2012 Betting Odds

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johnnoble1990

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I also think money talks in sport, and bookies have Lewis 6/1 and Jenson 9/1 to win the title. If you disagree with this, you have an outlet to show how strongly you disagree with it, which is why I, a non-gambler, have bet on Lewis this season, because I genuinely believe those are silly odds.
 
Bookies are in business to make money, not make judgements as to who is the more likely to win. They know that Hamilton will have more punters putting money on him so they shorten his odds and lengthen Button's. This also has the effect of making Button a better bet.

I used to make my spending money playing cards, mostly brag. But I never gambled, only joining in schools where I knew I could win. Betting on anything or anyone where you do not have control is, imo, a mug's game.
 
6:1 is tasty. I've never placed a bet in my life but if those odds are still on I may have a punt.

[Edit] then BB reminds me why I'll probably change my mind on the way to the bookies.
 
Bookies are in business to make money, not make judgements as to who is the more likely to win. They know that Hamilton will have more punters putting money on him so they shorten his odds and lengthen Button's. This also has the effect of making Button a better bet.

I used to make my spending money playing cards, mostly brag. But I never gambled, only joining in schools where I knew I could win. Betting on anything or anyone where you do not have control is, imo, a mug's game.
Correct bookies are not the oracles to the future.

Edit

Christmas 2008 Jenson was a 150-1 to take the 2009 title, go figure..
 
Bookies are in business to make money, not make judgements as to who is the more likely to win. They know that Hamilton will have more punters putting money on him so they shorten his odds and lengthen Button's. This also has the effect of making Button a better bet.

I used to make my spending money playing cards, mostly brag. But I never gambled, only joining in schools where I knew I could win. Betting on anything or anyone where you do not have control is, imo, a mug's game.

I am not convinced that the bookies want to lose more money than they need to

If Jenson wins they lose a lot more than if Lewis wins, we can therefore conclude that the bookies reckon Lewis is more likely to win than Jenson, hence the odds.

Unless of ourse Jenson has a legion of fans willing to bet otherwise in which case his odds would narrow
 
Bookies are in business to make money, not make judgements as to who is the more likely to win. They know that Hamilton will have more punters putting money on him so they shorten his odds and lengthen Button's. This also has the effect of making Button a better bet.

I used to make my spending money playing cards, mostly brag. But I never gambled, only joining in schools where I knew I could win. Betting on anything or anyone where you do not have control is, imo, a mug's game.

This was my point Boddy. Bookmakers represent general opinion amongst "punters", who believed in their opinion enough to back it up with their hard earned cash. Bookmakers tend to try to "balance the books" so that they will win no matter who wins (though in reality it doesn't always work this way); so bookies tend to represent general opinion. If you think that personal bias has that much of an effect, then fair enough, but I think people looking to make money outweigh people like me, who only backed Lewis because I want him to win. Therefore if a price is driven low by people's personal bias towards a result, then those looking to make money will see the opposite as a bargain and back it till the price goes back up. I can't imagine the prices of anyone strays more than 2-3% from what people believe is their true chance.

Calculating chance is more an art than a science, but I do think looking at a bookmakers odds, particularly betfair, will offer a much better idea of who will win than anyone on here can (google wisdom of crowds). And as I said, if you really disagree, sign up to betfair and start making money, because I certainly don't think I could...

Note: johnnoble1990 in no way encourages gambling. This includes all chance based games such as Poker, Monopoly and Snakes and Ladders.
 
I agree fully that bookies are in the business to make money, but there is more to the odds simply the likelihood of the outcome. I would assume that there are people similar to insurance companies who are there to work out the risk of a particular outcome, and a marketing department who want people to place bets. No one will place a bet if the odds are too long, likewise shortening the odds of someone that has a lot of bets is also wise, as you would be mitigating your risk. The odds for England at a worldcup would be a good example I believe.

Bookies cannot afford to be sentimental, so there would be little room for bias in their judgements, more the bias in the betting will dictate the risk, and they react accordingly. If there were suddenly a massive amount of money put on Karthikeyan for example there would be little need to adjust, however, if the same amount of money were put on Rosberg, I suspect his odds would significantly shorten, but not as much as Vettels.

