Great work! I interviewed Lawro six years ago and this was his explanation for his predictions:
‘The system is very much, in capital letters, random. All I ever do, I read the paper at the weekend and I look at all the leagues, so I can tell you where most teams are in most leagues. It’s something I’ve always done.
But predictions wise, I do it on a Thursday morning. There’s my league table on there and the real one, I don’t even look at them. I’ll just remember Leicester winning last weekend or whatever, work out who they’re playing against, and just guess.’
I actually ran an extra Monte-Carlo test after I published the piece:
The Method: 100 k random portfolios of 5,582 bets, each priced at the average bookmaker odds.
House edge: those odds carry about a –5 % expected ROI for a typical punter.
Result: Lawro + Sutton’s actual record is +0.3 %. Fewer than 2 % of the random portfolios did that well—so it’s statistically above “pure luck,” even though the cash profit is tiny.
My point being : people should not be that hard on them despite the minimal absolute value returns 😅
Very interesting stuff, thank you. Didn’t know you can become one of these professionally in the UK.
I’m not sure whether the cummulative net profit line chart is chronological. If yes, i’m surprised Lawrenson’s credibility recovered after the initial dip.
Great work! I interviewed Lawro six years ago and this was his explanation for his predictions:
‘The system is very much, in capital letters, random. All I ever do, I read the paper at the weekend and I look at all the leagues, so I can tell you where most teams are in most leagues. It’s something I’ve always done.
But predictions wise, I do it on a Thursday morning. There’s my league table on there and the real one, I don’t even look at them. I’ll just remember Leicester winning last weekend or whatever, work out who they’re playing against, and just guess.’
Thank you, Andrew! 🙏
I actually ran an extra Monte-Carlo test after I published the piece:
The Method: 100 k random portfolios of 5,582 bets, each priced at the average bookmaker odds.
House edge: those odds carry about a –5 % expected ROI for a typical punter.
Result: Lawro + Sutton’s actual record is +0.3 %. Fewer than 2 % of the random portfolios did that well—so it’s statistically above “pure luck,” even though the cash profit is tiny.
My point being : people should not be that hard on them despite the minimal absolute value returns 😅
Very interesting stuff, thank you. Didn’t know you can become one of these professionally in the UK.
I’m not sure whether the cummulative net profit line chart is chronological. If yes, i’m surprised Lawrenson’s credibility recovered after the initial dip.
The bets are chronological, yes.
What surprises me most is that he stayed above zero that much time. Even though at the end, his ROR was just 1% over the whole 13 season period.
Love this niche topic, great read.
Amazed by these results in truth. Anticipated that the short priced bankers failing to win would create a negative equity curve long term.
That’s where the average punter is usually getting tripped up.
Thank you for the feedback!
I did check out his performance on the historic top 6 teams and the only team that returned a negative ROR was ironically his favourite Liverpool.
It’s funny you say that, I mentioned your preview note the other day to a mate, immediately replied with ‘Lawro backs Liverpool every week’.
Those top 6 results are baffling to me, but perhaps the pundits go against the grain every so often.