Football Intelligence

Starlizard vs Jamestown Analytics: What Is the Difference?

Starlizard prices sporting outcomes for betting decisions; Jamestown supports football clubs with player, coach and opposition analysis. Here is what differs, what transfers and what remains private.

GoalIQAIx

13 Jul 2026 • 6 min read

Starlizard and Jamestown Analytics are separate companies solving different problems. Starlizard focuses on sporting predictions and betting-market decisions. Jamestown Analytics provides football clubs with player valuation, player recruitment, head-coach recruitment and opposition analysis. In simple terms, Starlizard primarily prices sporting events; Jamestown primarily evaluates football people and club decisions.

The similarity is analytical rather than proof of identical technology. Both can be understood through independent estimation, contextual adjustment, comparison with an external market and learning from outcomes. Public evidence does not establish that they use the same datasets, algorithms, weightings or decision rules.

Starlizard vs Jamestown Analytics at a glance

Dimension	Starlizard	Jamestown Analytics
Primary purpose	Estimate sporting probabilities and inform betting-market decisions	Support player, coach and opposition decisions in football clubs
Typical customer or user	Professional betting clients and market decision-makers	Professional football clubs and their recruitment or sporting functions
Core output	Sporting predictions, probability estimates and market assessments	Player valuations, recruitment analysis, coach analysis and opposition intelligence
Time horizon	Often a fixture or market with a defined settlement point	Often a transfer, appointment or squad decision assessed over months or seasons
Market benchmark	Bookmaker or exchange prices	Transfer fees, wages, available alternatives and expected sporting contribution
Feedback loop	Frequent outcomes, changing market prices and closing-price comparisons	Slower evidence shaped by development, tactics, injuries, opportunity and club execution

This table describes the organisations' publicly stated functions and the decision environments around them. It is not a reconstruction of either company's private systems.

Are Starlizard and Jamestown Analytics the same company?

No. The UK public register lists Star Lizard Consulting Limited and Jamestown Analytics Limited as separately incorporated active private companies, with company numbers 05686221 and 10873024 respectively.

The control history adds important context. As checked on 18 August 2026, Companies House records Star Lizard Consulting Limited as having ceased to be a person with significant control of Jamestown Analytics on 1 September 2023. The current public entries list different active persons with significant control for Star Lizard and Jamestown.

The current public register therefore does not support describing them as one company or as being under the same present-day controller. It does not establish whether private commercial relationships, personnel links, data access or intellectual-property arrangements exist. Claims that Jamestown simply uses “the Starlizard model”, or that both organisations share one algorithm, still go beyond the evidence available publicly.

What does Starlizard do?

Starlizard's public description centres on sporting analysis and predictions. In football, that means estimating the probability of defined events and assessing those estimates against prices available in betting markets.

A match-pricing process might consider team strength, expected line-ups, tactics, player availability and the likely distribution of goals. It could then produce probabilities for the home win, draw and away win, or for markets such as total goals and Asian Handicaps.

Those estimates only become betting decisions after they are compared with an executable price. GoalIQAI's guide to building independent football odds explains that probability-to-price process. It should not be read as a description of Starlizard's confidential implementation.

What does Jamestown Analytics do?

Jamestown Analytics states publicly that its football services cover player valuations, player recruitment, head-coach recruitment and opposition-team analysis. Its customers are clubs rather than participants trying to price a betting market.

The relevant questions are therefore different. A club may want to know whether a player's performance will transfer to a new league, whether the player suits a specific tactical role, what range of future contribution is realistic, or what total acquisition cost remains rational. For a head coach, the question may be fit with the squad and sporting strategy rather than the probability of one match result.

Jamestown's public website confirms the service categories, but not the variables, model architecture or weightings used to produce its analysis. The detailed workflow remains proprietary.

The core difference: match pricing versus player and coach valuation

A betting model estimates the probability of a defined event. A recruitment model estimates future contribution within a specific football and financial environment. They may use some overlapping evidence, but their targets are not the same.

A hypothetical match-pricing example

Suppose a market offers decimal odds of 2.10 for a team to win. The basic implied probability is:

1 ÷ 2.10 = 47.6%

If an independent model estimates a 51% chance, its fair price is approximately 1.96. The apparent difference may justify further investigation, but it is not automatic value. The analyst must test whether the model has missed team news, underestimated uncertainty or compared against a price distorted by bookmaker margin. Liquidity and the price that can actually be obtained also matter.

