EDIT: Ok, calm down everybody, nothing to see here. Looks like one of Hawthorns main players has been ruled out and the line came back in. I have taken a bet on the other side to even out the wrong bet for a loss of $500, but if the game ends up a 15 point win to Hawthorn I will win both Essendon +15.5 and Hawthorn -14.5. I have also now placed the correct bets on Hawthorn so have pledged my allegiance to them tonight and removed that ugly Essendon banner and song I had at the bottom of this post. COME ON HAWKS.
Now that I have done this there is no doubt Essendon win easily.
———————written 7 hours earlier———————————-
After almost 4 years of placing bets, I have made a handful of errors. Sometimes I accidentally bet on the wrong team or at the wrong odds. Usually it can be fixed easily and I take a small loss by backing the correct side. These are usually due to not paying attention or if I bet at a bookmaker I am not familiar with that has a different layout to the majority of books.
Today was very different for many reasons. The Sportpunter AFL model is an amazing model. The vast majority of my profit has come from this one model. Because it is so good it is always a mad rush to get the bets on as the line for every game will move quickly. A line of say +15.5 will move to +11.5 in the space of 30 seconds if there is a suggested bet. The tips are released all at once at 11am on Friday. There are usually 8 or 9 games and on average about 3 or 4 will have large bets. It is an absolute scramble to get bets on with bookmakers moving lines in seconds and taking games off the board as soon as subscribers start backing these. The bookies are well aware of the Sportpunter scramble and have got very good at making sure they do not get hit too hard.
Today was like any other, I spent the previous hour finding the best odds and lines and the second and third best lines. I had everything in my spreadsheet ready to go. As 11 am ticked over, I updated the spreadsheet and saw two massive bets on the first two games. I quickly went off and bet the first game. $10,000 on Essendon +15.5. When I came back to the spreadsheet I realised my error. The probability column had not updated all the way down and was using the probabilities from the match last night. Instead of a $10,000 bet on Essendon, the real bet was $7,500 on Hawthorn. By this time the line had moved from +15.5 to +19.5 and if I was to try and back the other side, I had the very real risk of middling and losing both bets. I made sure that the other bets were right before placing them which resulted in taking more time and getting worse lines.
So now I just have to take this hit and hope variance is in my favour. If Hawthorn cover the line, what should have been a $7,000 profit will instead be a $10,000 loss. A $17,000 swing. On the rare chance the Sportpunter model is incorrect it will instead be a $17,000 swing in my favour. But these huge bets are the biggest overlays and Sportpunters real bread and butter, so I do not like my chances.