β lab Β· 24 backtests ranked by skill vs the market Β· ran 7/7/2026
| Backtest | Model | Comp | Bets | ROI | CLV | Brier edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #29 | ml_gbm_v1 | PPL | 3,581 | -3.8% | 0.68% | -0.00063 |
| #28 | ml_gbm_v1 | DED | 4,313 | -1.8% | -0.14% | -0.00207 |
| #27 | ml_gbm_v1 | FL1 | 5,766 | -5.1% | 0.10% | -0.00221 |
| #26 | ml_gbm_v1 | BL1 | 5,468 | -4.4% | 0.49% | -0.00237 |
| #25 | ml_gbm_v1 | SA | 6,574 | -7.2% | 0.52% | -0.00243 |
| #22 | ml_gbm_v1 | PD | 6,843 | -7.3% | 0.15% | -0.00318 |
| #10 | ml_gbm_v1 | EPL | 336 | -4.7% | 0.28% | -0.00357 |
| #21 | ml_gbm_v1 | EPL | 8,430 | -3.3% | 0.40% | -0.00391 |
| #18 | ml_gbm_v1 | EPL | 9,586 | -1.5% | 0.53% | -0.00465 |
| #1 | poisson_tw | EPL | 353 | -5.8% | -1.05% | -0.00526 |
| #19 | ml_gbm_v1 | EPL | 9,793 | -1.9% | 0.38% | -0.00563 |
| #16 | ml_gbm_v1 | EPL | 9,588 | -2.9% | 0.42% | -0.00575 |
| #12 | poisson_tw | EPL | 1,442 | -11.4% | -0.44% | -0.00595 |
| #17 | poisson_tw | EPL | 1,442 | -11.4% | -0.44% | -0.00595 |
| #2 | poisson_tw | EPL | 2,322 | -7.0% | -0.25% | -0.00617 |
| #20 | ml_gbm_v1 | EPL | 9,900 | -2.4% | 0.40% | -0.00637 |
| #14 | ml_gbm_v1 | EPL | 9,248 | -2.2% | 0.31% | -0.00702 |
| #15 | ml_gbm_v1 | EPL | 9,659 | -1.0% | 0.31% | -0.00718 |
| #13 | ml_gbm_v1 | EPL | 9,247 | -1.4% | 0.42% | -0.00764 |
| #7 | ml_gbm_v1 | EPL | 8,235 | -1.3% | 0.28% | -0.00875 |
| #11 | ml_gbm_v1 | EPL | 8,203 | -2.7% | 0.42% | -0.00966 |
| #6 | ml_gbm_v1 | EL2 | 9,818 | -5.5% | -0.04% | -0.01067 |
| #4 | ml_gbm_v1 | EPL | 10,506 | -2.1% | 0.07% | -0.02901 |
| #3 | ml_gbm_v1 | EPL | 10,616 | -3.0% | 0.06% | -0.03131 |
| Code | Status | Description |
|---|---|---|
| draw_family_v1 | dormant | The sweep survivor: back the DRAW when model edge > 10% in high-tempo matchups. Verdict window +12.6% on 324 unseen bets (upper bound). [BLOCKED: model 'gbm' needs a forward-serving job the executor doesn't have yet β review finding #12; was mislabeled 'armed'.] |
| draw_calm_books_v1 | dormant | Sibling survivor: back the DRAW when edge > 15% and bookmaker margin is low. Verdict +4.5% on 429 unseen bets. [BLOCKED: model 'gbm' needs a forward-serving job the executor doesn't have yet β review finding #12; was mislabeled 'armed'.] |
| mlb_dog_variance_v1 | live | Baseball is the highest-variance major sport (rating->win only +0.12) yet the public loves favorites. Back MLB underdogs priced 2.2-3.5 when our Elo edge is at worst -3%. |
| elo_value_mlb_v1 | live | Straight Elo value on MLB moneylines: bet either side when Elo win probability beats the best price by 4%. |
| drought_fade_v1 | live | Law-derived (winless-run replicates in 4 sports): bet AGAINST any side whose opponent... no β whose own winless run is 4+ games, when priced under 2.8. Fade the drought. |
| steam_confusion_v1 | live | Market-structure play: when bookmakers DISAGREE hard on a price (cross-book spread > 8%), take the best available price on the side with any positive Elo edge β someone is wrong, take the generous one. |
| fatigue_fade_nba_v1 | armed | Law-derived (NBA congestion is real, r=-0.067): fade NBA teams playing their 4th+ game in 7 days against fresher opponents. |
| hot_hand_fade_v1 | live | Mean-reversion creative: fade sides whose Elo momentum is scorching (opponent momentum in top band) β the market overprices streaks. Expected to be humbled; that is the point of testing it. |
| chaos_parlay_v1 | live | The fun one: a $2 three-leg parlay of the day's highest-edge independent legs across all live strategies' candidates. Margin math says it should bleed; it exists to make the math visible. |
| placebo_rain_unders_v1 |
| ROI | profit per unit staked at opening prices |
| CLV | how much better our price was than the closing price β the earliest sign of real skill |
| Brier edge | probability accuracy vs the de-vigged closing market; positive = sharper than the bookmaker |
{
"kind": "leaderboard"
}| dormant |
| CONTROL: bet football unders when heavy rain is forecast. Our own discovery says rain does NOT reduce goals β so this placebo SHOULD lose at the margin rate. If it wins long-term, our discovery engine has a bug. Science. [BLOCKED: model 'gbm' needs a forward-serving job the executor doesn't have yet β review finding #12; was mislabeled 'armed'.] |