A hypothetical recruitment example

Now consider a midfielder producing modest headline numbers for a low-possession club. A recruitment system might adjust for the team's territory, the player's tactical responsibilities, league strength, age and likely role at the buying club. The output need not be one universal “true value”. It may be a range of projected contributions and a maximum rational cost for that particular club.

The external comparison is also broader. The club must consider the transfer fee, wages, contract length, agent costs, adaptation risk, resale possibilities and alternative players. The more specialised guide to player valuation in football examines that decision in detail.

This is why a match-pricing model cannot simply be relabelled as a recruitment model. The target, time horizon, price benchmark and definition of success all change.

What principles can transfer between betting and recruitment?

The two disciplines can share a decision philosophy without sharing identical algorithms. The most defensible transferable principles are:

Define the decision first: the useful data depends on whether the task is pricing a match, valuing a player or assessing a coach.
Build an independent estimate: market odds, transfer reputation and headline statistics are useful reference points, not substitutes for analysis.
Adjust for context: opponent quality, league strength, tactical role, game state and opportunity can change what raw output means.
Compare with an external price: a probability matters against betting odds; a recruitment projection matters against total cost and realistic alternatives.
Represent uncertainty: ranges and scenarios are often more honest than a single precise number.
Review decisions over time: one winning bet or successful transfer cannot validate a complete process.

The distinction between shared principles and different targets is explored further in Recruitment Models vs Betting Models. That article covers the general modelling question; this page is specifically about the two named organisations.

Why their feedback loops are different

Betting markets generate relatively fast and structured feedback. A fixture settles, the result becomes known and the analyst can compare an earlier estimate with subsequent prices. Results alone remain noisy, so evaluation should use many forecasts and measures such as calibration and closing-price performance.

Market movement can also reveal that other participants held different information or assessments. Quoted prices, liquidity and order flow therefore form part of the feedback rather than acting only as final outputs.

Recruitment feedback is slower and harder to isolate. A player's performance after a transfer depends on minutes, coaching, injuries, tactical fit, adaptation and the quality of the wider team. A recommendation may have been analytically sound even if negotiation or development was weak; equally, a profitable resale does not prove that every part of the original evaluation was correct.

Coach evaluation is similarly difficult. Results reflect squad quality, schedule, resources and implementation as well as the head coach. This makes club analytics a decision-support system rather than a machine that can be judged from a few visible outcomes.

What public evidence does not establish

Public sources support a comparison of stated purposes. They do not allow outsiders to audit either organisation's proprietary methods. Readers should not assume:

that Starlizard and Jamestown Analytics are the same legal company;
that a historical control relationship proves common ownership or unrestricted data sharing today;
that the two companies use identical datasets, models or algorithms;
that a betting probability can be converted directly into a player ranking;
that access to analytics removes the need for scouting, due diligence, coaching or executive judgement;
that selected successful bets, transfers or appointments prove a system's overall accuracy.

A responsible explanation of how Jamestown Analytics works must separate confirmed services from reasonable inference and unknown proprietary detail. That evidential boundary is essential when analysing private organisations.

So how are Starlizard and Jamestown Analytics similar?

The strongest similarity is the use of disciplined analysis to make decisions under uncertainty. Both environments require an independent view, a comparison with an external benchmark and a willingness to update when evidence changes.

The difference is what must be estimated and how success is observed. Starlizard's public purpose is tied to sporting prediction and betting markets. Jamestown's public football purpose is tied to players, coaches, opposition and club decision-making. The connection is best described as transferable analytical thinking, not a claim of interchangeable systems.

Key Takeaways

Starlizard and Jamestown Analytics are separate active UK companies.
Starlizard focuses on sporting predictions and betting-market decisions.
Jamestown publicly offers player valuation, player recruitment, head-coach recruitment and opposition analysis to clubs.
Starlizard primarily prices events; Jamestown primarily evaluates football people and longer-term club decisions.
Betting provides faster, more standardised feedback than recruitment and coach evaluation.
Independent estimates, contextual adjustment, market comparison and long-term review can transfer between disciplines.
Current Companies House filings do not support treating them as one company or under one present-day controller; private data or commercial arrangements remain undisclosed.

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