Team regression initial results

I’ve completed the first test of the replicated code for the Team Regression project and the results don’t look particularly good. Following is what I got for the first part of 2018 grouped by expected return.

2018	Number	Amt Bet	Net	Actual Ret/$
1.00 to 1.05	149	$18,874	($1,900)	$0.899
1.05 to 1.10	139	$17,800	$206	$1.012
1.10 to 1.15	110	$15,013	($137)	$0.991
1.15 to 1.20	112	$14,552	($575)	$0.960
1.20 to 1.25	80	$9,701	$1,287	$1.133
1.25 above	348	$44,007	($1,819)	$0.959
Total	938	$119,947	($2,938)	$0.976

These are based on $100 bets, more for favorites. The return isn’t much better than what you’d get throwing darts. Those with expected returns over $1.25 are really bad. Probably big outliers. I believe the creator of this approach is now using Kelly to size his bets which won’t help any. There just isn’t any consistency in the different ranges to make one believe this would help.

I also ran the code over the last 8 seasons with the following results.

8 Years Worth	Number	Amt Bet	Net	Actual Ret/$
2010	1,895	$241,320	-$5,848	$0.976
2011	1,900	$236,653	-$3,628	$0.985
2012	1,901	$234,241	$329	$1.001
2013	1,899	$240,687	-$6,102	$0.975
2014	1,873	$228,414	-$4,331	$0.981
2015	1,899	$238,874	-$7,042	$0.971
2016	1,870	$240,407	-$3,824	$0.984
2017	1,883	$244,158	-$6,994	$0.971
Total	15,120	$1,904,754	-$37,440	$0.980

There was a small profit in one season which demonstrates a problem with any system. It might prove profitable over a short run, but that’s due to random variance and not necessarily a good indicator.

I’m a bit concerned that my code did not quite get the results he sent in his sample. While I attributed this to slightly different historical results for the teams involved, maybe there is a bigger problem. I will contact the creator of this approach to see if I can get some more samples.

I’m not yet ready to give up on this project. Follow me on Twitter, @ole44bill, to know when I make the next post.