Western Force vs Lions - big middle on hcps

Jimeen, in fairness to db he's flagging up a good betting opportunity here for others, although your questions are very relevant in view of the current carry on by members of the bookmaking fraternity.

Anyway, re the second part of your question, here's what one punter did when encountering an offer on a rugby match in a bookies that he thought might represent a palpable error :

Customer walks into his local Celtic Bookmakers on morning of 16/11/10 around 10.30. Spots A4 sheet on wall with following advert:   "WALLABY WACKERS - In the Munster v Australia game Celtic will refund all losing bets if the game is won by Munster. Max refund 200 per customer. Singles Only. No duplicate bets. "

Customer thinks that's a crazy offer and must be a mistake. He can back Australia at 4/6 and, unless the game ends in a draw (25/1), he has effectively got a free bet. Consequently ignores offer.

Later that evening customer is in another Celtic shop in Clonmel. To his amazement, offer is still on display. He approaches counter and enquires of manager if the offer is a mistake, pointing out what a great bet it represents. She replies that it isn't. Customer considers having a bet but is worried that palpable error rule may be quoted post-game. Approaches counter again and requests manager to phone head office to verify offer. She does so and, after hanging up the phone, states that offer is okay. Surprised, customer places e200 on Aus to win match at 4/6. Leaves shop.

Munster win game and, one week later, customer enters shop and gets paid his e200 bet refund.

Reb,its hardly much of a betting opportunity now is it. How do you get a bet on with Stanleys if you are based in Ireland ?. You are getting 20/1 about a 10/1 chance,and that would be if Stanleys pay without messing,which is no certainty and you have to drive to Belfast to get on more than likely,and then the price has to be there when you get there,plus they may choose not to lay it either,that would hardly be a surprise either.
This is a bullshitt middle,not a big middle. A big middle would be if there was a possibility of clicking both bets for no risk at all.
That incident with Celtic was quite obviously a mistake,and Yates should be applauded for not trying to evade payment. I wouldnt fancy too many of his competitors at the time doing the same.

Ivan KNEW re River Liane.

Line out to 40 now!

hes a lovely lad for sure but used to do specials for cheltenham and aintree that defied logic.also his ew terms were very generous i remember.he was first to go the double payment for a dead heat also i think?

The line opened at 17 with Hills as far as I know and the differences were due to trying to reassess after a weak Western Force side were named. It seems this took money rather than trader expertise in many cases as the line consistently moved all day. I would not have had the slightest idea myself as to what the line should be but a 4 point middle spread would be a nice enough position to be in, although at this stage you would be expecting to miss out and lose 4.5% of your stakes.

So getting 20/1 about a 10/1 shot isn't a big difference and getting 1/1 about an 8/11 shot is better for the punter

So say you had 2 choices

1. Be able to get 20/1 about every 10/1 shot over 100 bets
2. Be able to get 1/1 about every 8/11 shot over 100 bets

Lets assume that the odds are true

Which one would you go for


1. 20/1 about a 10/1 shot

A 10/1 shot wins approx 9% of the time (actually 9.09%)so that give you 9 wins from the 100 races which returns €180 (remember you are backing at 20/1). The 91 losers obviously return nothing so you have staked €100 and returned €180 which is a profit of €80


2. 1/1 about a 8/11 shot

A 8/11 shot wins approx 58% of the time (actually 57.89%)so that give you 58 wins from the 100 races which returns €116 (remember you are backing at 1/1). The 42 losers obviously return nothing so you have staked €100 and returned €116 which is a profit of €16


Let me know if I have done the calculations incorrectly

Mmmm, maybe someone will need to give a second opinion. The way i would look at it would be with the even money shot for a true 8/11 chance you are getting an 8% edge for each bet. With the 20/1 for a true 10/1 your edge over each bet is less than 5%. Happy to stand corrected if i am wrong that over 100 bets it works out differently.

A 8/11 shot wins approx 58% of the time (actually 57.89%)

Where did you get that statistic?

You obviously live in an ideal world.

A friend of mine lays 33/1 shots on betfair. He reckons that 33/1 winners are a rarity and come up less than once in a 100 races.

In my example I stated "lets assume the odds are true"

Also the odds on Betfair are so close to the true market odds that 33/1 shots (Betfair SP obviously) do indeed win once in every 34 races

At the business end of the market, the odds are even more efficient with Even money shots winning almost exactly 50% of the time

DB your calculations have me confused because i dont see how you can be right but at the same time they seem to add up. I am not feeling my best at the moment so my brain is not functioning at it full capacity but out of curiosity i am keen to find out which of us is right. One of us must be wrong.

Sorry if i came across a little unkind. Never my intention. On one hand its a matter of opinion what you call a very good bet. On the other hand its a simple matter of mathmatics regarding the value of the two proposition bets were are differing over.

DB lets say you could arb/trade out each bet in the way i stated and we both started out with £100 the difference would actually be greater in my favour if we repeated the bet 100 times because after each bet i would have the means to stake more than you from that initial £100.

ballz that was supposed to be for the Kate Harrington thread, apologies!!

Paddletoe -  I have had a look at Kelly Criteria using the 2 examples we have been using and according to www.albionresearch.com/Kelly/default.php, taking 20/1 about a 10/1 shot should increase your bank by 1.65% of each bet while taking 1/1 about an 8/11 shot would increase your bank by 1.25 on each bet. This assumes using the stakes suggested by Kelly which are €4.54 for the 20/1 bet and €15.77 for the 1/1 bet.

I'll have a proper look tomorrow but I'm pretty sure the difference is to do with the bigger advantage, percentage-wise on the odds being offered, being greater in the 20/1 - 10/1 example is the reason for that bet being the more attractive, mathematically speaking

Yeah seen better middles to be fair. Never seen the second lions match but there were a lot better middles in running on the first tour match. The bookies were all over the place on the handicap in running for that match.

The only sport in really do middle bets is cricket in running on the score in the first 6 or 15 overs in odi's or sessions in test matches. Not very unusual to get a ten run difference in your favour where the range of runs is no more than 30. So 10/1 ( two 5/6's) for a 2/1 poke.

DB mentions a staking plan but if i am getting a certain 8% edge ( assuming i coulod trade/arb it ) as opposed to his 4.5% edge i am not messing around with staking plans. I am getting as much on as i can. My only limitation is how much i can get on.