Are all odds akin?

[rinconpaul]

A thought crossed my mind, "Do the final odds represent the same implied probability across all sports and racing?"

In other words does say a $2 favourite in tennis have the same outcome (roughly 50% win probability) in soccer, greyhound racing, golf...?? Are some sports more unpredictable than others? If you could find a correlation then it could be profitable. Does the betting pool total $ make the odds more or less predictable? Are team matches, horse/dog races less or more volatile than match play between two individuals? Does a $2 horse in a field of 6+, running under open skies and all seasons, have the same probability of winning as a $2 tennis player in a closed arena?

No way definitive and a sport I have no involvement with, but I looked at the last 32 games of tennis played in the past 24hrs around the world. Adjusted to a 100% book and no commission the faves won 56% of the time but it was more profitable to lay them! I've heard that different soccer leagues produce different result percentages, mainly because they're higher scoring affairs?

Probably safest to stick to one or two sports and know them like the back of your hand?

[ShaunWhite]

The bigger the crowd the more accurate the guess I'd have thought. But it's a minefield I've just left and I'm going into another.

Not sure how you'd benefit from knowing how accurate it was as the deviations should be equally above or below..... unless you can show otherwise. If you find any nuggets like "weak markets in women's ping pong under value the favourite", let us know

[Derek27]

Horse racing is a far more complex sport than most others because of the size of field, the specialist knowledge required, and the number of people betting on it without or with basic knowledge.

Football is a sport that so many people are interested in, even people who don't bet, and the number of potential opponents are so few (within their own league), that traders can have much more refined judgement and the market will be more stable.

[Wolf1877]

Interesting analogy on Football odds being more predictable. Also there is no handicapping in football. Nobody says to Pep Guardiola sorry your team are playing too well so all of your players will have to wear a body jacket with 7lbs of lead weights in on the next match to make it more competitive!

What I cant get my head around is how the odds are initially compiled for completely unknown horses with no previous form. If you have 10 horses in a race and say only 2 of them have run once in a previous "rules" race then how come for some unknown horses the initial odds are say 2-1 and others are 50-1? Obviously the market itself will form a price and people in the trainers yard will have an idea of a horses ability but how does the market open? I will probably steer clear of these races until I have a better understanding.

[ShaunWhite]

What I cant get my head around is how the odds are initially compiled for completely unknown horses with no previous form. If you have 10 horses in a race and say only 2 of them have run once in a previous "rules" race then how come for some unknown horses the initial odds are say 2-1 and others are 50-1? Obviously the market itself will form a price and people in the trainers yard will have an idea of a horses ability but how does the market open? I will probably steer clear of these races until I have a better understanding.

I don't look at form and frankly couldn't care less what price a horse should be or is. The races you describe I find are often the best to trade as you get nice strong price adjustments/rumours/gambles etc. I've never found it necessary to try and figure out what the tissue price should be.

[Derek27]

Interesting analogy on Football odds being more predictable. Also there is no handicapping in football. Nobody says to Pep Guardiola sorry your team are playing too well so all of your players will have to wear a body jacket with 7lbs of lead weights in on the next match to make it more competitive!

What I cant get my head around is how the odds are initially compiled for completely unknown horses with no previous form. If you have 10 horses in a race and say only 2 of them have run once in a previous "rules" race then how come for some unknown horses the initial odds are say 2-1 and others are 50-1? Obviously the market itself will form a price and people in the trainers yard will have an idea of a horses ability but how does the market open? I will probably steer clear of these races until I have a better understanding.

The reason horse racing has so many handicaps is that, unlike most sports, it has always depended on betting. Imagine if all races took place at level weights - too many races would have an odd-on favourite. A good betting medium requires more competitive races.

A two-year-old's pedigree doesn't tell you how good it's going to be, but it gives an indication of its potential, whether it's likely to be precocious or a late developer, sprinter or better later in the season over longer distances. The betting can give an indication of whether or not it's fully wound up for its first race, along with a view of the horse.

If you're not knowledgeable of horse racing it's wise to steer clear of betting on it, but as Shaun said, trading on it is a different matter.

Think of trading as being the middle man. If you know someone selling an antique for £1000 and someone who wants to buy it for £1500, you don't need to be an expert in antiques to profit from it.

[Wolf1877]

If you're not knowledgeable of horse racing it's wise to steer clear of betting on it, but as Shaun said, trading on it is a different matter.

Think of trading as being the middle man. If you know someone selling an antique for £1000 and someone who wants to buy it for £1500, you don't need to be an expert in antiques to profit from it.

Derek, I have been reading quite a lot of the essential reading on racing recently. I've not touched too much on pedigrees though. I have created my own database with several years worth of public UK/Irish race results/times/weights/going etc. I'm then querying my data to find the horses likely to be in contention for the days races. Having an objective idea of a selection's value or otherwise at my fingertips is definitely helping me to get on the right side of trades more often than I managed through blind trading IMO.

[ShaunWhite]

The more ammo you've got the better. Often wish I was a bit more interested in what's actually going on beyond the numbers. But it's such a vast pool of info that I think you need to be fairly fanatical to find anything useful. It's timecost vs benefit thing for me too because it's not the type of research I'd do for pleasure unlike some others.

[Derek27]

If you're not knowledgeable of horse racing it's wise to steer clear of betting on it, but as Shaun said, trading on it is a different matter.

Think of trading as being the middle man. If you know someone selling an antique for £1000 and someone who wants to buy it for £1500, you don't need to be an expert in antiques to profit from it.

Derek, I have been reading quite a lot of the essential reading on racing recently. I've not touched too much on pedigrees though. I have created my own database with several years worth of public UK/Irish race results/times/weights/going etc. I'm then querying my data to find the horses likely to be in contention for the days races. Having an objective idea of a selection's value or otherwise at my fingertips is definitely helping me to get on the right side of trades more often than I managed through blind trading IMO.

I certainly wouldn't put you off your methods as what doesn't work for one will work for another.

From my own personal experience when I drafted a tissue for a race, it was very different to the actual betting. I was able to profit from it when I was betting but when I switched to trading I didn't find it helpful because the market always disagreed with me.

A lot of people look at what the tipsters are going for to get an idea of where the money might go. That's probably more useful than forming my own opinion on the likely value horses, which could just remain my opinion.

[Wolf1877]

The more ammo you've got the better. Often wish I was a bit more interested in what's actually going on beyond the numbers. But it's such a vast pool of info that I think you need to be fairly fanatical to find anything useful. It's timecost vs benefit thing for me too because it's not the type of research I'd do for pleasure unlike some others.

Shaun, I'm getting better at manual trading. It does give me a feel for the markets but its never going to be my forte and manual trading itself is incredibly time consuming. It's moderately difficult to capture racing/sports data but more difficult to make any sense out of the data and deploy the data when it's been captured. Fortunately that kind of stuff is in my area of professional expertise and right up my street so I am pretty fanatical out it. My objective is to automate absolutely everything so after the initial hard graft I should be able to put my feet up further down the line!