So in my opinion, the odds are a blend of statistical analysis, careful risk management, public opinion, and guesswork. But I guess everyone knows that, right? THey could be seen as representative of what is likely to happen in many cases, although last seasons odds I recall were 16/1 for JB and 4/1 for LH and 3/2 for SV, at the start of the season, this season LH is at 6/1, which I think is a bit long, SV at 20/21 so no real money in it, JB at 9/1, quite a bit shorter than last year, and a lot closer to Lewis, and MW is at 17/1, where iirc he was less than 10/1 last season.

It would seem that the best bet would be a fiver on MW as an outside bet.

It will be interesting to see how the odds change after the first race.
 
I think the big lesson from the bookmakers this year is that they think Vettel is a very, very strong favourite.

Of course, if they take twice as many bets on Lewis at 6/1 as they do Jenson at 9/1, financially the Lewis win hurts them more. But then, the ones who put the big money down are less likely to be influenced by sentiment.
 
I don't disagree with anything you say, but I still think bookmakers odds trump personal opinion.

The last time I checked Lewis was at 5/1 and Jenson was at 13/2 or 6½ / 1 And people may say they bet with their heads but when it comes to anything else but horse or dog racing I have found people bet with their hearts.

For instance you yourself said on another thread that you've put a fiver on Lewis to win and yet there has been no recent form to say that will be the case, I'm not saying he wont but surely that is a heart felt bet, the smart money would go on Vettel.

Odds are driven by the amount of money being laid on a particular outcome the more money that goes on the shorter the odds become.

Hamilton's lower odds will be because more money has gone on him, and Jenson's are coming down because it is getting closer the race and more people are laying bets.

Form only controls the starting odds it's when people start betting that they find their true level basically Bookies don't give a stuff about form they only care about what they may lose.

Not me though because I don't gamble.
 
Having had friends a few years ago who managed/worked as settlers the thing that I found out was that bookies don't like the favourites to win, a long odds outsider is far better.

I once was persuaded to place a bet on a horse. A workmate was going to the bookies and talked me into a flutter. The bet was put on each way at starting odds. The odds given in the paper made it look like a place would get me my money back with a bit more.

During the final run up to the race the odds dropped to about half what they had been. The horse came in second and I got back less than I put on.

That was it, never again. Don't gamble, only bet on what you can control.
 
Here we go again. I don't think anybody has said that, just that we haven't seen it yet. There's lies, damned lies, newspaper headlines and then sensationalist forum posts.

[edit] See apology below. Misread the post and was too trigger happy on my response.
 
You have my apologies. I should have read your post more carefully. I read "has'"and "can't" where I should have read "hasn't" and "can". :goodday:
 
OMG--Vettel is at 20/21. The bookies must have information that the RB will be OVERWHELMINGLY better than any other car this year. As has been posted elsewhere, he hasn't shown he can win in anything but the best car!;)

20/21 is hardly a dead cert. Factor in the houses cut, they are giving him about a 44% chance, and that's including the fact he finished last year with the fastest car?
 
Nothing is a "dead certainty". However, the odds quoted obviously mean they consider him the favourite. What's the percentage of 6/1 and 9/1?
 
Hi, I thought it would be good to get some facts into the discussion, so here are two tables that illustrate the accuracy of odds related to the weight of money on one of the trading exchanges. As a trader I was looking for some value on the Drivers Championship ahead of the final weekend of testing.

The first table are the odds (in decimal) of five drivers before the final weekend of testing. The green cells are the actual odds of the driver available on the exchange where the cell above it are the odds based on the weight of money. Given the over rounding of the book at this stage of the season and the number of drivers, the odds will never be the same but they are close enough.

The second table illustrates the odds this evening where you can see that Vettel and Alonso have both drifted slighty in the market highlighted in tan, where the other three drivers have shortened since 3rd March.

Based on Grojean topping the timing sheets, I bought Kimi at 40.0 before Saturday testing as I felt he would be a shorter price after Sunday. Also based on poor Ferrari testing and lack of Red Bull laps, I bought both Hamilton and Button immediately after testing. As of this evening, I laid off my Kimi bet at 30.0 a week ago although he is now shorter at 26.0. I still have my McLaren driver bets open and may sell before the season start and lay Vettel .. but that's a different story!


Drivers Excel Table 03Mar2012.webp
Drivers Excel Table 12Mar2012.webp
 
I'll take your word for it...

All I know is bookies wouldn't be in business if they didn't fix the odds in their favour, that's why I don't gamble, never have never will.

I'm even loath to take part in any prediction threads, I don't enjoy them.

Who do you think will do this and that just doesn't interest me, does that make me strange?
 
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