Betting on the Bombers

[ptw]

Punters

the bombers are paying $1.05 to make the eight.....and $251 to finish last. Where would you put your money ?

Personally I would put it on them finishing last.

or maybe if I had $1 I would put it on the coming last....$10000 in the eight.

ptw

 

[walshy1993]

ptw you cant put a dollar on essendon to come last
minimum bet through sports bet is $5
the dividends are for a dollar but minimum layout is 5

and both bets are a waste of money
if you went to put 5 on essendon to finish last im sure the sports bet person would just laugh and say thanks for the donation
give it to the salvo's or something

 

[ant]

Love it Walshy

I'd bet my house, or at least its value, that Essendon would make the eight. Safest wager of all time.

 

[walshy1993]

ant you would be better off putting the money in the bank
the interest rates are better that what you would get back at 1.05

 

[ptw]

Walshy

tend to agree....I think $251 is far too low...especially compared with the $1.05 for making the eight....2000/1 perhaps ?


stranger things have happened....no wait a minute...no they havn't its too bizarre to contemplate.

ptw

 

[um...a million?]

I would absolutly love it if essendon turned out to have breached the salary cap by a lot and the AFL would strip them of all their wins in 2001, then that $5 bet would turn out to be a beauty.

Betting is the stupidest thing ever, it's designed in such a way that unless you bet on the favourites you are bound to lose, and if you do bet on the favourites the odds are usually so crap that you would have been better off leaving the money in the bank and collecting on interest.

 

[TigerTank]

Originally posted by ant:
Love it Walshy

I'd bet my house, or at least its value, that Essendon would make the eight. Safest wager of all time.

What about the Manchester United plane crash scenario?

Flying to Perth to play the Dockers ... some idiot in a private jet ... James Tird filing his nails in First Class. Possibilities are endless.

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TT

 

[Tiger_Of_Old]

251 hmmmmmmmm can see 22 essendon players ringing up a bloke by the name of john in india to take those odds

cheers!

 

[ant]

Really Walshy, I don't know much about banks. I didn't think interest rates were very good at all at the moment.

To everyone, sure, stranger things have happened but c'mon, let's be serious. Essendon are certainties for the eight. Their second team would be good enough

 

[Arch]

to um....a million,

well thats the whole point of betting. I think its cool coz I won around $300 over the last 5-6 weeks of the season betting on the quadruples (ie pick 4 winners)- you pick 2 certainties, a 50/50 and an upset, and you can get odds of around 6 or 7 dollars.

It certainly makes watching games like Sydney v Geelong alot more exciting when youve got money riding on it. I also hit paydirt after the Dockers won in that one point thriller- now that was exciting.

anyway. betting is good

A.

 

[dees01]

I reckon $2.60 for the flag is good value for them to win the flag. On this season's form, they are close to good things. Next year if they win their first couple of games as you would expect they would be odds on to win the Cuo.

 

[walshy1993]

tiger tank sheeds wants to send ess players on two flights next year
seperate the team with half the forwards backs etc on two different flights incase the man u incident was to happen

um...a million?
what a stupid comment, of course betting is arranged like that, what else would u expect?
yeah lets pay out 1000-1 for ess to make the 8
you w***er

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Oh...yeah

I bet you my vegemite sandwich against your cheesestik that my team can beat your team with one hand behind their back.

 

[dees*gal]

i don't think i can put a prise on essendon's succes, but i don't think they'll be as good as 2000 season. all fairy tails come to an end, and i think that this one will end very soon. i think they may get into the top 8, maby between 4-7, but i don't think they will be anywhere as good as this season. oh well,

live on the dees!

 

[The Dutchman!]

Correctamundo (unfortunately) dees*girl

Cannot see us doing that sort of business again in the next 20 years... Arguably the most one-sided seasons of all time only made interesting by the hangover of the 99 PF...

still think we'll win 18 though....

