Wigan game

[Dicky 0]

On oddschecker, you can get 33/10 on us winning, with Wigan at evens. Surprised at that. Worth a few quid I reckon.

[Highland Canary 78]

After all, as we''re constantly told, the bookies don''t often get it wrong...

[Bill 1,788]

They NEVER get it wrong that''s why they are still in business

 

They merely reflect what the punters bet, that''s all

 

 

 

 

[splutcho 196]

You are aware there has to be a starting price before people bet right?

[pete_norw 0]

[quote user="Highland Canary"]After all, as we''re constantly told, the bookies don''t often get it wrong...[/quote]

Because they have refs like Foy on the pay roll

 

[Zak Van Burger 0]

Corals go 2, 3.4 and 3.75 on this match.Accurately "Dutched" this equates to£47.13 @ 2£27.73 @ 3.4£25.14 @ 3.75 For a best return on a hundred pounds of £94.27 guaranteeing the bookie a profit of £5.73 per £100 staked whatever the result.Win lose or draw the bookie will be paying out £94.27 from every hundred pounds taken on this match, some might see that as the bookie losing £94.27, I and the bookie see it as the bookie making £5.73...Bookmaking is not about who wins and who loses as that is wholly irrelevant to a correctly drawn up book, it''s all about the margin.Opening odds are calculated using a vast quantity of statistical information, including an industry wide tendency for home teams to be picked in accumulators and the total amounts bet on previous occasions when the teams played each other and are thus not always representative of the true odds of a single event occuring but remember the bookie does not care about the result only the margin.

[Bill 1,788]

"You are aware there has to be a starting price before people bet right? "

 

You don''t say, well I never !

 

The sad thing Mr Burger, is that there are still the terminally dim who believe that the bookies sit around and ''guess'' what is likely to happen and then set the odds based on those guesses - hence the halfwitted bleat about the ''bookies never getting it wrong'' ie they must know something. about the way the event is most likely to finish.

 

Thanks for posting up a concise explanation Mr B (which will most likely be totally ignored by those whose IQ matches QPR''s points total).

 

 

[AJ 1,359]

Wigan are doing OK, with their cup run and all. We''ve won 1 in about 9 or something right? Sounds about the right odds to me!

[Bill 1,788]

"Sounds about the right odds to me!"

 

durr, the odds are what the punters have bet, not current form

 

as the best has now ever so slightly drifted out to 43/13

 

or has some form in either team changed in the last hour or so ?

 

 

[Highland Canary 78]

And only won one away all season.

[It's Character Forming 1,204]

[quote user="Zak Burger"]Corals go 2, 3.4 and 3.75 on this match.Accurately "Dutched" this equates to£47.13 @ 2£27.73 @ 3.4£25.14 @ 3.75 For a best return on a hundred pounds of £94.27 guaranteeing the bookie a profit of £5.73 per £100 staked whatever the result.Win lose or draw the bookie will be paying out £94.27 from every hundred pounds taken on this match, some might see that as the bookie losing £94.27, I and the bookie see it as the bookie making £5.73...Bookmaking is not about who wins and who loses as that is wholly irrelevant to a correctly drawn up book, it''s all about the margin.Opening odds are calculated using a vast quantity of statistical information, including an industry wide tendency for home teams to be picked in accumulators and the total amounts bet on previous occasions when the teams played each other and are thus not always representative of the true odds of a single event occuring but remember the bookie does not care about the result only the margin.[/quote]

I''m not a gambler which is probably a good job but I think I understand.  Essentially if more punters think Norwich will win and bet on it, the bookies will reduce the odds they offer on a Norwich win so that if Norwich do win, the amount they will have to pay out (allowing for the people who have bet on a draw/Wigan win) leaves them a 5.73% profit. So the odds are driven by what punters are betting, and the bookie just sets the opening odds and from then on, moves them according to what is bet.

 

And does this mean that the odds above are implying a 47.13% chance of a Wigan win, 27.73% chance of a draw, and 25.14% chance of City winning ? If, of course, you accept the bets made by punters are an accurate forecast.

 

I was talking to someone who said that bookies love on-line poker because the punters are simply taking money off each other and the bookie simply takes a fee for providing the service - presumably the point is that for poker, the bookie wouldn''t have to bother with the above process to make sure the odds are adjusted as they go along so it''s less work for them ?

 

Anyway, I''m just off to buy my Euromillions ticket for tomorrows £90m rollover.

[AJ 1,359]

City1st, I know you like to get all anal and up yourself on your high horse of knowledge, but where in my post did I imply at all, anywhere, that the odds were based on current form or otherwise.

[CambridgeCanary 0]

On the other hand, the Fink Tank from the Times which does use very detailed analysis of form and statistics over the last couple of seasons says the likelihoods are:

Wigan win 45.1%

Norwich win 28.8%

Draw26.1%

I think that''s intuitively about right.

