Welcome to ALEX - the ALgorithmic EXpert.
ALEX applies sophisticated AI tools to a database of over 250,000 football match results to identify recurring underlying patterns of football 'behaviour'. She then looks at future matches, identifying the historic behaviour patterns that apply to these future matches. This gives her a unique insight into the likely outcomes of these future matches, allowing the identification of likely VALUE bets.
Betting exclusively on VALUE bets is the scientific way to make a profit. Only very unlucky people (the sort of people you wouldn't want to get on a plane with) will lose money if they bet consistently on VALUE bets.
ALEX identifies these bets, and she makes a recommended stake size, with the objective of maximising profitability.
New features are constantly under development, but forecasts currently available are...
Home Win Recommendations, including suggested stakes, for forthcoming fixtures.
End-season winners and losers - who's going up, and who's going down?
Special bets on match outcome and both teams to score.
Outlay & Profit History
Here's how Alex did so well in 2024-25. Over 25 weeks of betting, we saw 20 highly priced Home Wins delivering a return of £896 from stakes of £407 – a super profit of £489, just in excess of 120%. As ever, particular thanks are due to a few underdogs, and I am especially grateful to St Johnstone (v Celtic) and Heerenveen (v PSV Eindhoven) for rising superbly to the challenge and winning at 16/1 and 14/1 against.
Could it have been just luck? That’s always a very good question so I did a simulation of 1 million gamblers betting at random on the season’s 8,000 or so matches covered, with each allowed the same £407 total stake. The distribution of the profits that they achieved is shown below. The 1 million random gamblers’ results are all in the red peak to the left while ALEX’ performance is marked by the black line way to the right, almost off the scale.
Most of these gamblers lost money. 20% did make a profit, the highest (out of 1 million attempts) being £115 – that’s pretty good but it’s nowhere near the £489 made by ALEX.
Even if you have more than 1 million gamblers – and let’s say you have 1 gambler for every atom in the observable universe (and I’ve done that calculation) - it’s still highly, highly unlikely that any of these atomic gamblers would do better than ALEX. So her performance is probably a bit more than just luck.
What does this mean for next season? Is success guaranteed in 2025-26? Sadly not, but it does mean that a poor season would be very much against the run of play.
Outright Winners and Losers
on 9th October, 2025, I wrote...
Forecasting which league position the premiership teams will be in at the end of the season is challenging. So many things can happen in between now and next summer that can’t be foreseen – key player transfers, managerial ins and outs, point deductions for financial mismanagement, inexplicable losses in team form, inexplicable surges in team form, Covid-26 – the list goes on. But, on the other hand it’s very interesting to look ahead, so here I bring you my first set of 2025-26 end season forecasts. The current outlook for the end of the season is:
Arsenal is the most likely team to come top at the moment, with probability about 50%
It’s likely that most of current top 4 (Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs and Bournemouth) will still be in the top 4 at end season
The chance of a team outside the current top 4 winning is about 20%
It’s likely that at least 1, and perhaps 2, of the 3 bottom teams (Burnley, Wolves and West Ham) will be playing Championship football next season for them
Bookmakers are usually pretty good at assessing outcomes, so how do they see things?
They have Arsenal at 19/20 to win the league. About fair value, not worth a bet.
They have Liverpool at 14/5 to win the league – again about right, not worth a bet.
They have Bournemouth at 200/1 to win the league – I’ve already got my bet on!
At the other end of the table they have Burnley, Wolves and West Ham as the most likely contenders for relegation. West Ham at 13/8 against makes an OK bet, but Bournemouth is such good value it’s probably better to just put more money on them!
For followers of the National League, similar analysis suggests that:
4–5 teams from Rochdale, Forest Green, Carlisle, Boreham Wood, Scunthorpe, Halifax and York are likely to end in the top 7 – with promotion guaranteed for 1 and via play-offs for 1 other
2–3 teams from Braintree, Sutton, Truro and Morecambe are likely to end in the bottom 4
The probability of Aldershot – currently 19th of 24 – being relegated is about 15%
At the end of October I will rerun the analysis.
For those who are interested, these forecasts are based on 3 quite different approaches, all using historic data as the basis of the analysis.
Approach 1 – the “Stats” model – is based on a statistical analysis of the historic data to tell us where the teams in positions 1, 2, 3 etc. today tend to have ended up at the end of the season.
Approach 2 – the “ML” model – uses Machine Learning to assess how well the teams are performing at certain check points through the season and then uses this to determine the end season ranking.
Approach 3 – the “MC” model – applies Monte-Carlo analysis to offer a range of likely end-season rankings.
