<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="465"><tbody><tr><td><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="465"><tbody><tr><td valign="top">What's a good punt for the World Cup? Our correspondent gives an idiot's guide
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</td> </tr> </tbody></table> <!-- Picture and caption ends--> Poor Rooney. He was reportedly down three-quarters of a million pounds or so after a run of bad bets, mainly on horses, greyhounds and football matches in which he was not playing. If England last long in the World Cup in seven weeks’ time, he won’t have the chance to make up his losses by taking punts on the largest gambling event in history. (Rooney is said to have settled with his bookmaker). For while Wayne has to make do with the business of actually playing the beautiful game, British fans and speculators are set to gamble some £1 billion on the outcome of the games. That’s four times more than was wagered on the Grand National this year and over 50 per cent more than was bet during the 2002 World Cup. “Forget racing,” says David Buick, of the spread-betting firm Cantor Index. “Football is the biggest betting medium by a mile, with 70 per cent of the action. The World Cup is going to be colossal, and already as an industry we are seeing millions of pounds’ worth of bets coming in.”
Since the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan a culture of gambling has become more entrenched in Britain — in part through the increase in betting via the internet — and this time around the time zone is in the bookies’ favour. “We were robbed last time because of the awkward times that matches were played,” says the improbably named Paddy Power, of the Irish bookmaker Paddy Power.
Three quarters of Paddy Power’s customers are British and, says Power, an enormous weight of cash is already coming in backing the English team. “Two thirds of the bets are on England and Brazil,” he says, “and most of that is on England.” According to Ladbrokes, about 95 per cent of the money wagered so far on England’s first match, against Sweden, has been on either an England win or on a draw.
“We’d imagine that the majority of punters throughout the tournament will look at things from a patriotic point of view,” says Nick Weinberg, of Ladbrokes.
You don’t need a doctorate in economics to see that the “patriotic bet” is going to skew the odds given for an England win. “At the odds given for an England win. “At the moment you’re getting 11-2 for an England win and that’s really far too short,” says one bookmaker, who inevitably does not want to be named. “Personally I think about 10-1 would be about right. Holland and Italy both have a better chance in my opinion, but ultimately the price is only wrong if people choose not to buy it.”
Another high-street bookie says: “The shrewd gambler takes the emotion out of it... if you’re a cold-hearted gambler you’ll give England a miss.”
“In the good old days you could just bet against England and sit back,” says a professional sports gambler who will go only by his online punting moniker, George Formby. “It’s not so much like that now and I’ll occasionally back England. But it’s unusual.”
“Formby”, who quit a job in computing to bet on football full-time, says that he’ll be prepared to risk an average of £30,000 a game throughout the Cup. “It’s hard work,” he says, adding that even if he had a team of four colleagues they wouldn’t be able to trawl through as much match data as he’d like. “I spend all my time looking at the stats, looking to see where the bookies have made a mistake — it’s hard work and it’s boring,” he says.
Paul Petrie, at Totesport, elaborates on the difference between the Formbys and the average punter: “If the man on the street puts a tenner on England to beat Trinidad, he gets a couple of quid if he’s successful. Does this look attractive enough to bother with? Probably not, so he’ll look to predict the correct scoreline or something that can make more money. But if the serious gambler spots value in the bet he’ll put on ten grand with a view to making £2,000 or so. Neither’s better, really. The proper bet is just the bet you’re happy with.”
Don’t imagine for a moment, however, that the bookies don’t care about the tournament’s result. By far and away the best result for the industry would be for Germany to beat England in the final on penalties. This would bring the largest ever windfall yet recorded for the gambling industry. “That would be just amazing. Imagine it!” dribbles one English bookmaker. If England wins the tournament the result will be disastrous for the bookies and lead to a hefty overall loss.
Paddy Power starts some back-of-a-***-packet sums before pulling up. “I don’t even want to think about an England win,” he says. “As an industry we’d end the tournament down hundreds of millions. Jeez, just thinking about it makes me frightened.”
But as Graham Sharpe, of William Hill, points out, a lot can change even before the tournament starts. “Anything can happen. Beckham might decide not to play but to open a hair salon instead,” he says.
Betting exchanges
Betting exchanges, internet sites that facilitate bet matching to allow punters essentially to act as bookmakers, are growing rapidly. They also enable gamblers to dodge the “overround” that bookies price into their books
High-street bookmakers are currently offering Ivory Coast to win the World Cup at about 60-1 (they were at 300-1, but a lot of money has come in from Chelsea fans supportive of the striker Didier Drogba), but if you think these odds are unrealistically short and that 200-1 is a fairer price, you might decide to “lay” the Ivory Coast at 100-1, which is to say that you’re prepared to let people place that bet with you as bookmaker. You specify how much money you are prepared to risk by accepting a bet at those odds.
Alternatively, you can take up, that is “back”, a bet offered by another exchange user, often at much more attractive odds than those offered by traditional bookmakers. Should your bet or “lay” pay off, the exchange will take a cut, about 4 per cent, of your profits.
