how do u measure ur edge?

DFIRCONMAN:

Finding VALUE is fine, and "guessing" isn't a problem there. (And you're not guessing, you're doing more research than the average RP reader!)

You know you have an edge, knowing if you have one or not is not a problem. I was only tackling the issue of quantifying it, which is important for kelley but I would guess other staking plans too.

If you saw that 4-1 shot and it was 5-2 would you really lay it all the way down to close to 4-1?

Or would you just take as much as you can at 5/2 and be happy?

On BACKING STATS......AVERAGE ODDSPER BET    5.076101399........is at BF ODDS 6.07 etc

ROI. is that the same as profit / turnover

DFCIRONMAN: I would argue ROI is more important than edge, because it takes into account both edge and staking.

I'm with Frog Hair,
We are not talking quantum physics here or the relational velocity of a black hole in hyperspace.
You really won't solve real world gambling topics with a text book.

For starters, turnover is not your total liability across all bets, both those that won and those that lost. (Total amount staked.)
Liability should not be used to calculate turnover, you can't calculate turnover based on risk. That's highly misleading.
Turnover is simply, whether backing or laying, total amount staked.

Turnover is not your gross winnings. (income)
That is your profit.

I know some businesses like to distort the figures by caliming turnover is capital including profit, but that's for a different agenda. But none of them calculate based on risk, not even stockmarket trades.
Risk is something that is not there to calculate unless you have actually borne that risk in your figures. Ergo, it is redundant to the calculation.

If I buy a house for $250,000 cash and sell it for $300,000 cash and had no insurance, I don't say I outlayed $500,000 to make $50,000 (because it could have burned down or been flattened by a tornado).

henok: That does seem to rather undermine my earlier posts.

"True" edge (rather than just the estimates we are calculating) actually doesn't take into account how much you stake, unless you consider that part of your edge (i.e. you consider that part of what makes you a winner.) therefore shouldn't really be taking into account money won/lost, but if you're level staking then the two shouldn't be far off each other.

The ROI takes into account commission tho which I realise I forgot to do for IronMan, but a 4% edge level staking is more than enough to withstand a 5% commission.

On the 4-1 shot.....as it is say a 12 runner race and it is RANKED 5th........it is what I call...above the line ( the line being 50%+1 of field size).

If it is above the line, but outside the top 3 RANKED horses, then the VALUE has to be "clear" to me....which is subjective.....The example given was a clear LAY in PLACE market. If it was ranked 4th, then it then becomes a 3-1 shot in true odds ( my "guess" etc).......and it is borderline VALUE.  The further down the RANKING order it is the greater the true odds become.......and the more VALUE there is in the LAY.


Now you might argue that using KELLY , certainly on BACKS, is worth considering using on PLACE LAYS.......the more VALUE there is etc etc

However, as it was purely a STATISTICAL exercise re the STATS above......then doing them to LEVEL STAKES is important for STATS comparison purposes.

I know that when I start to use system in NEW YEAR that the question re KELLY calaculations is one I seriously MUST address on whether it should be used or not. PROBABLY INTIALLY I WON'T USE IT!

BTO if you think your profit is all the winning bets you've made without taking into account all the losing bets you've ever made, no wonder you "beat the overround".

Also in the first case,
a) I didn't use it because I don't like the definition.
B) You say I'm wrong then produce exactly the same definition! i.e. total amount staked. Amount staked IS your liability on each bet.

ror - The figures above have been calculated AFER COMMISSION at 5%........

AFTER

IRONMAN: I prefer level staking to kelly too, both as you say because it's easier to run stats on, and also because it's too easy to become overconfident with kelly, which leads to overestimating your edge and therefore overstaking.

Ror, I never said profit is all the winning bets you had.
You said that.
There is turnover.
There is profit.
There is profit on turnover.

They are seperate entities.

Your winning are your profit after deducting
your total turnover.