 

[walshy1993]

y not dees we have lost bewick and prior
yet gain players like rioli, henneman, jacobs
hird and lucas will be better after having a season after injury
ramanaskas, blumfield, heffernan, caracella, johnsons, all have improvement
im not predicting 21-1
but we will be top four

 

[Shinboners]

Originally posted by TigerTank:
What about the Manchester United plane crash scenario?

Tasteless and not the slightest bit funny TigerTank

 

[AlfAndrews]

I don't think Tigertank was trying to be funny. I think all he was saying was there's no such thing as a certainty.

Anyone who takes odds of 1 to 20 ($1.05)about Essendon making the eight deserves to have lots and lots of sleepless nights over it. Even if they do get the chocolates in the end. Only a mug would "put their house on it" at those odds.

There's also no value in the 250 to 1 about the wooden spoon either. The correct odds would be more like 25,000 to 1.

And I wouldn't be falling over myself to take the $2.60 for the premiership either.

To win at punting (in the long run) you need to make an INFORMED assessment of the REAL chances of a particular event happening and THEN make sure that the odds you are getting are OVER the true odds of that event happening. Anyone who takes under-the-odds is a MUG. Even if they win in the short term.

For example, the fool who takes 1 to 20 about Essendon making the eight is more than likely going to win the bet. But they'll be risking far more than is justified in order to make a very small profit. So even though they may win THIS TIME, they are still a MUG PUNTER. A disaster just waiting to happen.

It's actually very rare for bookmakers to give you genuine value odds about anything. Because they have either done their homework or paid someone else to do their homework for them. So they generally know the true odds far better than the vast majority of punters. That's why there are so few professional punters around.

Am I right ... or am I right?



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**floreat pica**

 

[ant]

I'd be no mug punter Alf, it's the biggest certainty of all time. Essendon will make the eight and I'd have no sleepless nights over it. And if they didn't make it I'd still be happy because I could stick it up all those arrogant Bombers supporters (nobody on this board of course). It's a win win situation

 

[ptw]

think you are right Alf,

the problem is all odds are under the odds.

If the probability of Port beating Adelaide was 1/1 (ie they would win 50% of the time) then there is no way you would get 1/1 on the result. Basically in all forms (except side bets with your mates) the bookies, govt, agency all get a cut. So what is left for the punter is less than the real odds.

Do it often enough and you lose (doesn't stop me though).

The only way you can win is if the odds are actually 1/2 and you happen to know this for some reason and everyone else doesn't. This may work once in a blue moon but ultimately it doesn't. If enough people know that the probability is really 1/2 but the odds given are 1/1 then everyone will plunge on Port, thereby adjusting the odds.

Its a mugs game, but I love it anyway


....."can't we get you on mastermind ptw ? special topic the bleeding obvious ?"

ptw

 

[CrowsOK]

Originally posted by um...a million?:

Betting is the stupidest thing ever, it's designed in such a way that unless you bet on the favourites you are bound to lose, and if you do bet on the favourites the odds are usually so crap that you would have been better off leaving the money in the bank and collecting on interest.

So the bookies set the odds such that, whoever wins, they can't lose. It turns out that if say 10% of the money is on team A, then the odds for team A will return less than ten-to-one. Hence if team A wins, not all of the money invested is returned to the winners. This is carried through ALL teams. Whichever team wins, the bookies come out on top.

The odds are set via the relative outlay for each team, discounted by boookies profit margin.

So how do you beat such a system? Its self-evident: bet against any market divergence.

WTF? I hear you ask.

For example, Essendon vs Adelaide. In Victoria, evryone is going to think: Dons to win. In Adelaide, a significant number are going to think: Crows have a show. So find two different bookies in Adelaide and Melbourne both of who cater only to their local markets. In Adelaide, bet against the Crows. In Melbourne, bet for the Crows.

Given the probable differential in odds, whomever wins its just barely possible you may come out ahead.

But unless you find some sort of bet-against-yourself insurance such as this (similar to what the bookies do for themselves), you ain't never going to win in the long term.

 

[AlfAndrews]

Originally posted by CrowsOK:
So the bookies set the odds such that, whoever wins, they can't lose ... The odds are set via the relative outlay for each team, discounted by boookies profit margin.