10/1 Beckham grows a mullet
For a bit of fun, and to address the fact that there’s almost nothing that gamblers won’t take a position on, bookmakers are for ever widening the range of novelty bets available. Are they good value? Of course not, but they’re a little more sensible than betting that Elvis will be found cohabiting with Lord Lucan. Here’s a selection of some of the more way-out bets on offer:
100-1 David Hasselhoff to sing at the opening ceremony (Paddy Power)
1,000-1 Paul Gascoigne to succeed Sven as England manager coach (Ladbrokes)
10-1 David Beckham to have hair in mullet hairstyle at opening match. (William Hill)
100-1 Sven to watch final on telly TV from Roman Abramovich’s yacht (Paddy Power)
100-1 Wayne Rooney to be sent home for gambling (totesport)
Regular bets
Most money bet during the World Cup will go on the straightforward “single”, a prediction about who will win in a given match or whether it will be a draw. With these it is easy to calculate the “overround”, essentially the bookmaker’s edge, that punters are battling.
Looking at England’s game against Paraguay (and converting the odds into percentages) one bookmaker is offering an England win at 8-15 (65.2 per cent), a Paraguay win at 5-1 (16.7 per cent) and a draw at 23-10 (30.3 per cent). This gives an overround of 112 per cent, ie, a 12 per cent edge for the bookmaker.
As bets get more complicated, the edge tends to increase. Scorecasts (in which the bet maker has to predict the exact score) tend to be notoriously bad value, although they are popular as potential payouts can be large. As with any bet the bookie can misprice results, so there can still be value to find.
Half-time/full-time bets, those in which the bettor you predicts the score both at the end of the first half and the end of the second, are also popular.
Accumulators (bets on several matches), all of which must come good for the punter to get be paid off out, are another area where in which the bookmaker will try to push the punter into taking a difficult gamble where the bookie stands a greater chance of coming out on top.
Bets on who will score first in a game and who will score last are popular with punters — but more popular still with bookmakers.
Spread betting
For the informed and brave. Spread betting is an effective way to make or lose a fortune; it’s not a matter of being right or wrong in your prediction, but rather how right or wrong you are. How much you stand to win or lose cannot be determined before the event.
One staple spread bet is predicting the total of the shirt numbers of players who score in a match. Here is an For example, if the bookmaker believes that the total will be about 23, say, it might offer a “spread” of 21 to 24.
If you believe the total will be more than this, you “buy” the spread; if you believe the total it will be less, you “sell” it.
So if you “buy” at £10, say, for every unit above 24 you will earn £10. So if the only scorers in the game were Owen (no 10) scoring a hat-trick (10 x 3) and Beckham (No 7) scoring once (7 x 1), the total is 37 and you would end up 13 points ahead, winning £130. However, if nobody scored, you’d actually end up owing the bookmaker £210 — all from just a “£10 bet”.
Another common spread bet involves guessing how many goals are scored in a game, regardless of which whichever regardless of which team scores them.
A glance at Cantor Spreadfair, a betting exchange for spread bets, shows that the market expects there to be about 160 goals in the World this year. They It also anticipates about 655 corners; and about 270 yellow cards. If you have reason to think that these figures are too conservative or too liberal (heck, a hunch will suffice) you can “buy” or “sell”. For instance, So if the weather were unseasonably very hot, you might imagine that tempers will flare more easily, and the spread for the number of yellow cards that will be given is too low. Potential profits are enormous, but so too are potential losses.
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Since the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan a culture of gambling has become more entrenched in Britain — in part through the increase in betting via the internet — and this time around the time zone is in the bookies’ favour. “We were robbed last time because of the awkward times that matches were played,” says the improbably named Paddy Power, of the Irish bookmaker Paddy Power.
Three quarters of Paddy Power’s customers are British and, says Power, an enormous weight of cash is already coming in backing the English team. “Two thirds of the bets are on England and Brazil,” he says, “and most of that is on England.” According to Ladbrokes, about 95 per cent of the money wagered so far on England’s first match, against Sweden, has been on either an England win or on a draw.
“We’d imagine that the majority of punters throughout the tournament will look at things from a patriotic point of view,” says Nick Weinberg, of Ladbrokes.
You don’t need a doctorate in economics to see that the “patriotic bet” is going to skew the odds given for an England win. “At the odds given for an England win. “At the moment you’re getting 11-2 for an England win and that’s really far too short,” says one bookmaker, who inevitably does not want to be named. “Personally I think about 10-1 would be about right. Holland and Italy both have a better chance in my opinion, but ultimately the price is only wrong if people choose not to buy it.”
Another high-street bookie says: “The shrewd gambler takes the emotion out of it... if you’re a cold-hearted gambler you’ll give England a miss.”
“In the good old days you could just bet against England and sit back,” says a professional sports gambler who will go only by his online punting moniker, George Formby. “It’s not so much like that now and I’ll occasionally back England. But it’s unusual.”
