Companion site · Free
Worked solutions
Every chapter of The Stat Man ends with exercises and short answers. These pages show the full working, step by step, so you can check yours.
The book prints the question and a one-line answer. Here is everything in between: the conversions, the sums and the reasoning, with each number calculated by the same code that builds this site. The exercises are paraphrased; the book has them in full, along with the chapters that explain why the method works.
27 chapters are covered so far: 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30 and 32. Chapters 2 and 3 print their answers in full in the book itself; 26, 27 and 31 are still to come. Six free tools sit alongside: the margin remover, the Poisson match predictor, the season simulator, and calculators for Kelly stakes, value bets and both teams to score.
Chapter 1 · 4 exercises
Confessions of a Stat Man
The working behind the four exercises that close chapter one: the memory audit, a fair coin at three prices, the Leicester question, and the one number you should decide while calm.
Chapter 4 · 5 exercises
What Is Value, Actually?
Five scenarios, three numbers each: the break-even probability, the expected value per pound and the edge. Then a ruling, and the reason for it.
Chapter 5 · 4 exercises
The Longshot Tax
The working for chapter five's four exercises: what 5000/1 claims, whether Leicester was value, how badly 100/1 shots are priced, and when a cash-out offer is worth refusing.
Chapter 6 · 4 exercises
Where Prices Really Come From
Worked solutions for chapter six: reading a sharp price against a soft one, valuing a price the market has left behind, the Yellow Sam blockade and beating the close.
Chapter 7 · 4 exercises
The House's Head Start
Booksum, overround and margin worked out for chapter seven's four markets, plus the audit worksheet to fill in with a Saturday coupon of your own.
Chapter 8 · 3 exercises
Stripping the Vig
Chapter eight's three exercises worked in full: a three-way market stripped two ways, an over/under market where Shin needs no solver, and a specimen correct-score audit run through all four methods.
Chapter 9 · 5 exercises
The Exchange Revolution (and the In-Play Casino)
Chapter nine worked: lay liability, commission on a winning back bet, the effective price after commission, and when an exchange beats a bookmaker.
Chapter 10 · 5 exercises
The Acca Tax
Chapter ten worked: how leg margins compound in doubles and six-folds, the Craggs check, a value treble, and how many legs take the margin past half.
Chapter 11 · 3 exercises
Small Print That Costs You Money
Chapter eleven worked: settling an each-way second, a Rule 4 deduction on a winner, and a dead heat for the last place with Rule 4 on top.
Chapter 12 · 4 exercises
The Wisest Idiot in the Room
Chapter twelve worked: your number against a sharp close, a tiny edge in pounds, the error of a crowd average, and closing line value on a 6/4 bet.
Chapter 13 · 3 exercises
The Market's Bad Habits
Chapter thirteen worked: testing a favourite-shortening claim over 200 matches, a fatigue price at 6/5, and what an 80/1 first scorer really costs.
Chapter 14 · 3 exercises
Follow the Smart Money, Mind the Clock
Chapter fourteen worked: fair prices from Pinnacle, edges against the best soft prices, an arbitrage split on £100, and why a drift alone is not a bet.
Chapter 15 · 4 exercises
The Ten-Point Price Check
Chapter fifteen worked: one away price at 12/5 taken through the claim, a de-vigged sharp market, an edge threshold and a quarter-Kelly stake.
Chapter 16 · 3 exercises
Poisson and Chips
Chapter sixteen worked: the away side's +0.5 and +1.5 handicaps, settling a £40 quarter-line slip, and repricing the match when the home striker drops out.
Chapter 17 · 2 exercises
Patching the Machine: Dixon and Coles
Chapter seventeen worked: the Dixon-Coles patch applied by hand to a fresh match, and how to argue for a faster forgetting rate after a change of manager.
Chapter 18 · 3 exercises
Rating the Teams: Elo, Pi and the Art of Forgetting
Chapter eighteen worked: two Elo updates by hand, a favourite held to a draw and a three-goal away win, and the case for a faster K-factor after promotion.
Chapter 19 · 1 exercises
What xG Is Actually For
Chapter nineteen worked: turning xG for and against into attack and defence ratings, then into expected goals and fair match odds.
Chapter 20 · 1 exercises
Luck, PDO and the Regression Monster
Chapter twenty worked: PDO for six teams ten matches in, and which two are the clearest candidates to regress, one down and one up.
Chapter 21 · 1 exercises
Home Sweet Home (Less So)
Chapter twenty-one worked: halve the home-advantage gap in the chapter 16 match and see how far the prices move.
Chapter 22 · 1 exercises
The Data Chapter
Chapter twenty-two worked: league home and away goal averages from a specimen eight-match slice, and the overround on an average-odds column.
Chapter 23 · 1 exercises
Backtesting Without Fooling Yourself
Chapter twenty-three worked: the three leaks in a too-good Championship backtest, why each one flatters the result, and what the honest version does.
Chapter 24 · 1 exercises
Silicon Tipsters on Trial
Chapter twenty-four worked: a Brier score for five forecasts, judged against the 0.25 coin-flip baseline, and why one confident miss dominates.
Chapter 25 · 3 exercises
The Robot That Read Every Press Conference
Chapter twenty-five worked: manual checks on forty parsed press conferences, one success in five attempts, and a model's stated confidence.
Chapter 28 · 3 exercises
Simulate Before You Speculate
Chapter twenty-eight worked: the chance of a losing season with a real edge, at 6/4 and at evens, plus a free season simulator for the third exercise.
Chapter 29 · 5 exercises
How Much to Stake: Kelly Is Responsible Gambling in Disguise
Chapter twenty-nine worked: full and quarter Kelly stakes for four prices from 9/4 to evens, and which of them should not be bet at all.
Chapter 30 · 4 exercises
Skill or Fluke? Black Cats in Coal Cellars
Chapter thirty worked: auditing a 200-bet record with a 12.7 per cent yield and negative CLV, from strike rate to confidence interval to a verdict.
Chapter 32 · 2 exercises
Why You'll Probably Still Lose (and How to Stop It Costing You)
Chapter thirty-two worked: booksum, overround and margin on an 8/11, 12/5, 7/2 market, the firm's expected take on £250,000, and a staking review.
Tool
Margin remover
Strip the margin from any market four ways: multiplicative, additive, power and Shin.
Tool
Poisson match predictor
Correct score, match odds, goals, both teams to score and Asian handicap fair prices from expected goals, with an optional Dixon-Coles correction.
Tool
Season simulator
Play a season of bets thousands of times at your price, edge and staking, and see the one-in-twenty bad year.
Tool
Kelly criterion calculator
Kelly stake from your probability and the price, with half and quarter Kelly.
Tool
Value bet calculator
Edge and expected value against your own probability or a sharp market.
Tool
BTTS calculator
Both teams to score probability and fair prices from expected goals.
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