Winning ways in the World Cup, by Professor Mark Griffiths

Over the last few World Cups, almost all bookmakers have reported increased amounts of betting activity during the tournament itself. Given I am a Professor of Gambling Studies it probably shouldn’t surprise you that when I gamble – even on World Cup matches – I expect to lose in the long run. However, that is not to say that I don’t have my ‘Golden Rules of Gambling’ that I apply in any gambling situation to help keep things in perspective. Some might say my rules are about the psychology of winning but I would prefer to describe them as the psychology of minimising losses! In some situations, there is a very fine line between psychology and common sense and this is one of those occasions. So here are my Golden Rules for safe and enjoyable gambling on World Cup football.

(1) Never gamble without some kind of pre-set plan and amount that you are prepared and/or can afford to lose. Winning gamblers set themselves win/loss goals before they enter a betting shop or use an online betting exchange. Planning and goals are the catalyst to life success and gambling should be no different.

(2) Don’t let the excitement of a gambling on a World Cup match detract from the pre-set plan you started with. If you are watching to win, only do what you planned to do and don’t get side tracked by adding additional side bets during the game.

(3) Remember that the excitement of gambling itself can lead to irrational thought processes. Psychological research has consistently shown that when gamblers are in the thick of their gambling ‘action’, they tend to be more irrational in how they think. Irrationality leads to poor decision-making and pre-set plans and budgets often go out of the window. Just like alcohol, gambling can make the betting punter do things that they would never have done in the cold light of day.

(4) Where possible, ignore promotions. As a general rule, betting promotions are the highest money earners for the gambling establishment’s marketing department. They are designed to get you into the betting shop or to get you gambling on something new. Avoid gambling with offers that seem too good to be true. They usually are! Stick with your pre-set plan and budget and you’ll be fine.

(5) Learn to think for yourself. General advice (like that contained in this blog) is one thing. Winners learn to sort things out for themselves and not rely on others. They are comfortable with how they approach their betting. You should also disregard rumours. Gambling can often invoke certain urban myths, such as “your first bet after opening an Internet gambling account is always a winning one’.” Banking on such speculation while betting is a recipe for disaster. Only factual information should inform your decision-making.

(6) Do your own “research”. As with any other product that involves the exchange of money, a gambler needs to do research to establish the best deals around. This is especially useful on Internet gambling sites and betting exchanges but can be applied to offline gambling too.

(7) Finally, gamble with your head and not with your heart. When it comes to gambling on England matches I try to employ strategies that leave me feeling good whatever the outcome. That is why (from a psychological perspective) I tend to bet against my own team. How much would you be prepared to pay to see England progress in the tournament? If England get to the World Cup Final I would be more than happy to pay £100 to see them do it therefore I would happily put £100 on England’s opponents to win. My logic has always been that I win either way. If England win, I will be on an ecstatic high. I wouldn’t care about losing £100. If England lose, at least I have the winnings to soften the blow!

Professor Mark Griffiths, psychologist, Nottingham Trent University

To speak to Professor Griffiths, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8782 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]

England is the third best football team in the world. And it’s not just the betting public who are saying so! By Professor Leighton Vaughan Williams

Who are you putting your money on?

Did you know that England are the third best team in the world? Yes, I’m talking football. At least that’s the finding of the soccer forecasting methodology employed by ESPN.

So how are the ratings calculated? Basically, there are four steps. The first is a calculation of a ‘competitiveness coefficient’, which assesses how seriously each game in the database is being treated by the teams involved. For example, a World Cup qualifier will be treated more seriously than a ‘friendly’.

The next step is to derive match-based ratings for all international and club teams. To do this, individual games are evaluated based on the number of goals a team scores and concedes relative to the quality of the competition, adjusting for home advantage.

The third step is to derive player-based ratings. This is an assessment of the quality of the particular players in an international team’s line-up based on their performance in both club and international play. The fundamental requirement here is that the sum of the ratings for all individual players in a team must equal the team’s ratings for the game.

In the model, the scorer of a goal is allocated half the credit for the goal, with the remaining half of the credit being distributed between the other players who are on the pitch when the goal is scored. Defenders are allocated a smaller share of the credit than forwards and midfielders. The converse applies to goals conceded.

The model also includes player debits for own-goals and for receiving red and yellow cards. All the ratings described above include a recency weighting, so that a game played 6 months ago, for example, receives a greater weighting than a game played 2 years ago. The final step is to combine the team and player data into a composite rating, based on the team that is likely to be actually used in a particular game.

As such, the methodology is predictive rather than backward-looking, and can be used to forecast for example which team is at an advantage in any individual World Cup 2010 encounter. There is an additional footnote to this methodology – that teams playing very strong opponents are likely to perform a little better than their overall rating if their defence is their relatively strong suit, whereas the converse applies when playing weaker teams.

All we need now is to input the data. According to the ESPN ratings, here are the top eight teams at the time of writing with the respective FIFA ranking in brackets: Brazil (1, 1), Spain (2, 2), England (3, 8), Argentina (4, 7), Netherlands (5, 4), Portugal (7, 3), Uruguay (8, 16).

At the time of writing, the betting exchanges, notably Betfair, rank the teams as follows – 1. Spain; 2. Brazil, 3. England, 4. Argentina, 5. Netherlands, 6. Germany, 7. Italy, 8. Portugal. Despite the reversal of Brazil and Spain at the top of the rankings, these mirror quite closely the ESPN rankings, the one significant disparity being Uruguay (ranked 8^th by ESPN but 17th by Betfair traders, who are in closer agreement with FIFA’s ranking of 16th).

My own Soccer Power Ratings (SPRs), which incorporate state-of-the-art forecasting methodologies as well as a range of trading information, rank the teams as follows: 1. Brazil, 2. Spain, 3. England, 4. Argentina, 5. Netherlands, 6. Germany, 7. Portugal. 8. Italy. For the record, Uruguay are ranked 14^th.

So just how good are the Uruguayans? It’ll be interesting to find out!

Professor Leighton Vaughan Williams, director of the Betting Research Unit, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham trent University

To speak to Leighton, call the University Press Office directly on 0115 848 8785 or email worldcup@ntu.ac.uk

[To view Nottingham Trent University’s team of World Cup experts go to www.ntu.ac.uk/worldcup]