Sunday, February 15, 2015

Neil "Alligators" Lovatt is beside himself with excitement as the bookies finally prove their predictive brilliance

After the disappointment of the rugby, my mind started turning to Scotland's upcoming appearance in the Cricket World Cup.  OK, we're unlikely to get much joy there either, but I think there's something rather pleasing about Scotland's existence as a country being affirmed in a quintessentially English sport - particularly one in which we were technically "represented" by the England team until 1992.  As an added bonus, I saw national anthems being played before the Australia v England match the other night, so if that happens before every game Flower of Scotland will presumably be getting quite a few outings in a very unlikely setting.

I decided to have a little peek at the Betfair odds for the Scotland v New Zealand match, just to see how impossible the task is rated as being, and sure enough the disparity in the odds is mildly embarrassing.  But you'll be happy to hear that Scotland are much more highly fancied on one crucial measure, namely the outcome of the coin toss.

To win toss?

Scotland 10/11
New Zealand 10/11

IMPLIED PROBABILITY OF SCOTLAND WINNING THE COIN TOSS : 50%
IMPLIED PROBABILITY OF NEW ZEALAND WINNING THE COIN TOSS : 50%

I must say that sounds more or less right to me.  It's absolutely uncanny.

Huzzah for the bookies!

Huzzah for the Wisdom of Crowds!

I can't think of any other way I would ever have worked out that there is a 50% chance of winning a coin toss.  My doubts have lifted at last - from now on, I'll definitely be joining Neil "Alligators" Lovatt and his fan club in ignoring scientifically-conducted opinion polls, and instead assuming that the best way of predicting election results is to look at spread-sheets examining the behaviour of wealthy Tory gamblers in minute detail.

(PS.  Do you reckon this post is worth another "Eet Vos A Pleasure To Shrrrrred Eet, James"?)

8 comments:

  1. "Alligators" Lovatt

    LOL

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  2. Populus sub-sample:

    SNP 44, Lab 25, Con 13, LD 13 (!).

    Scotland up-weighted from 108 to 117, SNP down-weighted from 58 to 55. So in effect some SNP down-weight, but nowhere near as large as before the methodological change. All very consistent with recent polls with them, apart from the fluke-ish LD share.

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  3. There was a NZ cricket captain, can't remember which one, possibly Jeremy Coney who used to send another team mate to do the coin toss choice as he felt he was very bad at being successful at it. Probably a case of confirmation bias and sample choice.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The odds of calling any coin toss correctly are 50/50 no matter the result of the previous event. Some captains just have terrible records for winning the call. Nasser Hussain managed to lose 14 straight.

      Some people even stoop to unsporting activity and use a 2 headed coin or one with no obvious head to fool the umpires.

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  4. Pollsters would need to make adjustments to their predictions based on a coin tossers memory of tossing intentions at previous sporting events.
    While the the Coriolis Effect means that raw data scores predicting a 50% chance of "heads" winning, needs to be corrected to their being a 50% chance of "tails" winning.

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  5. i dont care about rugger. just stick to the politics please

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This post is about cricket and betting (including political betting), not about rugby. Having said that, you might want to take a brief break from Scot Goes Pop when Eurovision week comes around.

      Delete
  6. Ashcroft sub-sample (<100): SNP 44, Lab 24, Con 15, UKIP 6, LD 5, Green 4.

    ReplyDelete