That's cash outlayed to gain the profit.
Nothing to do with winning bets included.

henok 07 Dec 11 11:56 
ROIConfused. is that the same as profit / turnover
=============================================================================

Net Profit over Turnover.......re BACKS....and NET PROFIT / STAKING LIABILITY


However, this is not bets to trade ...back bets made and left to stand til finish....etc

For clarity:

Total stakes
Total return
Total profit
Profit on turnover

Liability doesn't come into it, because you already
included it in the return if it happened.
If it didn't happen, it shouldn't be included.
Just as the potential 1000/1 winner never happened
that you could have claimed!

For LAYING though it is the TOTAL STAKING LIABILITY for = TURNOVER ..

BTO:

Profit is Income - Expenses.

Income is all your winning bets.
Expenses is all your losing bets.

That Income is all the profit from each of your winning bets.
That Expenses is the stakes of all your losing bets.

If you're getting confused about using profit twice, you could think of it as gross profit and net profit, although that's not strictly the case.

I'm saying turnover should be that income.

Put it this way, if you put a tenner on at 5/1, what do you consider your turnover to be, what do you consider your income to be?

Would you put a tenner into expenses and 60 into profit, or would you simply stick 50 into profit?

I think here we have a clash of old school (odds and "returns" etc) and new school (decimals, profit vs loss).

If you want you can count turnover as all the stakes you've made, both winning and losing, but if you do do that you should count returned stakes as well as profit in your ROI.


In other words, you place two bets at 5/1, one wins, one loses.


In my world, your income is 5, your profit is 4, your expenses is 1.

In your world your income is 6, your profit is 4 and your expenses is 2.

I can see arguments for calculating it either way, which is why I gave both options in my original "what is turnover" post.

As for laying, well personally I see laying as backing to lose, so it's just backing and can be calculated the same way, you just need to formulate the equivalent "to lose" odds.

RETURNS is word that you should be using re "winning bets"

I agree but we need clarification: If I bet a quid at 2.1, then 1.1 is my profit, 2.1 is my return in a betting shop sense, but 1.1 is my return in a "return on investment" sense.

For LAYING though it is the TOTAL STAKING LIABILITY for = TURNOVER ..

That's a common way of measuring it.
But it's not accurate.
Your liability will be included in the return
or loss if it happened.
For laying, it should be total profit divided by
total stake is the profit on turnover.

Let me give an example.
If I lay the field to $100 liability.
I have no chance of losing $100.
The most I've ever lost is around $79.00
I simply cannot lose the full $100.

If you lay 1 horse to a liability of 100 then you can lose 100.

If you back multiple horses or lay multiple horses then it gets far more complicated, in which case you probably need to just consider max liability.

Ror,

Profit is Income - Expenses.
Income is all your winning bets.
Expenses is all your losing bets.

Maybe the confusion lies between ROI and POT.
I don't know.
But for a business profit is income minus expenses.
For betting, it's income minus total stakes.
Losing bets are redundant as they are included in your income.
No need to count it twice.

How are losing bets included in your income?

As I said, I can see the appeal of both methods of calculating ROI.

You could say that if you had £1000, split it 100 ways, went out put 100 bets on, then looked at your returns from those bets then that is the ROI.

And that works well, but then you surely need to take the stakes into your returns.

Personally I see it as a more organic profit/cost. There's no chance you'll lose all 1000 bets so really the 'investment' is how much money you need to spend on losing bets to generate the winning ones.

I realise I'm probably going against convention here, which is again why I provided my first defintion of turnover which is all your liabilties (stakes).

So yeah, use profit/stakes but personally I think that is old fashioned and you can be more aggressive about what your ROI is.

If you lay 1 horse to a liability of 100 then you can lose 100.
But you are assuming liability on bets that never
had that liability.

Assume I lay 100 horses at odds of 100
So I layed $1.00 on each which had liability of $100.00
There is one winner, which is one loss.
Forgetting commission, I broke even.