Why 3 models? All models are just imitations of reality and as such, all models are wrong. But some are useful, and by comparing the forecasts of the 3 different models I can test the level of forecast consensus as a confidence measure.
Results from 1995 to 2020 have been used to build the models, and then from 2021 to 2024 to test them, and with acceptable confidence from the testing, I have applied the models to the English Premier League for season 2025–26.
My Stats model suggests that…
Arsenal has a 33% chance of winning (Liverpool 25%, Spurs 13%, Bournemouth 8%)
2–3 teams from Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs and Bournemouth are likely to finish in the top 4
1–2 teams from Burnley, West Ham and Wolves are likely to finish in the bottom 3
My ML model suggests that…
Arsenal has a 50% chance of winning
3 teams from Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs and Bournemouth are likely to finish in the top 4
2 teams from Burnley, West Ham and Wolves are likely to finish in the bottom 3
My MC model suggests that…
Arsenal has a 50% chance of winning
3 teams from Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs and Bournemouth are likely to finish in the top 4
At least 1 of Burnley, West Ham and Wolves is likely to finish in the bottom 3
Combining these results has given the overall view presented at the top of this post.
on 8th September, 2025, I wrote...
How well did "Winners and Losers" picks do last season? On 4th April (see below), with 8 games to go, I picked a top 4 of Liverpool, Arsenal, Forest and Man City. So I got 3 out of 4 after Forest fell away so disappointingly at the end. But I got all 3 relegation teams of Southampton, Leicester and Ipswich. In the National League my forecast (made on March 1st) of Aldershot to finish "17th or 18th" was just off - they finished in 16th place, 1 point above the 17th and 18th placed teams - so pretty close.
on 4th April, 2025, I wrote...
With only 8 games to go for most premiership teams, it looks like the top 4 (per my ups and downs models) are going to be Liverpool, Arsenal, Forest and probably Man City 4th, though there is some support for Chelsea to be 4th, but none at all for Newcastle.
The relegation teams are currently likely to be Southampton, Leicester and Ipswich, but with still an outside chance of Wolves deposing one of those 3 - less than 5% probability - bookmakers are offering 14/1 so not worth it.
These forecasts are in line with William Hill’s cash out offers on my early season bets. They will give me £19 for my Forest top 4 bet (£29 full payout if I hang on) but only £1 for my Wolves relegation bet (full payout £25).
On 1st March, 2025, I wrote...
I have also been looking at end season outcomes and can confirm that the chance of Liverpool NOT being champions is pretty slim. To quantify this, I used a look-back model that simply evaluates where teams ended up historically based on their end-February position, and on this basis Liverpool’s winning chances are 66%.
A more sophisticated model that ‘plays’ out all remaining matches, taking current form into account, sees their chances at 96%.
At the other end of the table, most likely to go down are Leicester, Ipswich and Southampton, while Wolves have about a 40% chance of replacing one of these teams in that select group.
And at the other end of the English Pyramid, where I have a particular affection (some might say affliction) for Aldershot, it looks like we are heading for a 17th or 18th place finish, with relegation an outside chance at about 10% likelihood.
But remember, ALL models are wrong, but some are useful.
Latest blog posts...
Scotland to star at the 2026 World Cup - posted on 20th November, 2025
So, in case you hadn’t heard, it’s now confirmed (though was it ever in any doubt) that Scotland will be participating in the 2026 World Cup in America. This is the first time they’ve made it to the finals this millennium, so joy is overflowing in Scotland.
Tuesday’s game at home to Denmark (and you can never rule Denmark out – they won the EUFA Euro 1992 competition without even qualifying!) saw the boys score 4 goals against Denmark’s 2. The first, by McTominey, was a spectacular overhead kick and a real show stopper; the second, by Shankland, was a pretty soft but well taken under pressure tap in from a corner; the third, by Tierney, was a great reflex response to a loose ball coming out of the Danish penalty area; the fourth, by Mclean, was an exhibition goal when he spotted Kasper Schmeichel off his line and struck from inside the Scottish half with almost the last kick of the game. You can only imagine how poor Schmeichel felt as he desperately tried to get back to his goal only to see the ball fly over his head into the net. Imagine yes, but sympathise – definitely No! This was definitely my favourite goal, and maybe my favourite goal of all time.
How well will Scotland do? The bookmakers currently have them priced at 150/1 against. Their three favourites are Spain (9/2) then England (6/1 - really?) and then France (13/2). Currently the biggest outsider is New Caledonia, priced at 4000/1, but they first must succeed in the playoffs to get to the actual finals.
In all, there will be 48 teams (up from 32), with the first round being based on 12 x 4 team groups. These leagues will by very strongly seeded, making it difficult for the minnows (such as Scotland, New Caledonia, Curaçao, Cape Verde, and Haiti) to proceed to the Round of 32. Here are the official tie-breaking criteria for progression…
The ranking of teams in each group is determined by the points obtained in all group matches. If two or more teams are equal on points, the following criteria are used to determine the ranking:
(a) Most points obtained in the group matches played between the teams concerned;
(b) Superior goal difference in the group matches played between the teams concerned;
(c) Most goals scored in the group matches played between the teams concerned;
If, after having applied criteria (a) to (c), teams still have an equal ranking, criteria (a) to (c) are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the teams who are still level to determine their final rankings. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria (d) to (h) apply.
(d) Superior goal difference in all group matches;
(e) Most goals scored in all group matches;
(f) Highest team conduct ("fair play") score in all group matches (only one deduction can be applied to a player or team coach/official in a single match):
Yellow card: 1 point; Indirect red card (second yellow card): 3 points; Direct red card: 4 points; Yellow card and direct red card: 5 points;
(g) Better position in the most recent FIFA Men's World Ranking;
(h) Better position in progressively older FIFA Men's World Rankings until teams can be separated;
So that’s all clear then. In theory, progression to the round of 32 could be determined by the FIFA rankings of the last century.
After the group stage it becomes a knockout (albeit with an element of seeding) so from then on things get a little bit easier for outsiders.
Is Scotland a good bet at 150/1?
One way to look at this is to imagine the same games being played in 150 parallel universes simultaneously, with each having some butterfly-effect differences. Would Scotland come out as winners more than once? If you think that is the case then get your money on.
Is there a role for ChatGPT? - posted on 14th March, 2025
I decided to get some help from ChatGPT this week. The numbers I use each week come from various sources, with a fair amount of manual processing so I thought I can get ChatGPT to do this for me, and save myself a little bit of time and a lot of tedium.
So as an easy start (and this one really is easy), I said to ChatGPT - please give me the home, draw and away odds for the weekend fixtures, as given on the William Hill site. Sure enough it gave me back a table of fixtures and numbers. But were they correct? Some of the odds appeared to be unusual. So I looked up one of the fixtures to check. Surprise, surprise - the fixture wasn’t even in the weekend list. When I investigated further I found that none of them was. They looked ok but they weren’t real. They were ChatGPT hallucinations.
So I fed this back to ChatGPT. Its response was that, for several reasons including web scraping challenges and the requirement to have interactions with the website (the exact same things that make it tedious for me), it was difficult to get the William Hill numbers, so instead it had provided me with “placeholders”.
So I gave it another chance to come clean…
To be fair, ChatGPT does advise users to double check its advice, and it did appreciate my scrutiny.
You'll notice that I now interact with ChatGPT as if he/she were a person. Would it pass the famous Turing test? Well, who better to ask than ChatGPT.
I think it shows great self-awareness in recognising and articulating some of its deficiences, and its potential.
What's happened to Home wins? - posted on 27th February, 2025
There was a story on the BBC this week reporting that Home Wins are at a low ebb in the Premiership. This matters for ALEX's recommendations as she only recommends home wins, and that could be a problem if there are less of them.
The BBC found that there has been a smaller proportion of home wins in the Premiership this season than in any prior season excluding the Covid season. The proportion so far is 39%, while typically you would expect to see about 45% - so that's a big reduction. There was a plausible hypothesis that the Covid season proportion was down because the lack of fans meant that referees were less likely to suffer home crowd intimidation, so fewer decisions were 'given' to the home team. That's plainly not the case now, so what else could be going on?
It's always good to check the data for reports like this, so I did just that. Indeed, the proportion in the Premiership is down as reported (to 39% from last season's 46%). But is this a widespread issue? I looked at this season's figures for the more than 20 of the top European divisions in ALEX's scope, and found that in only 2 other divisions has a similar trend been observed - the German Bundesliga 2 is down to 38% (46% last season) while the Greek Super League is at 39% (45% last season). At the other end of the spectrum, the Scottish Championship is at 52% (against a very low 37% last season) and the Scottish Division 2 is 52% (versus 41% last season). If these outliers are ignored the European average is 44%, comfortably near the long-term figure.
So while the BBC presents several pretty interesting theories to explain the 'change', which may indeed be having some impact, maybe it's no more than a statistical wobble. I will take another look at the end of the season and let you know.
Introductory blog - posted on 19th February, 2025
Hi there. I will add posts from time to time, looking at things that are football-interesting, gambling-interesting or anything else that takes my fancy-interesting.