But remember we were 14% to beat Man Utd so it is only statistical likelihoods.

[lord montyjones 0]

Dear mr know it all, the odds are not what the punters have bet or the prices would be changing daily. It take huge amounts to shift a price the odds for Wigan/Norwich are based on form

[It's Character Forming 1,204]

[quote user="CambridgeCanary"]On the other hand, the Fink Tank from the Times which does use very detailed analysis of form and statistics over the last couple of seasons says the likelihoods are:

Wigan win 45.1%

Norwich win 28.8%

Draw26.1%

I think that''s intuitively about right.

But remember we were 14% to beat Man Utd so it is only statistical likelihoods.[/quote]

Was that a 14% chance to beat Manu at home or away?

[CambridgeCanary 0]

Home

[gorlestongirl 0]

[quote user="Highland Canary"]And only won one away all season.[/quote]

And that was to Swansea. I reckon it''s time we won away again, which is why I''m braving the cold and distance to go. See you there HC?

[Highland Canary 78]

Yes - I''ll be there. Travelling up on Friday as a Bank Holiday to save the hike Saturday morning this time. Easy parking at the ground:-) really hope we do better than 2k.

[Harry 0]

I''m in Blackpool from Friday for the weekend so a nice short journey over to Wigan on Saturday then a 40th Birthday Party that night.

[supercol 0]

 Live in Blackpool so I will be there !

 

[Mister Chops 7]

[quote user="Zak Burger"]Corals go 2, 3.4 and 3.75 on this match.Accurately "Dutched" this equates to£47.13 @ 2£27.73 @ 3.4£25.14 @ 3.75 For a best return on a hundred pounds of £94.27 guaranteeing the bookie a profit of £5.73 per £100 staked whatever the result.[/quote]But isn''t that only the case if there is an even spread of bets on home win, draw and away win?

[Harry 0]

[quote user="supercol"]

 Live in Blackpool so I will be there !

 

[/quote]I lived there for 12 years, been back in Norfolk for the last 3 years.

[Yellowfuture 71]

[quote user="Highland Canary"]Yes - I''ll be there. Travelling up on Friday as a Bank Holiday to save the hike Saturday morning this time. Easy parking at the ground:-) really hope we do better than 2k.[/quote]

Look forward to your report back Highland, sure it will be positive! I''m not going to this one but have a lot of respect for you guys that are. For me the opinions of our performances away from home from people that actually go, myself include for some games, carry a lot more credibility than the ramblings of posters who listen on the radio or who watch a dodgy stream!

[Zak Van Burger 0]