My way:
Total Stakes $100
Total Return $100
Total Profit $0
Profit on turnover 0%

Or the other way
Total liability $10,000
Total return $100
Loss looks like $9,900 on paper.
But it isn't.

This shows the full futility of using liability.

If you were just to use liability of $100
in the case of including it in the turnover.
You'll have the same result of 0%, but only because it's 0%
Anything less or greater will be minimalised from
the true picture.

To each their own, but I think total liability diminishes
your true and correct edge percentage.
Just as including turning over $100,000 in stock
when you only outlayed $50,000
(but the truck could have turned over, and does one time in
a thousand.

BTO: You're assuming you lay multiple horses.

If you laid 100 horses IN THE SAME RACE at 100 then you'd HAVE AN OVERROUND.

Not only that but your liability is REALLY easy to work out, it's ZERO.

Your liability isn't your liability on EVERY BET if you lay multiple in the same race it's your MAX LIABILITY IN EACH MARKET.

I need to stop arguing with you BTO, you never understand what I am saying, to the point where I wonder if it is wilful misunderstanding.

If you lay 2 horses in a 3 horse race at 4/1, then your liability is 3 on each horse is 3. since that is the most you can lose.

Your book would look like:

+2
-3
-3

That's a liability of 3.

That's the same as backing the favourite for 3 units, of course, but we've been though that one .

BTO: You're assuming you lay multiple horses.

No, not in the example I just gave.

If you laid 100 horses IN THE SAME RACE at 100 then you'd HAVE AN OVERROUND.

Not only that but your liability is REALLY easy to work out, it's ZERO.

Your liability isn't your liability on EVERY BET if you lay multiple in the same race it's your MAX LIABILITY IN EACH MARKET.

Is it in practice?
No it's not, you can never lose the $100.
The stake on every other horse is taken off your loss on
the horse that won (you lost on)
So you can never lose the full $100 in one race.

If your liability is 100, you can lose 100, that is what liability means.

What are you talking about "the stake on every other horse"? The only stake is the one you accepted, and you return that to the winner when the horse you laid wins, along with the liability.

If you lay multiple horses in the same race then of course you reduce your liabilty as you do, but if you lay to a given liability then you will be dutching such that your liability is large, so the liability on any one horse is even, and if you only laid that one horse would be larger than your overall liability.

I need to stop arguing with you BTO, you never understand what I am saying, to the point where I wonder if it is wilful misunderstanding.

I'm not trying to wind you up, perhaps it's a communication thing.
Please forget multiple horses in one race for a while, that's just going to confuse the issue.

OK, forgetting multiple horses.

If you lay a horse to a liability of £10, then if that horse comes in you lose £10.

Do you agree/disagree with this?

Where was I when a thread needed me?

I think the fact that henok is just another super chimp has been dismissed far too quickly.

Agreed Ror.

Glad I ducked out of this whole pointless debate when I did.

Not like you to shirk a pointless debate,frog.

I know GJ , but I'm slowly learning.
And I do now have the experience of knowing one when I see one.
But I was in it for quite a while  as you might have noticed.
So still a way to go.

i think turnover is a term too confusing to use it in betting. a more appropriate measure can be  average profit over average stake which is simple to use and reveling enough for both traders and gamblers in both back and lay fields. that said when calculating the average profit it is better to separate the lay profit and back profit as they are at the opposite ends of an event definition.

Isn't laying just betting dutch ?.
What's the difference ?.
In other words what does the phrase "--they are at the opposite ends of an event definition" actually mean ?

FAFH , if we define a team win as an event  the back is for the event happening and the lay is a back of the event not happening as u said it dutching all other possible outcomes. this two probalities should add up to 1. as a result as long as the probality of the event is not around 0.5(the odds being even shots) ur win and stake vary inversly.
therefore when considering average profit per average stake to measure ur edge this may lead to a suppression of possible insight u may get from ur analysis. eg if u back short odds ur profit is small and ur stake is large. for lay the opposite.

when u take ur average profit the wins from the lay of the short odds will be more expressed, and in the average stake the stakes from the figures from the "back" of the short odd will be more expressed. this may be especially very important when considering a small sample size. hope i explaind it well

While I'm not sure I completely follow henok's language with "opposite ends of the market", I would agree that when measuring your edge, if you start with a known edge then it shouldn't matter whether that edge is against long or short odds.

