MLS Picks & Predictions

Where MLS lives on PeoplesPicks

MLS runs inside Advanced Strategies, the research desk's own book, which shows the price each position was taken at and is judged on return. Soccer's three-way result, where a draw is its own outcome, suits a book graded on return better than a simple win-rate card.

Every settled MLS position is public: the previous day's results, the running record and the chain behind them are open to anyone, member or not.

How the MLS model works

The model rates each side's attack and defence from the quality of chances created and allowed, adds home and away form, rest and travel, and who is available, then turns that into a probability for a home win, a draw and an away win. Those are compared with the market's prices, and a position is taken only where the gap is large enough to matter.

Every idea was tested on real historical prices across several MLS seasons, with a draw graded as the loss it is on a result market. Ideas that only worked by ignoring draws, or only in one season, were dropped.

How to read an MLS position

Each position shows the match, the side taken and the price, with the result and the return in units once the match settles. Soccer prices come in three parts, home, draw and away, and each one implies a probability. Added together they come to a little over 100 percent, and that extra is the market's margin.

A position on a team at a long price can lose more often than it wins and still come out ahead over a season, which is why every position is judged on return and why the price taken is always on the record.

Why the record can be trusted

Each position is timestamped and hashed to a chained record before kickoff and settled in the open afterward. Change any past result and the chain visibly breaks, and the database refuses edits and deletions.