AFL 2009 Season - Brownlow Medal Results

An extremely successful year was had this year betting on the Brownlow medal courtesy of the predictions released on this site - thanks of course to Gary Ablett winning at odds of $3 (at least when I placed my bet), massive value when I rated him a 75% chance to win.  The only real downside was Dane Swan not polling as well as I - and most other people expected - this took out a few multiple bets I'd placed, but nonetheless a multitude of other bets out there more than made up for this.

A list of all the bets that returned a profit are listed here:

• Gary Ablett to win - 75% @ $3
• Jimmy Bartel to top group comprised of Cooney, B Harvey, Deledio, Jobe Watson and Scott Thompson - 21% @ $7.5
• Bernie Vince to top group comprised of Adam Selwood, Rich, Akermanis, Hodge and Hasleby - 66% @ $2
• Fevola to top group comprised of Koschitzke, Franklin, LeCras, Pavlich and Tredrea - 75% @ $3
• Vince to top Adelaide - 53% @ $2.40
• Brown to top Brisbane 82% @ $2.2
• Winderlich to top Essendon - 17% @ $34
• Pavlich to top Fremantle - 57% @ $4
• Ablett to top Geelong - 99% at 1.12
• Richardson to top Richmond - under Any Other Player (not Deledio, Foley, Tambling, Jackson or Tuck) 49% @ $4
• LeCras to top West Coast - 34% @ 3.25

A couple of these options ended up tying with another player, effectively  halving the odds - having said that we managed to return over 50% profit on the night mainly thanks to Ablett winning and Winderlich topping Essendon at long odds.

A couple of missed opportunities were there as well - the first was Jonathan Brown to finish in the top 5 overall.  I rated him 5th in my predictions, which is exactly where he placed at massive odds of $18.  

Another was Dane Swan - he was paying $1.03 to top Collingwood's votes, whereas I rated him 91% chance, so under the odds - this represented a very nice laying opportunity where you could have taken on someone else's massive bet for a very minor risk - ie if you took $1,000 of someone's money, you would have only risked paying out $30 had Dane Swan topped Collingwood.  Turns out he didn't, so you would have pocketed the $1,000.

Still it was a very successful event overall, and in the days since I've come across a plethora of detailed player statistics that should only improve the model and it's results.  And as always, if not well we still have a model that is extremely capable.

So the only piece of AFL prediction left for the year will be the grand final, which I'll upload after the final team selections are announced.  At this stage on team form alone I'd rate Geelong slightly on top, however once we factor in the player's named this may change.  Til then.