A Few More Simulations: Losing With More Scoring Shots and Playing a Draw

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The last few blogs here on the Statistical Analyses part of the website have used a model of team scoring that I fitted late last year to explore features of game scores and outcomes that we might expect to observe if that model is a reasonable approximation of reality.

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Incorporating the Draw in Overround Calculations

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At university, studying undergraduate Economics - which, granted, was a while ago - I particularly disliked theories premised on simplifying assumptions, which were introduced with an implicit promise, rarely honoured, to relax these assumptions later and nudge the theory a little closer to observed reality.
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Drawing On Hindsight

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When sports journos wait until after a contest has been decided before declaring a group of winning punters to be "savvy", I find it hard not to be at least a little cynical about the aptness of the label.

So when, on Sunday, I read in the online version of the SMH that a posse of said savvy punters had foxed the bookies and cleaned up on the draw, collectively winning as I recall about $1m at prices ranging from $34 to $51, I did wonder how many column-inches would have been devoted to those same punters had the margin been anything different when the final siren sounded on Saturday. I'm fairly certain it would have been the number that has '1' as its next-door, up the road neighbour on Integer Street.
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