NRL Round 3 Wrap-Up

For week three of the write up we had intended not focussing on the week that was, but providing you with a bit more detail on how we select our betting recommendations and Bet of the Week (BOTW). Then St George went and won! Who tips St George to beat the undefeated Rabbitohs....and then....and then says they're the BOTW?

You guessed it...............We did....we did....we did!!

Ok enough of this. We realise that the NRL is very hard to predict results and there will be weeks when we get it very wrong. Indeed the week that was showed we are more than capable of getting it wrong, although fortunately on games the bookies also had it wrong.

6 teams went into the round undefeated, and none were playing each other. Only one made it through the week unscathed (Melbourne Storm) and we didn't tip them! But then again we didn't recommend a bet either. Why? And this brings us back to what we had intended covering this week....

Simply put we try and predict who will win, but we also then try and put a probability, or level of confidence in the result we predict. By combining this with the odds that the bookmakers offer we can determine if there is an expected value from betting on the game. That is, if you multiply the odds offered (that's the bookies) by the probability of winning (that's ours) and the value is higher than 1.10 (so higher than 10%) then we tend to recommend a bet.

So looking at an example from last week - our favourite team the Titans (they have the biggest red bit above).

We were 60% confident they would win (based on a range of factors) and the Bookies were offering 2.15 at the time of the bet. So 2.15 x 60% is 1.29, so if our model is right and you continued betting on these types of games, you should win or return approximately 29% . BoTW is the game with the maxiumum expeected value (so St George last week)

So the year so far has been, well exceptional. Now normally, we'd expect these bets to come off occasionally, and over a season enough times so we have more money than we started with. Historically in AFL we have had the following results: