A Query re the price of the Draw

Now of course no sooner than I post my query and there is another wicket and the draw is now 5.0 to lay. However my query still stands. How can there not be a result based no the first 30 minutes cricket?

been thinking similar. I don't think batsmen (or people generally) have the powers of concentration they used to. 4.6 still looks short.

It is a mystery. This is the only edge that has not been eroded in my 10 years on betfair.

Most popular theory to date is Indian bookies laying off as Indians punters love a draw bet.
Curious that punters "love" to lose money year after year (on matches which have no patriotic bias?) My research indicates that that this is not viable theory.

Is there devilish  arb/hedge ?. I can't find it . Is it "picking up pennies in front of a steam roller?.

Would like to solve.

some people seem to back the draw before the toss in the hope of trading a few points lower after 10 -15 mins

then its in the hands of the traders and its pass the parcel

no sense in the price for a long term opinion but the traders are playing their game with it and making a few quid

You have never seen a drawn test where there was a session with the loss of 3 wickets?

Most popular theory to date is Indian bookies laying off as Indians punters love a draw bet.

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that would make some sense. the price on the tie late in the first test demonstrated that people will pay over the odds for insurance.

of course, if the draw is significantly too short on a 100.x% book, logically one (or both) of the two teams must be absolute value to back.

That's not what I said BJT. The 3 wickets this morning were just a passing comment. For sure if one came on and saw the ball not turning and bowlers having no chance one could see how the draw would shorten (Even though in all my time watching I can only recall 1 such instance in recent times where the bowlers could not get at the wicket and never ever in England)

I was making the point anyway and lo and behold what do we see but wickets tumbling and bowlers having early success, cur draw drift I would have thought but that is not the case. In fact until the 4th and 5th wickets fell the draw was down to nearly 3 again and even now with 5 down and England looking like they will be close to all out today the draw is 3.5 to lay.

I genuinely don;t get it. A good rule of thumb for me is that if there are 20 outs in the first 3 days then there is going to be a result.

Someone tell me a scenario in this test knowing what we know now (i.e 5 down with 3 hours play left on day 1) where the result is going to be a draw

only 4 down,  !

Lost me.  Not even sure what game you are watching.

Yes when did this mythical 5th wicket fall?

bairstow was bowled but umpire checked no ball and it was overturned !

Thanks Donny. I knew it after but too busy at work. BTW the wicket was up on cricinfo for nearly 5 minutes. I guess it was a long review. DRS has been good to England this Series so far.

Note: I only saw the first hour or so this morning and I guess there in lies the answer.
Those that are looking at it all day see a partnership and think they will be there all week andpunt the draw down to 2.6 (will people ever learn)
and then I get in from Work at 18:30 and see 7 down and all on schedule.

If this Test ends in a draw I'll never again post on this forum and gibe full licence for everyone to call me whatever names they want.

As to the likes of BJT, who bother responding to a thread if you haven't got an informed comment.

One last point 3.3 is a healthy run rate for England. IMO Australia won't last a full day at the wicket and 300 or first Innings is a fair lead to have. Just my view

Lustrumm, I agree that I think the draw is too short now at 3.8. For a draw you generally need both teams to bat 2.5 days over the 2 innings so if you say both teams are 1.95 to bat that long 1.95 x 1.95 = 3.8. England are currently 7 down so they will do well to survive until lunch tomorrow but they can be expected to bat 1.25 days, but it will be more difficult to bat as long in 2nd innings. The same applies to Australia. I make England 2.5 to bat long enough for a draw and Australia 3.  2.5 X 3 = 7.5 so about double the odds.

I also think that when the weather forecast is bad the draw is often good odds to back so maybe people dont take enough notice of weather forecasts?

I think this edge will get eroded soon.  It seems odd to me that it's hung around for so long but folk ARE getting wind of it now.

I think the real answer is that non Pakistanis have learned how to reverse the ball effectively so much that a skilled practitioner can decide after 12 overs if reverse swing will be more effective than conventional swing.

The days where the first two sessions belonged to the bowler and the last one to the batsmen seem over!  A wet outfield can stuff this up but we are back on global warming this month.

Oh yes and modern batsmen are not as good as they were!

one factor when games are played in england, is peoples inability to read weather forecasts.

for instance "light rain shower" usually means it either doesnt rain at all or rains for a few minutes during the sun. more likely than not, off for about 10 minutes. a lot of people treat it the same as "light rain" when theyre worlds apart. also it can say "light rain shower" but if you go into the hour by hour forecast, thats actually only forecasted for one of the hourly slots all day. surrounded by hour after hour of forecasted blazing sun!

the draw has been too short in test matches for years, though to think its printing free money is pretty naive. matches with no time lost still produce draws, not often but it happens. one day youll get caught out if you think its impossible. basically dont have a liability you cant afford to lose.

