Expected Points v Actual Points

[Stocksfield_Poolie]

With the final run in of games last season, I produced a stats based expected points thread basically to see if we could make the playoffs according to the odds or whether we would fall short.

This season, I will be doing something similar but I will be splitting it into home and away, and total games played.
Will Pools get the expected points at home according to the odds, will we fall short in our away games?
And what will be the overall points we should get according to the odds?

I'll finalise everything nice and neatly over the next few weeks.
However with me being mega busy, I will only have time today to quickly post the expected points for today's game:

Yeovil 38%
Pools 33%
Draw 29%

Played 1, Expected Away Points 1.28 points,
Played 1, Expected Total Points, 1.28 points,
Expected Points for 46 games (depending on Morecambe), 58.88 points.

We will see how close the actual points are to expected as the season progresses!

[accrington fan]

pools need to turn these fraction of points into full numbers.

[Stocksfield_Poolie]

Screenshot 2025-08-13 162708.png

[loyal_fan]

This will end up being quite interesting but suspect our cumulative expected points will be relatively low given 3 points for a win

[poolie1966]

Surely our expected home points will be 1.20 as 40% of 3 points is 1.2 points. If the expected points are 1.5, than that's a 50% chance of winning? Unless I have mis-understood how this works!!

[Stocksfield_Poolie]

You have to take consider the chances of a draw as well as the win.
Trust me the maths is spot on and I have used this method for decades.

Lets take an example of Pools first 12 home games:

Say Pools are 50% to win in each of these home games.
They are predicted to win 6 matches, 50% of 12.

And say the chances of a draw in each of these 12 games is 25%.
They are prediced to draw 3 matches, 25% of 12.

That would give them 6 wins x 3 points equals 18 points.
And 3 draws x 1 point equals 3 points.
Add up the 18 points + 3 points and that gives them an expected total of 21 points from these 12 home games.

So going back to the maths for each game:

Pools expected points is 50% x 3 points plus 25% of 1 point.
Which gives an expected points return of 1.5 plus 0.25, which is 1.75 points from each game.
1.75 x 12 games should give an expected points return of 21 points.

Hopefully that explains how the expected points work.

[accrington fan]

if only expected points became the real points i,d have made a fortune on the football pools and betting now to give me a chance of owning the club.

[Stocksfield_Poolie]

Raj still would not sell!!!

[accrington fan]

Raj still would not sell!!!

he would as i,d be a cash buyer.

[Grayhoundend]

Raj still would not sell!!!

Who cares if he does or not