That is to say that roulette has the same edge against someone backing 20 numbers compared to those backing 1.

This is another reason why I prefer comparing profit to losses incurred rather than total staked. Risking a grand at 1% isn't as risky as risking a grand at 10%.

henok
sorry clear as mud.
A lay is a bet and vice versa.
If you consolidate them all in your figures you will get no distortions, as long as you do it correctly in proportion.
That if I bet for i unit liability, then the lays I compare it with must be also for 1 unit liability.

oky, was on the turkish game. i will explain my self with an example, and will try to define clearly some things that i came to understand from the discussion here and my thoughts about measuring edge. my last comment to separate lays and backs.

first to clarify when i say separating lay i am not meaning laying all other possibltie s which in a sense means the same as backing.
What i mean is back and lay of the same event as in trading.
eg event: manchester winning:
                             possible bets: back manchester win, lay manchester win
this two should be separated when calculating average profit and average stake


fitst i have came to understand that a better and easy way to measure ur edge or profitablity is by dividing average profit/ average stake(liablity) this tool will clearly cover the risk factor associated with ur bets.

err laying the same event as you have backed is the same as backing the other outcomes.
It doesn't matter a bit when or why you do it imo.

to give an example
measure of edge =average profit/average stake
eg: backing once in four outcome at 4.4
               possible bets: put 1, win 3.4: 1, loss 1, put 1 lose 1, put 1 lose 1
               average profit over a long run (3.4-3)/4=0.4/4
               average stake over a long run 1       
                   edge= 0.4/4/1=0.4/4,
           the interpretation using this formula in the long run u are risking 4 to win 0.4
    lay once in four event at 4.4 ur edge is -ve of the above.
but for this example let us take a lay at big price where u will win 0.4 in 4 runs
   eg, let us say u lay once in 4 outcome at 3.6
             possible bets and results, put 2.6 win 1, put 2.6 win 1, put 2.6 win 1, put 2.6 lose 2.6
                       average profit=0.4/4
                       average stake=2.6
                           edge=0.4/(2.6*4)    risking about 10 to win 0.4
ur edge measured with the profit per stake formula shows that the back bet at long odds is bigger than the lays.
during analysis this formula may interprets ur back and lay bets diferntly with difernt outcomes.
this doesnt make sense. yes?
it is because this formula ignores the propablity of 4 consecative losing bets in the back and lay bets. u can do the maths . this probalities are difernt. if u consider a 1:4 back and lay the probality of 16 consecative backs losing is equal to 4 consecative lay loses.
thereforre to correct the ignorance of this fact either somebody has to use profit per stake formula at difernt probality levels or he has to normalize the stakes using the probality of the stake losing .
i hopw i have explained it well, but thanks for the siscussion it was well informative. i would continue discussing but got to go the CL games. sorry about the languge and grammer

Well that should cause a grinding halt to the thread.

well didnt mean to stop the discussion.

British black sense of humour.
Ignore.
Hopefully somebody can work their way through your last post and give it the answer it deserves.
Unfortunately ( or fortunately ?) it won't be me.

Dec 7, 2011 -- 4:07PM, FINE AS FROG HAIR wrote:

British black sense of humour.Ignore.Hopefully somebody can work their way through your last post and give it the answer it deserves.Unfortunately ( or fortunately ?) it won't be me.

Measuring your edge using stake size in some way is flawed as demonatrated by the amount of discussion above. You are trying to take into account if the bet is back or lay when the economics might be the same, and how do you treat a position that is traded out?

