2018 - Round 8 : Overs/Unders Update

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This week I'm going to be as interested in Melbourne's weather as I've been since last I visited on holiday, as two of the games are scheduled for what is forecast to be a wet and rainy MCG.

Those two are Friday's Hawthorn v Sydney, and Saturday's Carlton v Essendon clashes, which stand out in the table that follows because of the magnitude of the difference between the MoS twins' and the bookmakers' Totals forecasts.

The question is, assuming that the MoS twins' estimates are close to the most-likely outcomes in dry weather, what reduction in scoring will the weather bring? Will it be as large as the three- to four-goal reductions implicit in that table?

(A subsidiary question is whether or not the MCG will have dried enough by Sunday for any earlier wet weather to have little to no effect on the Pies v Cats game being played there.)

For the remaining games, there's relatively little disagreement between the MoS twins and the bookmakers who are all foreseeing quite subdued scoring levels across the round.

We have (bearing in mind that the MoS twins know not about the Bureau of Meteorology):

MOST LIKELY HIGH-SCORING GAME

  • MoSSBODS, MoSHBODS & TAB : Western Bulldogs v Brisbane Lions
  • Centrebet : Collingwood v Geelong

MOST LIKELY LOW-SCORING GAME

  • MoSSBODS, TAB & Centrebet : Hawthorn v Sydney
  • MoSHBODS : Fremantle v St Kilda

MOST LIKELY HIGH-SCORING TEAM

  • MoSSBODS : Western Bulldogs
  • MoSHBODS : Melbourne
  • TAB & Centrebet : Richmond

MOST LIKELY LOW-SCORING TEAM

  • MoSSBODS: North Melbourne
  • MoSHBODS : Gold Coast
  • TAB : Sydney and Carlton
  • Centrebet : Carlton and St Kilda

Even less useful than usual this week are MoSHBODS' probability estimates where we see that Melbourne, the Western Bulldogs, and Richmond are the only teams assessed as having a better than 10% chance of being the round's high-scoring team, and that only Gold Coast, North Melbourne, and St Kilda have a better than 10% chance of being the round's low-scoring team.

The Dogs v Lions, and Blues v Dons games are estimated as the ones most likely to be the round's high-scoring game, while the Dockers v Saints, and Giants v Eagles games are estimated as being those most likely to finish as the round's low-scoring game.

But, the rain, the rain, the rain ...

WAGERS

Just three wagers this week, two of them overs bets in those likely rain-affected games, and the third another overs bet in the Dogs v Lions game.

The market for that Dogs v Lions game opened on the TAB as 171.5 and even money for the overs and the unders, but the overs price went to $1.75 and the overs to $2 almost immediately. I wasn't quick enough to snap up the $1.87 price at over 171.5, so Investors will have to settle for the 172.5 total at $1.88 on Centrebet.

PERFORMANCE TO DATE

Last week, MoSSBODS was on the correct side of the TAB's and Centrebet's totals in six of the nine games, while MoSHBODS registered six against both the TAB and five against Centrebet,

That gives MoSSBODS a season-long 56% record against the TAB and Centrebet, and gives MoSHBODS also a 56% record against the TAB and a 57% record against Centrebet. That's quite an improvement in performance over the last few rounds given that both MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS were at or below 50% with the TAB and Centrebet after Round 4.

In games on which it has wagered, MoSSBODS is 10 from 18 (56%) against the TAB, and 9 from 17 (53%) against Centrebet.

MoSSBODS was, marginally, the standout forecaster last week, registering the lowest mean absolute errors (MAEs) for game margins and away team scores. MoSHBODS recorded the lowest MAE for Totals, and the TAB and Centrebet jointly recorded the lowest MAE for home team scores.

Centrebet's still leads on the season-long view for home team scores, but MoSHBODS has now slipped narrowly into top spot on Totals. The TAB still has low MAE for game margin forecasts.