The Shrinkflation of Betting Edges - Is Genuine Value Disappearing From Football Markets?

[SharpEddie47]

Spent last month going back through my records comparing edge quality across five-year periods.

2005-2010: average closing line value on my bets approximately 3.2%. Meaningful edge. Consistent.

2010-2015: 2.7%. Still positive. Noticeable decline.

2015-2020: 1.9%. Getting thin.

2020-2024: 1.4%.

The trend is clear and it's been clear for a while. The edges I was finding in 2007 don't exist in 2024. Not because I've gotten worse. Because the market has gotten better.

AI odds compilation. Official real-time data feeds. US institutional money improving European market efficiency. Syndicates operating at larger scale with better models.

The question I'm trying to answer honestly: is there still genuine positive expected value available for a serious retail bettor in football markets or are we past the point where that's realistic.

I don't have a clean answer yet.

 

[FadeThePublic]

The public money edge I've built everything on has compressed.

Not disappeared. Compressed.

2010: fading heavily public-sided games produced strong returns. The gap between public perception and actual probability was large enough to be systematically exploitable.

2024: the gap still exists. The market corrects for it faster and more completely than it used to.

The books have gotten better at pricing public sentiment into their lines before I can act on it.

The opening line that used to sit at -3.5 public favorite in 2010 now opens at -4 because the book has already priced in the public lean.

The edge hasn't disappeared. It's been partially absorbed by the operators before I can reach it.

The window is shorter. The return per bet is smaller. The methodology still works.

For how much longer is the honest question I don't want to answer.

 

[Klaus]

The Bundesliga edge has narrowed but remains.

Specific data: my model's closing line value has decreased approximately 0.8% over the last seven years.

Still positive. The positive return is genuine.

But the trajectory is consistent with Eddie's observation.

The reason in my specific case: Bundesliga data infrastructure has improved dramatically. Stats Perform now provides granular in-play and pre-match data to operators that was unavailable seven years ago.

The information I was ahead of the operators on in 2017 the operators now have access to as standard.

My model compensates partly by going deeper into secondary factors the data providers don't capture.

But the data providers are expanding their coverage continuously.

Every year there are fewer factors they don't capture.

 

[oli_sussex]

From the exchange the efficiency increase was visible in real time.

2012-2015: genuine pricing errors in specific markets. Observable. Exploitable. Consistent source of edge for disciplined traders.

2015-2019: errors becoming rarer. Corrected faster when they appeared. Window to act narrowing from minutes to seconds.

2019-2023: the obvious errors are largely gone from top-flight markets. The remaining inefficiencies require either significantly better data or significantly faster execution than retail bettors have access to.

The exchange premium charge tightened simultaneously with the efficiency increase.

The combination: fewer edges available, smaller margins when found, higher platform costs for consistent winners.

Left the exchange partly because the business case for serious trading was deteriorating structurally.

 

[TaffyTipster]

Not sophisticated enough to have tracked closing line value.

But I've noticed something practical.

The Six Nations prices I get now versus ten years ago. The early prices that used to represent genuine value.

I used to be able to get Wales at prices that looked wrong by the time the match started.

Now when I get what looks like a good early price on Wales it moves toward me immediately.

Sharp money appears within minutes and corrects whatever I thought I'd found.

The correction speed tells you something about how many eyes are on those markets now compared to a decade ago.

 

[SharpEddie47]

Taffy observing the correction speed is the practical measure of efficiency.

The academic definition of an efficient market is one where prices reflect all available information immediately.

Football markets aren't there yet. But the speed at which they approach that state has increased dramatically.

The retail bettor's edge was always in the gap between information existing and prices reflecting it.

That gap has compressed.

 

[FadeThePublic]

The US legalization is underappreciated as a factor in European market efficiency.

2018 onwards: serious American institutional money engaging with European football markets.

European football was relatively inefficient compared to US sports markets partly because the US capital wasn't in it.

Post-PASPA that changed.

Sharp American money is now consistently in Champions League and top Premier League markets.

Markets that were somewhat soft in 2017 have been bet to significantly tighter margins partly because of American capital and modeling sophistication entering them.

The domestic UK market tightened itself. The international market tightened because America arrived.

 

[CoachTony_Bets]

American perspective on the other side of this.

NFL markets are brutally efficient now. Have been for years.

The sophisticated money has been in NFL for decades. The retail edge was always thin and is now essentially non-existent in standard markets.

The NFL prop market exploded as an alternative source of value when the main markets closed up. Then that got efficient too.

The pattern Eddie's describing in football is the pattern that played out in American football years earlier.

What happened to NFL markets is probably the destination for European football markets.

The timeline might be five years or might be ten but the direction is clear.