Given that you have a betting history to look at the best test of the edge is to look at some measure of the P&L variation over time. To come back to the same example I used earlier, suppose you have two guys:

A. Is up £365 for the year, having been up and down approximately £1,000 each day.
B. Is up £365 for the year, having made £1 profit each day.

They might both have the same stake but guy A could easily wipe out his profit this afternoon whereas B has clearly beat the market - you'd probably only want to know what's stopping him scale up.

I have a very good track record of ending threads myself but hope you're still with me henok.

Divide etc
Many people argue that trading out should be treated just as separate positional bets.
Their only nexus being the commission offset ?
A good or bad argument ?

I haven't read much of this thread because it looks too boring but I will add, in case it hasn't already been said, that I think it is a huge red herring to try and shoehorn gambling activity into definitions and terminology that really don't fit or add any value to its analysis.

Well I have to say Cat that for someone who has not read the thread in detail, you have amazingly summed up its content extremely accurately.
But if we applied such exacting and perceptive standards to all the threads on here, then we would end up with nothing being posted.
And no, I am not for once being facetious at all.
You are spot on re this particular thread.

OOh Frog, someone summed up a thread and it wasn't you. That's got to hurt. Still good recovery by summing up the summing up.

I would measure your average edge (per bet) as the compounding growth effect the bet should have on your bank, this alleviated all the measurement problems with the differences between back and lays and favourites and outsiders, i.e.

Backing 100 (and the results coming up like a 20 shot)
or Laying 1.01 (and the results coming up like a 1.05 shot) will roughly equate to a similar edge of around 4.2%

You can then average this calc for every bet to get your average edge.

Any long-term positive edge you have in specific circumstances can then be optimised by staking.

Jabmast
Sounds both extremely commensensical and mathematically rigorous to me.
I trust all others accept it as so ?
UA
I'll accept any compliment at all I can dredge out of you.
A first even maybe ? Certainly in recent memory.

I think you're right jabmast, I've been thinking about this and I'm increasingly convinced that stake amounts shouldn't affect your measure of 'edge'.

Stake amounts could affect your average edge but they should first be converted into banks (amount the growth %age is related to) and then used as purely as weighting factors.

It still all boils down to how really useful developing all this info is.
Theoretically interesting and perhaps even useful up to a certain point, but beyond that just an exercise in curiosity ?

I suppose if it gives one the confidence to really start using an " edge" to a greater level of liability, and hence potential profit, then it is useful to develop it as far as it is mathematically possible and sound to do so.
But for most it is not really the most important factor in improving their gambling.

Not at all, I've never actually calculated my average edge but would be fairly trivial to do (likely figure would be very low), but have used actual/expected edge as an incredibly important figure in my gambling.

Jabmast
Yes I forgot the  " Kelly " factor.
I don't follow the so called " value " mdethod of betting, where staking is correlated to " edge" levels.

BANK SIZE is irrelevant to whether you have an "edge" or not.....

ROI is far better measurement.................

Based on LEVEL stakes.......would be "best"

You're right bank size is not used to calculate your edge, but it can be used to calculate your average edge across many bets, purely as a weighting factor related to the size of each bet.

how do u measure ur edge?

I always like to keep mine the same height, so I've cut a length of wood to match the height and use it during trimming.

Not good to drop your aitches innit ?

looks like nobody understood my analysis, thought about giving a detailed analysis but looks like no interst. anyways i will try once again with  an anlogy to highlight the problem of using profit per stake as a measure of edge. (i am assuming here we all have agreed to use profit per stake as measure).

what this measure does is it will lump all stakes at difernt odds(risk level) and profits at differnt odds(risk level) without any consideration for odds . i am not saying stake level matters. i am not saying whetehr it is back or lay matters. what i am saying is the ood for each back or lay stake matters.

the analogy  is if u analyze the profitablity of a portfolio of investements, do u lump all the wins and liablities together without separating the invetements according to thir underlying risk? this is what u are doing when u aggregate all stakes and profits together without consideration for risk which most of the time will be adequately measured by the odds.

