolio, and the worst possible result would be a Roos loss, which would reduce the value of the Portfolio by the same amount.

A QUICK REVIEW OF FINALS HISTORY FROM 2000 TO 2013

The home teams are favourites in all four contests this week, a Bookmaker acknowledgement of the overwhelming success in Weeks 1 to 3 of the Finals for teams finishing higher on the ladder than the team they meet, as summarised in the table below.

Week 1 has, in fact, been best for lower-finishing teams across the past 14 seasons, their collective record standing at 19 and 37 (34%) during this period, a result made vastly better than it would otherwise be by the 7 and 7 record of teams finishing 8th facing teams finishing 5th in the Elimination Final.

Lower-finishing teams almost never win in Week 2, their combined record an astonishing 2 and 26 (7%), and in Week 3 they don't fare much better having accumulated just 5 wins in 28 games (18%). In Grand Finals though, ladder position means nothing - except to the extent that teams finishing below 4th have not made one in this period - and the overall record for lower-finishing teams is 7 wins and 7 losses (excluding the 2010 draw).

TIPS AND PREDICTIONS

It's wall-to-wall agreement this weekend amongst the various classes of Tipsters and Predictors, accord within the Head-to-Head Tipster ranks being assisted by the end of home-and-away season retirement of the Heuristic Tipsters (though this week even Home Sweet Home would have found it hard to finish with an elevated Disagreement Index).

All 18 of the Head-to-Head Tipsters have selected the home teams in every contest, and the Margin Predictors are offering positive game margins as their opinion for all four contests.

Dissension, such as there is amongst the Margin Predictors, revolves around the prophesied margin sizes, which even then fail to span more than four goals for any single game. Win_7 is the only Predictor that's Extreme in more than a single contest, its predictions of a 34 point victory for the Swans and a 33 point victory by Port Adelaide defining the upper end of the range of predictions in both cases. C_Marg finds itself Extreme Predictor in just one contest this week, its predicted 13 point Swans victory being the lowest amongst all the Predictors.

Bookie_LPSO's margin predictions differ, in absolute terms, from those of Combo_7 by only a couple of points, so it will not be able to significantly narrow the overall 17 point gap between it and Combo_7 on the basis of this weekend's results.

The Head-to-Head Probability Predictors are also home team fans this weekend, rating those teams' chances as greater than 50% in every game. In all four games the range of probability assessments covers about a 20-25% point span, from about 65-90% for the Hawks v Cats and Swans v Dockers games, from about 60-80% in the Roos v Dons game, and from about 70-90% in the Power v Tigers game.

Bookie-OE is low Extreme Predictor in three contests and C_Prob is likewise in the remaining contest. High Extreme Predictor honours are shared by H2H and WinPred.

The Line Fund algorithm rates the Roos' chances highest (72%), and rates the Hawks' (57%) and the Swans' (54%) chances only just high enough to justify wagering. It rates the Tigers' chances as only 52%, which wouldn't be high enough to elicit a wager even were they playing at home.

ChiPS PREDICTION

ChiPS has made no particularly controversial calls this week, predicting mostly comfortable wins for the four home team favourites by margins ranging from just over two goals to just under five.

Two teams' prices, Hawthorn's and the Kangarooss, are felt by ChiPS to be sufficiently generous to justify wagering. Not that following ChiPS' wagering suggestions has been a profitable endeavour this season: its cumulative return to the end of the home-and-away season was -32.2% having returned a profit in only five of the 23 rounds.