Como beat Leipzig 4–1, the lay lost €820, and the book goes below the line for the first time since the reset. Tonight we take the draw at the Penzo: €1,000 to win €2,401, between two sides with no points at all.

Como won 4–1 and the lay lost the full €820. This book has now laid Como twice, at 1.84 on 4 September and at 1.82 last night, and watched them win 4–1 on both occasions. Ten positions closed, four wins, six losses, minus €820 on €9,230 of risk — the first time the ledger has been under water since it reset on 1 September. Six of the last seven have lost. One pattern inside that is worth publishing rather than hiding, with the caveat that ten positions is not a sample and cannot be one: every winning lay on this book came at 1.94 or longer, and every losing lay came at 1.84 or shorter. Nothing in between has been filed. That is either the obvious thing — short prices are short because favourites at short prices hold — or it is noise wearing a pattern’s clothes. At ten positions there is no way to tell, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something.

Tonight the position is the draw, for the second time on this book. Venezia host Fiorentina at the Penzo at 3.45: €1,000 at risk to win €2,401. This is the narrow shape and it is worth restating what it costs — one result out of three pays, and when it doesn’t the whole stake goes, not a liability. The case is simply the table. Venezia are eighteenth with no points from three, beaten 3–2 by Frosinone last time out. Fiorentina are twentieth with no points from three and replaced Fabio Grosso with Paolo Vanoli on Monday. Neither side has won a match this season and the exchange still has to make one of them a favourite: Fiorentina at 2.58, on the road, four days into a new manager. Strip the margin off the back column — 3.0 Venezia, 3.45 the draw, 2.58 Fiorentina, an overround of 101.1% — and the fair line reads 33.0% / 28.7% / 38.3%. We need 29.4%. Seven tenths of a point against us, roughly €25 of negative expectation per €1,000: wider in euros than any lay this book has taken, which is what the same percentage of margin does at a longer price.

The honest counter is the one that always applies to a straight draw. We are asking for one specific result out of three, and “two teams playing badly” is a mood, not a mechanism — bad sides lose matches as readily as they draw them, and Venezia have conceded three in each of the games that put them where they are. A new manager tends to arrive with a bounce, which argues for Fiorentina. The head-to-head argues for neither of us: Venezia have lost one of their last four Serie A meetings with Fiorentina and are unbeaten in their last five at home against them, which is a case for Venezia to win, not for the game to finish level. We are seven tenths of a point short on the arithmetic and we need one result out of three. Ten closed positions and minus €820 is not evidence of anything yet, in either direction.