Other current thread refers:

It appears that after 216 consecutive test matches laying the draw at start produces exactly a 1% profit  before commission- assuming the OPs data is correct- which I believe to be the case- and £100 staked per match.



crunchyfrog   


  16 Jul 13 08:23 
Joined:


  04 Nov 05 
    | Topic/replies: 1,409  | Blogger: crunchyfrog's blog   



Match 216:
laydraw +£2160



ps OP: just ignore BJT- he is an idiot.

Just checked on cricinfo and in the last 10 years in England 72 tests have been played with 16 draws. This means you would have to back the draw each time at 4.5 to break even.  I dont beleive many matches start as long as that. Also I presume that the majority of those matches were rain effected to some extent and some of them badly. Therefore when its forecast 5 days  with no interuptions it should be a lot more than 4.5?

Jul 19, 2013 -- 9:22AM, aston wrote:

Just checked on cricinfo and in the last 10 years in England 72 tests have been played with 16 draws. This means you would have to back the draw each time at 4.5 to break even.

Looking at matches all over the world in test history matches 2091 draws 718 =odds 2.91
last 10 years matches 441 draws 116 = odds 3.8

For those saying batsman arent as good these days thats not true. Because of the introduction of limited overs cricket run rates have increased meaning more runs and more wickets.

In test history the average runs per wicket is 32.07, in the last 10 years its 34.76. The runs per over is 2.82 in history and 3.27 in the last 10 years which works out at 11.37 overs per wicket and 10.63 overs per wicket respectively.(so more frequent wickets now)

Another factor is the fact they lose less time to weather in modern cricket because they make more of an effort to make it up

I may be wrong but I think 20 or 25 years ago play just finished every day at 6 p.m. no matter what. Now if time is lost due to weather they add an hour to the end of the day and even subsequent days and they keep going until 90 overs are bowled.

Thanks to all for some greatly informed comments. Glad I stuck with the thread now. As Nigelpm rightly refers above the edge is being eroded away. I can remember a time when the draw was favourite for every test before any ball was bowled. The draw would open up favourite when the betting started and would invariably be odds on throughout day 1.
The last Test where I did my brains was the one in Cardiff (I think) last year that was destroyed by Rain and even then the Umpires and teams did everything to get a result. In the finish 2 Tailend Batsmen (I think it was South Africa) performed miracles to stay at the crease until the end.

As I write this Bresnan goes first ball this morning. If England have any sense now they will let the last 2 have a go over the next 15 minutes. A lead of 300 is plenty here imo

4.9 the Draw with Australia 69/4. WTF is going on. The follow on is only about 4.9 shot not to mind the draw.

I'm not saying that Australia can't come back (personally give them no chance but it is possible) but there is no way bar an Earthquake that there is not going to be a result here.

The traders had punted the draw all the way back to 3.0 again before the wickets after lunch.

IMO there won't even be a 5th day for this test. Australia be lucky to get through the day at the crease

I don't usually bet on cricket but i came on here for some "tips" having read this, I thought it made sense and I would have a small Lay of the draw @ 3.3 when Australia came into bat! It seems to me that a lot of Draws in England must be due to the weather and for these cricketers to bat out for 5 days would be difficult. I know this is a bit aftertiming, though it is not all over yet, though at 91/6, I cant see this being a draw!

Indeed mike8 imo the draw should be 1000 already. Actually the real betting should be 1.1 10/1 Australia and 1000 the draw. How the draw could be still 8 to lay I can't figure although it is a big outlay now for profit.

I asked the question last night and got no answer and that is would someone explain to me a scenario (weather aside and we know the weather is set fair) where there cannot be a result here?

Even if Australia avoid the follow on they will be so far behind England can comfortably declare (or be bowled out) early on day 4.

That will give 2 days for England to bowl them.

In reality this test could be over some time tomorrow at this rate

By and large that has stood me in good stead down the years and I can only ever recall one occasion where anything but the weather stopped a result.

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imo, this is where the edge is still most likely to lie. two things have gotmixed up in this thread: is there an edge in laying the draw, and is there an edge in laying the draw when weather isn't likely to play a part?

would love to see the figures for eg test matches over the last ten years with two sessions or less lost to weather.

... I might actually do a bit of number crunching on this if I can figure out an easyish way to get the data.

I would love to see the figures on Tests played in the UK for that. To me anyway there is no comparison between a Test played in the UK and in the SH or the West Indies.

Not to be labouring but still we have the draw as second favourite. Whatever about England there is no way in the world the likelihood of a draw is bigger than an Australia win.

