2013 : Round 27 (Week 4 of the Finals) - Wagers & Tips

Sometime late on Saturday afternoon Fremantle will be celebrating their first-ever Flag.

That's the opinion of most of the MAFL Tipsters and Predictors anyway, which is why Investors find themselves bereft of a Head-to-Head or Line wager in the Granny this year. Absent the Margin Fund they'd have no financial interest at all.

At $1.60, Hawthorn are, I agree, too short to back. Despite their 20 Ratings Point and home state advantage over the Dockers, Hawthorn just don't seem to be roughly 60% chances of winning, and a goal-and-a-half start also seems like just a bit too much for them to overcome.

Both Bookie_9 and, especially, Combo_NN2 disagree profoundly with this view however, the former fancying the Hawks to prevail by about 11 points and the latter reckoning that they'll win by more than 5 goals. The TAB Bookmaker has seen fit to offer Investors prices of $7.50 and $8, respectively, about those views, which means that the game promises a maximum upside of about 0.5% and a maximum downside of about 0.2%.

So, no matter what happens on Saturday, a draw and subsequent replay aside, the Recommended Portfolio will finish in profit by at least 7.4c for the year having spent every dollar I granted it access to more than twice over, thereby exposing itself to an effective overround tax of over 10%. I'm putting this season in the proverbial "win" column then.

This week marks the 113th occasion on which the Margin Fund has been induced to wager on the basis of Combo_NN2's opinion, and the 87th time that Combo_NN2's opinion has differed from Bookie_9's.

During the season the Margin Fund has been successful in 25 games, 12 when Combo_NN2 has been right and Bookie_9 wrong, 8 when the opposite has been true, and 5 when they've agreed and been right. As it's turned out, the insurance offered by Bookie_9, like so many insurances, has proven a net cost this year, but I'm not ready to commit to self-insuring again next season.

TIPSTERS AND PREDICTORS

Amongst the Head-to-Head Tipsters, sentiment is firmly in favour of an underdogs victory.

Combo_NN2, in selecting the favourites, has given itself a shot at finishing in outright 1st on the MAFL Leaderboard since all three Win-based Tipsters equal with it going into this round have opted instead for the upset result.

Support for Freo is also evident amongst all of the H2H- and ProPred-based Tipsters, leaving only the three Bookie-based Tipsters, Combo_7 and Combo_NN1 to line up behind the favourites.

Even if the TAB Bookmaker proves to be right and the Hawks finish in front on Saturday, BKB will still complete the season 5 clear tips behind the best of the MAFL Head-to-Head Tipsters. That's as large a margin of defeat for BKB as I can recall during my 8 years of MAFListry, a result that makes me almost as satisfied with the performance of MAFL Tipsters this year as does the 7.5% profit for the Recommended Portfolio.

I remain, however, duly cognisant of the potential for humbling regression to the mean in 2014.

MAFL's Margin Predictors are as split about the result in the Grand Final as the Head-to-Head Tipsters, with exactly half selecting a Hawks win and half a Fremantle win. 

Combo_NN2 is the Predictor most staunchly behind the favourites, prophesying a 32-point win by them, only slightly more emphatic than the 24-point win predicted by Combo_NN1. No other Predictor has the Hawks winning by more than 14 points.

The Predictors nearest to fence-sitting but who nonetheless foresee a Hawks victory are Bookie_LPSO, who predicts a Hawks win by 9 points, and Combo_7 who predicts a Hawks win by just 8 points. Huddled near to but on the other side of the fence are all of the Predictors opting for a Fremantle victory, none of which have felt confident enough to suggest that they'll win will by more than a single goal.

Collectively, the 16 Predictors average out foretelling a Hawks victory by about 1 goal, though the standard deviation of that prediction is over 11 points per Predictor.

Consistent with the theme of the round the Head-to-Head Probability Predictors are also exhibiting a large diversity of opinion this week.

Bookie_LPSO is the Predictor most confident of a Hawks victory and assigns that outcome a 61% probability.

The remaining TAB Bookmaker-based Predictors have broadly similar opinions and rate the Hawks as about 60% chances. WinPred's and ProPred's assessments each land on the side of a Fremantle victory, though both rate this outcome as having only a 55% probability or smaller. At the other extreme are the H2H Head-to-Head Probability Predictors who both rate Freo's chances at about 60%.

Finally, the Line Fund algorithm is particularly adamant in its opinion that 9.5 points is far too much for the Hawks to be giving. It rates Fremantle as about 2/1 on chances of prevailing in the line market given that start.