Hawthorn’s Bookmaker Line winning streak
With Hawthorn’s turn around since losing to Richmond 2 month ago, I thought why not write an article about the Mighty Hawks (as you can see I might be a little biased here!). For those following the AFL, you might be aware, that Hawthorn has dominated the last 7 weeks of football and last week capped it off with a brilliant display against Collingwood.
In fact, every week for the past 7 weeks, they have easily beat the bookmakers line, a feet which I thought was pretty impressive. But is this a record and how many times has this been done before?
Well I decided to check it out. Given that I have all the bookmakers lines in my database going back to 2005, I will check out what the record is for the most number of matches in a row that a team beats the line. The results are below:
| Year | Round | Team | WinLinesStreak |
| 2007 | 20 | Geelong | 15 |
| 2005 | 23 | Sydney | 9 |
| 2006 | 10 | Collingwood | 9 |
| 2006 | 22 | Fremantle | 9 |
| 2009 | 10 | Melbourne | 7 |
| 2009 | 15 | Collingwood | 7 |
| 2011 | 6 | Collingwood | 7 |
| 2011 | 8 | Geelong | 7 |
| 2012 | 17 | Hawthorn | 7* |
Turns out that Geelong have the record, and quite comfortably. 15 matches in a row they beat the record, before losing to Port Adelaide by 5 points at home, when the line was -25.5. For those historians of the game, you might remember that Geelong went on that year to win the premiership, this time defeating Port Adelaide by a whopping 119 points.
Second on the list is Sydney, Collingwood and Fremantle in the years 2005 and 2006. That year, Sydney also won the grand final, whilst in 2006 Fremantle made it to the prelim, and Collingwood, despite starting the season well, faded in the second half and eventually lost the semi-final.
There’s a whole group of teams with 7 wins in a row. Collingwood make the list twice in 2009 and 2011, whilst Hawthorn as mentioned in there with 7 in a row which they might extend this weekend.
But the most interesting one there with 7 bookmaker line beats in a row is Melbourne in 2009. Because despite winning 7 line beats in a row, Melbourne at Round 10 were on the bottom of the ladder with only one victory to their name. Turns out that their losses were not by much, and they were struggling in some cases to win the match, despite getting across the line.
So can the hawks extend their bookmaker line winning streak? Hopefully, but it will take a mammoth ask to break Geelong’s record of 15 straight line betting wins in a row.
UPDATE
A quick update, showing the average winning margin over the line for the teams with the longest streak. As expected, Melbourne have the smallest with only 15 points on average defeating the line. This isn’t surprising as they lost almost all those matches. Hawthorn’s recent winning streak of 7 on the trot has seen then have the highest average winning margin by some margin. Although, should they be lucky enough to get up to Geelong’s streak of 15 in row, one honestly would say it would be hard to keep up with that degree of victories.
| Year | Round | Team | WinLines | Av. Win Margin |
| 2007 | 20 | Geelong | 15 | 31.3 |
| 2006 | 10 | Collingwood | 9 | 35.4 |
| 2006 | 22 | Fremantle | 9 | 31.3 |
| 2005 | 23 | Sydney | 9 | 27.7 |
| 2012 | 17 | Hawthorn | 7* | 42.1 |
| 2009 | 15 | Collingwood | 7 | 28.4 |
| 2011 | 6 | Collingwood | 7 | 24.5 |
| 2011 | 8 | Geelong | 7 | 19.1 |
| 2009 | 10 | Melbourne | 7 | 15.1 |