[quote user="Mister Chops"][quote user="Zak Burger"]Corals go 2, 3.4 and 3.75 on this match.Accurately "Dutched" this equates to£47.13 @ 2£27.73 @ 3.4£25.14 @ 3.75 For a best return on a hundred pounds of £94.27 guaranteeing the bookie a profit of £5.73 per £100 staked whatever the result.[/quote]But isn''t that only the case if there is an even spread of bets on home win, draw and away win?[/quote]Yes it is, that''s what makes fixed odds betting on football one of the most attractive bets to a knowledgeable gambler. Unlike most other forms of betting, the odds are set in advance then printed onto a paper betting form for distribution during the preceding week. The odds are estimated as accurately as possible but there never will be a perfectly spread bet as unlike on course bookmaking where the bookie can shorten the odds or widen the odds according to the weight of bets to keep the book balanced, the odds aren''t particularly fluid in fact in paper form their not fluid at all as they''re fixed. This leaves the bookie open to the unthinkable happening them getting the odds wrong and thus becoming exposed to a particular result occurring. Which of course happens all the time.Thing is a bookie knows they will get it wrong on a per match basis so they have a number of contingency strategies in place which can be implemented upon exposure. I''ll list a few that I know of.1) The bookie stands the exposure and swallows the loss if it occurs. This is very common, subject to an upper limit (see 3 below) and isn''t as ignoble as it appears because the bookie like the house in any casino is playing the long game, they know that if there are sufficient bets placed the losses incurred when they get the odds wrong in the punters favour will be met or exceeded by the combined total of winnings gained when they get the odds wrong in the bookies favour plus "the margin" . You''ll never see Man Utd 4/1 to beat Ipswich at Old Trafford, they don''t get them that far wrong just a fraction of a point at the most so it doesn''t take them too many games to inexorably claw these losses back. Don''t forget that the (fixed) odds are set to balance the books according to an enormous pool of criteria of which "home form","away form", are just two and not even neccesarily the two most weighted factors in the algorithms either. Always, always check paper odds against online odds.... The advantage of this is that customer trust is maintained, a bookie who bottles it will soon be out of business, but we''re talking very small amounts of exposure normally.2) The modern bookie has a powerful ally in their battle against the fixed odds slips: It''s called their online presence. Through the online arm of their business they are able to revert to type and subtly adjust the odds marginally to avoid the exposure.3) Limiting exposure: Try and put £100,000 on Wigan to beat Norwich at your local William Hills and see what happens. The shop will contact head office for a decision, head office will do some sums and assess their exposure. It could be that 1000 people have already put £20 each on Wigan to win, but if 100 people also have put £1000  each on Norwich to win then at that moment there''s exposure of £80k on a Norwich win (I''ve ignored draws to keep it simples) so the bookie would actually want the first £80k of your bet to balance the book. The other £20k? Well sometimes they say we''ll do 80 but not 100, sometimes they''ll go part 1 route as above, they might take it and lay half off with another bookie so they only have a £10k exposure, lots of tricks in this particular game.But if you tried to lay the bet and there was already a large exposure on Wigan winning then they might agree it but accept a smaller amount, agree it and lay it off before adjusting their own odds or just point blank refuse it. Another trick is to lay it or some of it at slightly lower odds. If I''m offering market rate of 3/1 and you want to wager £100k with me I''d offer you 11/4 and lay the £100k off in small enough amounts not to be noticed with the others. Guaranteed £25k profit for me if I whoops if you win and nothing lost if you lose. You''d be shocked how often this goes on though not as blatantly.Maximum payouts limit exposure, fixed odds maximum payouts have always been a bit on the low side compared to other forms of multiple betting. They had to do that as there was no way of controlling exposure in the old days of no online bookmakers and rigidly fixed odds.  The difference between 5/4 and evens might not seem enough to bother a bookie too much but with fixed odds they could have several winning accumulators running concurrently, a quarter point on each selection can make a big difference.... so they capped it very low.4) Offering what I call false odds: Commonly called short odds. In the example above I calculated the take on the event with Corals at 5.73%.In my opinion you should not be permitted anywhere near a bookmaker until you have learned how to calculate the margin on any event. You might put a quid in a fruit machine that offers you a 96% payout but would you put your pound in the identical looking machine positioned next to it that says maximum payout of 12%?? It''s unlikely but that''s what the margin is to a bookie, at -5.73% these odds on the three outcomes are pretty good, odds on football can be as high as >-1% but can be as low as <-35% in extreme cases. The lower the minus numerical value of the margin ie the more it approaches zero  the better the "value".A fixed odds three outcome bet with a margin of 35% is a very poor bet indeed, it also shows uncertainty in the bookmaker who is trying to make up for their lack of expertise or knowledge by deliberately putting all three sets of odds available lower than they should be. I personally avoid any fixed odds match with a margin of greater than -8% though I always look for the highest margins first as they very occasionally can give insight into a bet laid with an alternative bookie offering "true" odds.Oddschecker and the exchanges put an end to my once profitable dutching operation in the early days of online betting. Don''t expect to ever see a margin of greater than zero, even 0.1% can be profitable if you can lay enough cash on the outcomes.... [:D]To calculate the margin you simply take the reciprocals of all the decimal odds and add them together then multiply by 100%1/2 = 0.51/3.4 = 0.291/3.75 = 0.267{0.5+0.29+0.267} X 100% = 105.67%Subtract the hundred leaves the bookies margin.

Of course there''s one other factor the bookie has in their favour, the fixed odds betting terminals, with fixed being the operative word. The high street bookies industry take I believe four times as much through those bloomin'' roulette machines and the like than they do through the hatch on horses, dogs, football and all other events.  No room for mistakes with those monsters, they are heavily weighted in the bookies favour.

[......and Smith must score. 1,600]

[quote user="Highland Canary"]And only won one away all season.[/quote]It must be hard for you to get up each morning HC, let alone face the scenic delight that is Wigan.........[:(]

[It's Character Forming 1,204]

I''d like to say thank you to Zak for his very clear explanation of football gambling odds, worth sticking on a thread of its own for future reference.  Hopefully this might even cut down on the number of posts where people say "the bookies odds are so-and-so, therefore..." to be instantly countered by others saying "but that just reflects the bets laid by punters ...".

 

I''ll be sticking to the odd Euromillions/Lotto ticket though.

[Highland Canary 78]

I try. All fuelled up and ready to go. In all fairness - De Laet excepted - it was great fun last season:-)

[Lets be aving you! 0]

Besides Highland''s mirthful contribution, can I just say how much I enjoyed Zak''s opening gambit of "City1st, I know you like to get all anal and up yourself on your high horse of knowledge".

 

I''m still trying to work out how this is physically possible.

 

 

[S10 Canary 0]

Regardless of the odds, this and Arsenal are my last two games this season so I''m looking forward to getting up there and making plenty of racket! OTBC

[yoda 0]

How great would it be to put in one of those big performances like Swansea and Man u , then we can finally forget any lingering thoughts of relegation and just enjoy the last few games . Here''s hoping for a very big 3 points !