Post by tajiritarantula on Jun 27, 2005 6:31:32 GMT -5
Injuries, home ground advantage, fraud: they're all part of the mix in today's footy tipping competitions, writes Julie-Anne Davies.
Some people need to get out more. OK, we know that footy tipping is a metaphor for success but aren’t we taking it too seriously? Later this year, a Victorian policeman will face court after allegedly rigging his station’s $250 tipping competition.
Senior Constable Ronald Andrew Grimble has been charged with attempting to obtain property by deception. Yes, really. He stands accused of changing his tips after each round to stay ahead of his colleagues.
And the rot doesn’t end there. An Australian Bureau of Statistics employee, sacked for cheating in his office tipping competition, has created a bureaucratic bunfight by insisting that his crime wasn’t a hanging offence. “I simply didn’t think,” Anthony Cunningham told the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. Commissioner Brendan Eames ordered that the Hobart-based programmer be reinstated and noted that the manipulation of the footy tips “has not been demonstrated by the ABS to have impacted at all on either the community or the government”. Phew.
But clearly something is going on here. No one likes a cheat but it seems that Australians are especially hard on those who fiddle the office tipping competition. Footy tipping of any code is the great equaliser. Anyone can win and knowledge of the game is almost beside the point; it’s about belonging. The easiest segue into a new job is to join the tipping competition.
But everyone is struggling this year. Consider this statistic from Tatts Tipstar, which runs the AFL’s tipping competition (first prize $150,000). In 2004, after round 11, 1258 people had tipped 60 or more winners. This season, only three have 60 correct tips. According to Tatts Tipstar’s Gerry Divine, unexpected away wins have stumped many: “Adelaide beating St Kilda in Melbourne, Richmond beating Brisbane in Brisbane, and Hawthorn beating Fremantle in Perth – not many would have got those.”
The rise of Richmond, last year’s wooden spooner, has left many tipsters unconvinced and who but Eddie McGuire would have picked Collingwood to beat the then-undefeated West Coast in round nine? NRL tipping, since the introduction of salary caps, has been almost as tricky. Last year, the Parramatta Eels finished third last; now they’re sitting second from the top. And like their AFL counterparts, NRL office competitions have spawned occasional allegations of cheating.
At the halfway mark, Brett Hadley is joint leader in the AFL’s tipping contest. “I don’t want to give away too much but I guess my focus is on the match-ups,” Hadley says. But like many others, Hadley lets his club loyalties sway his choices. “I’m a St Kilda man and their season has been poor but I can’t tip against them so I’m not counting the money just yet,” he says.
Is there a scientific basis to tipping? Research has been done. Swinburne University Professor Stephen Clarke has identified two critical factors: form over the past two months and home-ground advantage.
His brother in-law, Roger Simon, is The Age computer tipster and the proxy of choice for many. In his 10th season, Simon is still tweaking his program. The computer has won three times in nine years but this season it is struggling.
Simon says one of his system’s biggest advantages is that it eschews loyalty and human factors. “Sometimes, yes, I do shudder at some of its predictions,” he says. “I’m an Essendon man and I don’t like tipping against them but generally I do what the computer says.”
Some people need to get out more. OK, we know that footy tipping is a metaphor for success but aren’t we taking it too seriously? Later this year, a Victorian policeman will face court after allegedly rigging his station’s $250 tipping competition.
Senior Constable Ronald Andrew Grimble has been charged with attempting to obtain property by deception. Yes, really. He stands accused of changing his tips after each round to stay ahead of his colleagues.
And the rot doesn’t end there. An Australian Bureau of Statistics employee, sacked for cheating in his office tipping competition, has created a bureaucratic bunfight by insisting that his crime wasn’t a hanging offence. “I simply didn’t think,” Anthony Cunningham told the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. Commissioner Brendan Eames ordered that the Hobart-based programmer be reinstated and noted that the manipulation of the footy tips “has not been demonstrated by the ABS to have impacted at all on either the community or the government”. Phew.
But clearly something is going on here. No one likes a cheat but it seems that Australians are especially hard on those who fiddle the office tipping competition. Footy tipping of any code is the great equaliser. Anyone can win and knowledge of the game is almost beside the point; it’s about belonging. The easiest segue into a new job is to join the tipping competition.
But everyone is struggling this year. Consider this statistic from Tatts Tipstar, which runs the AFL’s tipping competition (first prize $150,000). In 2004, after round 11, 1258 people had tipped 60 or more winners. This season, only three have 60 correct tips. According to Tatts Tipstar’s Gerry Divine, unexpected away wins have stumped many: “Adelaide beating St Kilda in Melbourne, Richmond beating Brisbane in Brisbane, and Hawthorn beating Fremantle in Perth – not many would have got those.”
The rise of Richmond, last year’s wooden spooner, has left many tipsters unconvinced and who but Eddie McGuire would have picked Collingwood to beat the then-undefeated West Coast in round nine? NRL tipping, since the introduction of salary caps, has been almost as tricky. Last year, the Parramatta Eels finished third last; now they’re sitting second from the top. And like their AFL counterparts, NRL office competitions have spawned occasional allegations of cheating.
At the halfway mark, Brett Hadley is joint leader in the AFL’s tipping contest. “I don’t want to give away too much but I guess my focus is on the match-ups,” Hadley says. But like many others, Hadley lets his club loyalties sway his choices. “I’m a St Kilda man and their season has been poor but I can’t tip against them so I’m not counting the money just yet,” he says.
Is there a scientific basis to tipping? Research has been done. Swinburne University Professor Stephen Clarke has identified two critical factors: form over the past two months and home-ground advantage.
His brother in-law, Roger Simon, is The Age computer tipster and the proxy of choice for many. In his 10th season, Simon is still tweaking his program. The computer has won three times in nine years but this season it is struggling.
Simon says one of his system’s biggest advantages is that it eschews loyalty and human factors. “Sometimes, yes, I do shudder at some of its predictions,” he says. “I’m an Essendon man and I don’t like tipping against them but generally I do what the computer says.”