by The Prisoner »
09 Dec 2012 19:56
creative_username_1 Half time/full time markets are priced at about 250%. There is no way that 28-1 reflects the 'real' chance of that event happening. Not a comment about the actual outcome. I don't bet on sporting events but would defo NOT be betting on those markets.
You're always taught probability based on 'games of chance' ie. all events are known. This is not the case with football (ball gets deflected by a beach ball and the goal is allowed to stand etc)
Of course you cannot account for the beach ball or an "out of the skin" performance (or the inverse for that matter), but the chances of our team paying out on the ht-ft market are stronger than most given past performance, stats & therefore probability. As someone who makes a living in this field surely you would place a strategic spread of likely outcomes - for example I backed 5 score lines last season for each game - with average odds of 15-1 I got paid out something like 80pc of the time (one occasion was 30 plus when we went down 1-0 to Stevenage). Even if you didn't place more than one bet reading HT - opponent FT only has to come up twice per season to make a profit at 28-1, whilst the bet of us to score first and lose (always at least 8-1) always has good value when we can't hold onto a dog lead, let alone one in a football match.