This is not, strictly speaking, true. It IS possible for bookmakers to lose because they are betting fixed odds ... unlike the TAB.

The bookies try to frame their markets so that they will win regardless of the outcome. They always try to entice the punters to take odds which are shorter than they really should be. But they don't always succeed because punters don't always bet in accordance with how the market has been framed. So it often comes down to the punter's opinion against the bookmaker's opinion.

So there is some scope for the well-informed punter to beat the bookies simply by having superior knowledge.

But, in practice, that is very hard to achieve ... unless you're paying off players or something. Horse racing, in particular, has long been tainted by rumours of corrupt jockeys taking bribes from bookies or big punters ... and it would seem to be the most effective way of getting an "edge" in the market.

The TAB market is framed purely on the basis of the amount of money bet on each horse (or dog, or footy team, as the case may be). The TAB is guaranteed a profit of roughly 15% of all money invested. The remaining 85% is divided up amongst the winners. The TAB does not have to study the form and frame a market because it knows that it will win 15% of the takings no matter what the outcome. And, most importantly for the punter, winners are paid according to the odds showing at the time the race (or match) starts ... NOT the odds showing at the time the bet is made.

It's a pretty tough game. The odds are stacked very much against the average punter. And you really have to know the ins and outs of a duck's arse to have any hope of even going close to making a quid at it.

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**floreat pica**

 

[Arch]

alf,
my TAB bets on AFL footy have always been fixed bets, where the outlay (if u win) for what you bet is printed on the back of your card. If i place the bet on a monday, and the odds go down during the week, I still get paid at mondays odds.

what are you on about ???

(or is it different in VIC ????)

A.

 

[AlfAndrews]

Hmm, that's interesting, Arch.

You're saying that you have fixed-odds TAB betting in W.A. (!!!??##!?!!!!)

Does this apply to horse racing as well as footy?

As far as I'm aware there is no fixed-odds TAB betting on football in Victoria. There are some betting agencies that offer fixed odds on football ... but they have got nothing to do with the TAB. They're quite separate. They are, in fact, bookmaking firms in the British tradition. Like Mark Read's All-Sports for example.

I don't bet very often these days, so maybe it's changed in recent years. But I know that a few years ago, when I was living in S.A. there was a strong move to introduce fixed-odds betting on the S.A. TAB. But the experts concluded that the TAB would go broke if it tried to "play bookmaker" with taxpayers' money. (And they would have, too. Believe me. I know a few professional punters who would have cleaned them out within a week.)

But then, of course, a lot of States (including Vic) have privatised their TABs in recent years ... so who knows?

Maybe I'm speaking in ignorance ...

But, even if I'm a little out of touch with recent developments, my points are still valid. If the W.A. TAB is operating fixed-odds betting, then they are really a "bookmaker" under my definition. They would therefore be running the risk of losing money ... and it would be possible for an extremely well-informed (and possibly corrupt) punter to send them broke.

And W.A. is full of well-informed and corrupt individuals with lots of money ... as we all know

But then ... in W.A. you can probably still walk into a saloon with your gun on your hip and sit down to a game of poker.



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**floreat pica**

 

[Dan26]

I once heard a way to bet on the AFL and win.....and it's foolproof. I'm serious !

If you ONLY bet on the home team, when they pay $1.80 or more, then over the course of the whole year, you will come out ahead.

If you used this sytem in 1997, and started with a stake of $1000, and bet 3% of it on each match where the home team was $1.80 or more, you would have increased your stake to $4,500 by seasons end ! No jokes.

The returns for the 1998,99 and 2000 seasons weren't quite as high, but they were significanlty over 2,000 doallrs, if you stated with one thousand.

$1.80 is the perfect mathematical point (apparently), which takes into acoount that the home teams win 60-65% of mathces ever year, and the fact that 1.80 or more gives you a good retrun.

Why don't we all do it next year and run the bookies out of a job ! I'm going to do it !