2018 - Round 3 : Overs/Unders Update

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Turns out I was wrong to question MoSSBODS' judgement last weekend. Its suggestion that totals would prove to be generally lower than the bookmakers thought was proven right, although the actual average game total fell about halfway between the bookmakers' overly optimistic views and MoSSBODS' overly pessimistic ones. Details on this are at the end of this blog.

This week, MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS are again forecasting lower totals than the bookmakers, though not by nearly as much.

Here's the detail.

From this we can draw the following:

MOST LIKELY HIGH-SCORING GAME

  • All : Western Bulldogs v Essendon

MOST LIKELY LOW-SCORING GAME

  • MoSSBODS & MoSHBODS: Gold Coast v Fremantle
  • TAB and Centrebet : Sydney v GWS

MOST LIKELY HIGH-SCORING TEAM

  • All : Port Adelaide

MOST LIKELY LOW-SCORING TEAM

  • All : Brisbane Lions

So, as you can see, there's much more agreement, at least about the highs and lows, this week.

Again I've used simulations and MoSHBODS' team scoring opinions this week to estimate a probability for each team that it will record the round's highest or lowest score. I've increased the replicate count to 1 million, however, to increase the precision of the estimates, and I've supplemented the team-based probability estimates with equivalent estimates for each game that show the likelihood that it will have the highest or lowest total for the round.

These are recorded in the table at right and suggest that there's roughly a 50% chance that one of Port Adelaide, Adelaide or Essendon will record the round's highest team score, and that there's a little over a 1-in-4 chance that the Brisbane Lions will record the round's lowest team score.

Also, they suggest that, whilst the Dogs v Dons game is the slight favourite to be the round's high scoring contest, the Power v Lions, Eagles v Cats, and Saints v Crows games are not that much less likely to be that game.

To the list of the week's wagers then which, given the generally greater alignment in the opinions of MoSSBODS and the bookmakers, is predictably shorter than last week's. 

Investors face just three bets, with estimated overlays (relative to Centrebet) ranging from about 9 to 18 points. In the six other games, no estimated overlay exceeds 4 points so there is no wagering activity.

PERFORMANCE TO DATE

Here's an updated look at the performance of the four forecasters after two rounds.

Last week, Centrebet performed best on forecasting game margins, home team scores, and away team scores, while MoSSBODS performed best on forecasting game totals (which contributed to its 5 from 7 wagering record).

Taken across the two rounds, the TAB is still best for game margins and home team scores, and Centrebet best for away team scores and game totals, although MoSSBODS closed the gap to Centrebet considerably on the game totals metric during Round 2.