| cards_closeness_v1 | dormant | Discovery-derived (closeness->fouls, r=+0.19 emergent): cards/fouls overs in evenly-matched games. Dormant until a live cards-odds feed exists. UPDATE 2026-07-03: referee identity alone swings P(4+ cards) from 33.6% to 54.0% (quartile split, n=21,870) β add match.ref_cards_avg regime when the odds feed exists. |
| value_all_v1 | retired | Baseline engine: any market, 5% edge, fractional Kelly. Backtest verdict: -2.05% over 20 EPL seasons. Kept as the reference corpse. |
| wc_sim_value_v1 | live | World Cup: back any 1x2 selection where the Poisson fixtures-sim beats the best live price by 8%. Caveat honored: the sim runs hot on tournament data, hence the high bar. |
| wc_upset_hunter_v1 | live | World Cup knockout chaos: longshots priced 4-10 where the sim still sees positive edge. Small stakes, big stories. |
| wc_ko_unders_v1 | live | Knockout football is cagey (legs tighten when losing means going home): under 2.5 goals when the sim agrees (any positive edge). Hypothesis-tagged. |
| steam_chaser_v1 | live | Line-movement study (78k selections, 20yr): big steam (4+ prob-pt moves) is the one bucket the close doesn't fully absorb (+2.3pts residual), concentrated in soft leagues (+5.9% EL2) and away sides (+6.4%). Hypothesis-grade (CI spans zero) β this forward trial is the judge. Bets any selection whose consensus implied prob rose 4+ pts across our own daily snapshots. |
| portfolio_v1 | live | Layer 3, the bet-maker: builds the best BASKET across everything priced (ballast/value/longshot buckets, one bet per contest, quarter-Kelly, model blended 50/50 with the market) and Monte Carlos each slate before betting. Historical replay verdict: with the current football model's edge it would have gone bust over 21 seasons ($1000 -> $0.76) β this forward trial tests whether the newer, humbler probabilities change that. |
| pitcher_edge_v1 | live | Who's on the mound matters most in baseball. Bet an MLB moneyline side when its probable starter's season ERA is at least 1.00 better than the opponent's (mlb.starter_era_gap, signed to the bet side) AND our Elo sees any positive edge at the best live price. First strategy to use contest-scoped context metrics. |
| prop_scorer_v1 | live | The first player-level strategy: a gradient-boosted scorer model (rolling goals/shots per 90, starting rate, team attack vs opponent defence, confirmed lineups when available) prices every Kalshi anytime-goalscorer market and bets where its probability beats the fee-adjusted ask by 10%+. Settles from Kalshi's own results. |
| ref_cards_draw_v1 | live | Promoted from the matrix tournament (won ALL 4 backtest seasons, worst season +$471): when the referee's card average is in the top tercile (>=3.52/game), the match tightens β back the DRAW blind. Model-free context bet; forward trial to survive multiple-comparisons doubt. |
| cards_over_ref_v1 | live | The referee signal finally bettable: card-happy ref (top tercile, >=3.52/game) -> back total cards OVER at the main line from the new odds feed. Settles from post-match team stats. |
| corners_style_over_v1 | live | Two corner-hungry teams meet (style clash top tercile, >=11.4 combined corner averages) -> back total corners OVER at the main line. Model-free; the relational miner showed corners follow style and mismatch. |
| wc_sim_value_kor_v1 | live | Staking A/B twin of wc_sim_value_v1: identical signal (Poisson sim beats best price by 8%) but sized by kelly_of_ruin β half-Kelly scaled by the posterior probability this bankroll's edge is real, from its own settled record. Measures the staking policy, not the signal. |
| mls_sim_value_v1 | live | MLS forward trial: back any 1x2 selection where the fixtures sim beats the best price by 10%. Higher bar than WC β the sim is new to this league and MLS draws are notoriously frequent. |
| wc_sim_value_gf_v1 | live | Gap-filtered twin of wc_sim_value_v1: identical sim signal, but each edge must ALSO be blessed by the gap-survival classifier (P(model side right) >= 0.55, trained on 21 seasons of model-vs-market disagreements). The meta-filter's live A/B. |
| dutch_cover_v1 | live | Half-cover dutch: back the sim's 1x2 pick (edge >= 5%) AND the draw, draw stake sized to refund HALF the outlay on a draw. The 21-season backtest (exp #203) found full cover overpays for insurance (median $898) while half-cover beats straight outright: median $1,060 vs $995, worst season $87 vs $17. |