This is the reason i mentioned to separate odds according to their odds before using the above formula. i hope it is clear.

...as mud.

Any complicated combination of stake/liability is not going to answer your original question.

You said you weren't happy with the level of fluctuation in your results - that's precisely it. It seemed like you wanted to have an objective measure to test how much of the profit track record was luck and how much was skill before taking it all a bit more seriously (a step that I suspect most people don't take).

I looked at my bets today and my profit was around 0.30% of the total stakes of all bets. I am happy with that because the strategy consistently made small profits if I look at it over a single market, a day, a week etc. If I had to ride large swings in the bank to get that 0.30% then it would not be a good strategy, but profit per stake is not going to differentiate between the two scenarios.

wtf

Headache jimmy ?
I have.

wtf? get a life u what kind of bitchy attitude is this?

if u dont have good to say. shut up ! life is too short to spend it acting like an this

Did you get hurt by that last minute equaliser by Bologna against Juventus also ?
If not, why the short fuse ?

what the hell? talk like a man.

!!!!

Have you been drinking mate ?
If not, then maybe you should have a couple to calm you down.

Or go to bed ?

Why is it so complicated?
Why make it complicated?

There are two possibilities for calculating an edge.

Net Profit divided by total stake turned over x 100 = Profit On Turnover (edge)

Gross return divided by total stake turned over x 100 = Return On Investment. (edge)

They will reflect the same percentages only one includes the stake. The end result is the same.

Calculating back edge and lay edge are exactly the same formula, but incorporating liability is flawed, because liability is included in the return which makes up the profit or loss.

You double dipped.
So you made the calculation, and then you made it again, it's like you put your whole face in it.
Just have one bite.....and end it.

Script courtesy of Seinfeld

Jabmast : Backing 100 (and the results coming up like a 20 shot)
or Laying 1.01 (and the results coming up like a 1.05 shot) will roughly equate to a similar edge of around 4.2%

Did you mean 400% edge? Backing 20.0 shots at 100.0 is a fine art :)

BTO - I'm with u - how there can be 130+ posts for a simple question that has a definite answer is beyond me.

And more than that I'm still unsure as to what the definitive answer is.
I sort of like Jabmast's commonsense approach the best though.
But on the other hand.
Oh shoot I give up.

Well calculating profit on liability is like staking your back bank as if every bet will lose.
It just doesn't make rational or logical sense.
Why is it so hard for people to grasp that liability is included in your gross return or nett profit and loss.

Maybe it's the reason why we see all this lay the draw and Schalke04 posts.
The odds just don't add up, although it looks good on paper (for a while).
Peter Webb did a study a long time ago, where he backed all the favourites early and layed off late.
The result was exactly breakeven, but a loss after commission.
He would lose lots of little bits and every now and then win on one big steamer, but all the little losses exactly cancelled out the gains on the steamer.
Think of lay the draw like this.
All the trading videos never show when things go bad, I mean real bad.
They don't show how a late withdrawal can send you broke for the week, how Betfair server crashes can leave you losing an entire week's profit, how a bookmaker dumping huge money 40 ticks below the current price and hoovering the lot can send you into near bankruptcy for the week.
Sure you can have multiple banks and failsafe triggers, but how long will it take to make up the loss?
The fact that this thread has so many replies and no resolution even though the answer has been given on several occasions, leads me to believe that very few actually have an edge, or have ever calculated it, or ever done any kind of research or data modelling at all.

There are posters that obviously have an edge, they are blatantly obvious to me by their answers on various threads ;)

Ok, I know everybody loves coin-tossing examples:

Punter A backs heads on two seperate coin tosses each day for £10 each time at evens. At the end of a month he's (yes he) is £10 in profit having made a total of £600 worth of back bets.

Punter B backs heads at 2.01 in early prices and manages to back tails at 2.01 on the same toss just before kick-off, both £10 bets. So each day he locks in 10p and at the end of the month he has £3 profit having made a total of £600 worth of bets.