Watch now the draw shorten again when England come back out and people realise there is no follow on

interesting thread. I've been banging on about this to my work mates and laying the draw for both of these tests. Should have put my bank on it. If anyone crunches the numbers, how many 450 over tests in England have finished as draws in the past 20 years? the weather forecast has been the key here as is has been more predictable for the past two weeks as I can ever remember. Both tests have been almost (never say never) guaranteed to be uninterrupted and the draw at 3.3 is just mad.

even now i cannot conceive how this can be a draw unless Cook loses his mind. We only have to bat tomorrow, get 500 ahead and have 2 days to get them out. Ok, they may be able to survive 180 overs, but to my mind that is 100-1 not 13.

Its likely that England will set Australia in excess of 400 to win this match.  While I cant find any stats for matches ending in a draw after 23 wickets fell on the first 2 days and no rain or lost time, out of 2091 matches only 18 times has a team scored more than 400 in 4th innings and only 4 of these 18 ended in a draw so it does look pretty unlikely now.

it is an ongoing mystery, the 3.15 on the draw to lay towards the start of this test was an absolute gift. what factors drive this price? in regards the teams england have a good in depth batting line up but is prone to batting collapses and has two members of the top 6 in root and bairstow still cutting their teeth at international level. the aussies have a middle order with no backbone and with very few players who can bat time out of the game. also they have many players batting to save/enhance their careers. also we have two potent bowling line ups so it makes no sense. one factor could be the fear of the dreaded english weather but anybody living here or reading the forecasts should realise thats never going to be a factor, its as if some people are expecting a hurricane to hit the ground at any moment!

Finally a bit of life from England at 15:15 on day 3. What the blazes they have doing all day (over 70 overs with a RR of 2) is beyond me.

Surely after lunch was the time to take off and attack for the day putting Australia in for the last hour tonight.

I can only assume the executive have asked them to stretch the Test out to 5 days (I understand Monday is sold out as well)

It has been so boring all morning as to be not even Entertainment

lustrum
Englands batting yesterday was perfect
they have played Oz out of the game protecting the 1-0 win in the series and setting up 2-0
there was no point in getting runs yesterday and possibly being bowled out

You need patience- its not a sprint m8

indeed lmfao bit you are posting after having looked at the fill day. For the first 4 hours yestarday all they were doing was standing around. The RR went from 2 to 3 after tea.
It doesn't matter anyway as it is men against boys. Australia won't last the day today imo

standing around yesterday was fine

that's my point!

To the original poster if you look at the thread by Crunchy frog you can see how much laying the draw blind would have made over the last 100 tests or so all over the world. Basically it is still a big money spinner on betfair regardless of conditions, country or teams taking part. As the first person to reply said its a big edge as lots of other people love to back to lay the draw. The P&L of the lay the draw strategy has continued to improve over time even though the edge should have dissapered.

Whilst it's a decent default starting point as we can all see, I'd never suggest laying the draw blindly without assessing each match on its merits: particularly weather conditions and pitch. 10% average return per game laying blindly sounds good but it will never make you rich and it assumes lots of things such as keeping the same liability per game, rather than reinvesting more as you win, and never greening up to protect your capital (which can be dangerous). You'd have to be very diligent to stick to those rules which is why most people will actually lose money by applying what they think is this watertight method. Sorry if I've killed anyone's dream but you need to be far more agile than applying a single, golden rule if you're to make serious returns.

The beauty about test cricket is there are so many big price fluctuations in most tests that there's room for lots of us to make money applying lots of different methodologies as long as you know your stuff.

DJsteer,
I understand what you are saying about applying strategy but if you look at the long run performance of the lay the draw stats over the last few years then the blind lay strategy has been immensely profitable. And this includes a maximum 5% commission. Potentially applying some insight could equally harm the P&L as well as protect it. Some abberations just continue to persist because of market forces.

Fallen Angel,
I agree it's a statistical anomaly so go for it if you're disciplined enough for it to work for you. Everything else is really about what works best for the individual.
I look forward to mopping up money on the next rain affected test when some of you blindly lay the draw at starting price!!!

anyone know how the amount of draws differs from when DRS is used compared to when it isn't ?

A lot more LBW decisions are given these days by umpires since DRS has been in operation

yeah that would be an interesting stat.

Don't know the answers but shouldn't take too long to plough through the matches on cricinfo to work it out. Would be interesting to know but you'd have to balance with a bit of scepticism given the locations where DRS tends not to be used (in the sub continent as India never use and Sri Lanka etc can't get the funding for some of the less fashionable series). My thinking is that DRS has simply influenced a trend of more positive umpiring decisions for LBWs whether or not DRS is actually used in a given match but I'll stand corrected if the stats suggest a pattern.