2016 Round 1 : Overs/Unders Update 2

Almost immediately after I'd posted Overs/Unders Update 1 this afternoon, the TAB framed Overs/Unders markets for the remaining eight games of the round, many of them with Totals that have subsequently appealed to the new Overs/Unders Fund.

Based on an analysis of the Overs/Unders Fund algorithm in previous seasons, I had expected that the Fund would most often take the Under over the course of the season, but was mildly surprised by the extent to which this was the case in Round 1 where Investors now find themselves with six Unders wagers, all of them at 2% of the Fund.

The games where those bets have been made are the six that are asterisked in the table below, in which I've compared the individual team and total score predictions made using MoSSBODS Ratings with those implicit in the TAB Bookmaker's Line and Unders/Overs markets (as at about 5:00pm on Wednesday). 

View fullsize

The Bookmaker's implicit team-by-team scores can be calculated using the Total figure in the Overs/Unders market and the handicap in the Line market as follows:

• Implicit Home Team Score = (Expected Total Score - Handicap)/2
• Implicit Away Team Score = Expected Total Score - Implicit Home Team Score

In the Difference section of the table above you can see the extent to which MoSSBODS' expectations numerically exceed those of the TAB Bookmaker, and the sea of red tells you that MoSSBODS generally expects lower individual team and aggregate scores than does the TAB - hence the rush to Unders wagering.

For example, the first row reveals that MoSSBODS is predicting a final margin about 5 points lower for the Tigers (roughly, a 24 point versus a 29 point win), this comprising about an 8 point lower expected score for the Tigers and a 3 point lower expected score for the Blues.

Generally, across the nine games, MoSSBODS expectations are within about two-and-a-half goals of the TAB Bookmaker's (and usually below the TAB's view), except in the Suns v Dons game where MoSSBODS has the Suns scoring over 4 goals less than the TAB Bookmaker expects.

All up, there's a bit more activity from the Overs/Unders Fund than I might have foreseen this week, but it's a small, experimental Fund, and I'm not overly unhappy about its selections (now, rain please - and lots of it ...)