Who do you think has the greatest edge?

Jeez...

Jeez wasn't one of the options.

A or B?

If only there was a tab to ignore all dividebyzero errors!

Ok, I know everybody loves coin-tossing examples:


I hate them!

But...

Punter A backs heads on two seperate coin tosses each day for £10 each time at evens. At the end of a month he's (yes he) is £10 in profit having made a total of £600 worth of back bets.

After 60 tosses, it's unlikely he's up a tenner, but to indulge -
He has made a 1.67% profit, this does not mean he has a 1.67% edge.
Divide his profit by his bet size and it means his profit is reliant on the outcome of one toss.
So his 1.67% profit is reliant on one result.
Again 1.67% profit is a 60/1 shot.

Punter B backs heads at 2.01 in early prices and manages to back tails at 2.01 on the same toss just before kick-off, both £10 bets. So each day he locks in 10p and at the end of the month he has £3 profit having made a total of £600 worth of bets.


Firstly, he's bet on half as many tosses according to the scenario, but had twice as many bets. Secondly he has an extremely stupid bookie.
But...
He has made a 0.50% profit, this does not mean he has a 0.50% edge.
However, in this scenario he has made 10p for every $20.00 invested and made this every single day without a loss.

Who do you think has the greatest edge?
Punter B by a country mile.
Punter A made a better profit, but Punter B is 100% probability of continued success based on past results alone.
Punter A has a 60/1 chance of getting lucky.

In the real world, Punter A will break even after losing his tenner.
Punter B will continue to make his 0.50% edge if his bookie doesn't go broke or ban him.

Thanks BTO.

My point is that yes B is by far ahead of A but if you only looked at profit against stake turnover you would not see this.

From the graphs in the opening post it appears that henok is somewhere in between A and B and I believe that looking at (average profit)/(standard deviation of profit) on whatever scale you choose would be more informative than stake sizes.

Anyway, that's enough from me. Good luck to you all.

ffs Punter A has made 7 quid more than Punter B and you still think Punter B has the edge...ffs

Thanks Jimmy, yes I do.

Oh, BTO - you are correct, he's unlikely to be up a tenner after 60 tosses, in fact it's impossible. Let's say that one of the tosses was declared void, not the one that Punter B traded that day.

Jimmy, punter A got lucky against the odds of probability.
He will lose his tenner profit in the long run.

That may be the case but over that particular month Punter A had the undoubted edge over Punter B.

He beat punter B because he got lucky.
Punter B has an edge.

Let's say I spin roulette and fluke a number after 34 spins.
Because I won doesn't mean I have an edge, the house has the edge, and I got lucky.
Even if I never play again, I got lucky, the house still has the edge because someone will fill my shoes and bet unders, therefore they will reclaim any loss through the next mug, because the odds are in their favour.

"Here's what's really going to fry your noodle"

What are the odds of Punter A beating Punter B next month?

Answer this, and you are "the one", Neo

Trevh,

Jabmast : Backing 100 (and the results coming up like a 20 shot)
or Laying 1.01 (and the results coming up like a 1.05 shot) will roughly equate to a similar edge of around 4.2%

Did you mean 400% edge? Backing 20.0 shots at 100.0 is a fine art :)

No, I mean 4.2%, as in a nominal bankroll will increase optimally by this amount every time you manage to get one of these bets. Yes, I used an example which is fairly far fetched (getting 100 about a 20 shot), in real-life, any long-term profitable player's edge on here will be way less than 4%.

I'd go so far as to say, on this measurement (and I am in no means saying it is definitive, just the calculation that I find useful and can produce meaningful comparisons with) that the level of edge of the majority of long-term winners on here will be less than 0.1%.

DivideByZeroError never said anything about another month did he?

OK I bet Frankel and he wins by 6 lengths and I stop betting forever.
You trade markets and win less than I do, but have never lost in a month.
You continue trading, but I beat you in profit from one bet.
Who has the edge?

Jimmy has the edge here imo