“Formby”, who quit a job in computing to bet on football full-time, says that he’ll be prepared to risk an average of £30,000 a game throughout the Cup. “It’s hard work,” he says, adding that even if he had a team of four colleagues they wouldn’t be able to trawl through as much match data as he’d like. “I spend all my time looking at the stats, looking to see where the bookies have made a mistake — it’s hard work and it’s boring,” he says.
Paul Petrie, at Totesport, elaborates on the difference between the Formbys and the average punter: “If the man on the street puts a tenner on England to beat Trinidad, he gets a couple of quid if he’s successful. Does this look attractive enough to bother with? Probably not, so he’ll look to predict the correct scoreline or something that can make more money. But if the serious gambler spots value in the bet he’ll put on ten grand with a view to making £2,000 or so. Neither’s better, really. The proper bet is just the bet you’re happy with.”
Don’t imagine for a moment, however, that the bookies don’t care about the tournament’s result. By far and away the best result for the industry would be for Germany to beat England in the final on penalties. This would bring the largest ever windfall yet recorded for the gambling industry. “That would be just amazing. Imagine it!” dribbles one English bookmaker. If England wins the tournament the result will be disastrous for the bookies and lead to a hefty overall loss.
Paddy Power starts some back-of-a-***-packet sums before pulling up. “I don’t even want to think about an England win,” he says. “As an industry we’d end the tournament down hundreds of millions. Jeez, just thinking about it makes me frightened.”
But as Graham Sharpe, of William Hill, points out, a lot can change even before the tournament starts. “Anything can happen. Beckham might decide not to play but to open a hair salon instead,” he says.
Betting exchanges
Betting exchanges, internet sites that facilitate bet matching to allow punters essentially to act as bookmakers, are growing rapidly. They also enable gamblers to dodge the “overround” that bookies price into their books
High-street bookmakers are currently offering Ivory Coast to win the World Cup at about 60-1 (they were at 300-1, but a lot of money has come in from Chelsea fans supportive of the striker Didier Drogba), but if you think these odds are unrealistically short and that 200-1 is a fairer price, you might decide to “lay” the Ivory Coast at 100-1, which is to say that you’re prepared to let people place that bet with you as bookmaker. You specify how much money you are prepared to risk by accepting a bet at those odds.
Alternatively, you can take up, that is “back”, a bet offered by another exchange user, often at much more attractive odds than those offered by traditional bookmakers. Should your bet or “lay” pay off, the exchange will take a cut, about 4 per cent, of your profits.
10/1 Beckham grows a mullet
For a bit of fun, and to address the fact that there’s almost nothing that gamblers won’t take a position on, bookmakers are for ever widening the range of novelty bets available. Are they good value? Of course not, but they’re a little more sensible than betting that Elvis will be found cohabiting with Lord Lucan. Here’s a selection of some of the more way-out bets on offer:
100-1 David Hasselhoff to sing at the opening ceremony (Paddy Power)
1,000-1 Paul Gascoigne to succeed Sven as England manager coach (Ladbrokes)
10-1 David Beckham to have hair in mullet hairstyle at opening match. (William Hill)
100-1 Sven to watch final on telly TV from Roman Abramovich’s yacht (Paddy Power)
100-1 Wayne Rooney to be sent home for gambling (totesport)
Regular bets
Most money bet during the World Cup will go on the straightforward “single”, a prediction about who will win in a given match or whether it will be a draw. With these it is easy to calculate the “overround”, essentially the bookmaker’s edge, that punters are battling.
Looking at England’s game against Paraguay (and converting the odds into percentages) one bookmaker is offering an England win at 8-15 (65.2 per cent), a Paraguay win at 5-1 (16.7 per cent) and a draw at 23-10 (30.3 per cent). This gives an overround of 112 per cent, ie, a 12 per cent edge for the bookmaker.
As bets get more complicated, the edge tends to increase. Scorecasts (in which the bet maker has to predict the exact score) tend to be notoriously bad value, although they are popular as potential payouts can be large. As with any bet the bookie can misprice results, so there can still be value to find.
Half-time/full-time bets, those in which the bettor you predicts the score both at the end of the first half and the end of the second, are also popular.
Accumulators (bets on several matches), all of which must come good for the punter to get be paid off out, are another area where in which the bookmaker will try to push the punter into taking a difficult gamble where the bookie stands a greater chance of coming out on top.
Bets on who will score first in a game and who will score last are popular with punters — but more popular still with bookmakers.
Spread betting
For the informed and brave. Spread betting is an effective way to make or lose a fortune; it’s not a matter of being right or wrong in your prediction, but rather how right or wrong you are. How much you stand to win or lose cannot be determined before the event.
One staple spread bet is predicting the total of the shirt numbers of players who score in a match. Here is an For example, if the bookmaker believes that the total will be about 23, say, it might offer a “spread” of 21 to 24.
If you believe the total will be more than this, you “buy” the spread; if you believe the total it will be less, you “sell” it.
So if you “buy” at £10, say, for every unit above 24 you will earn £10. So if the only scorers in the game were Owen (no 10) scoring a hat-trick (10 x 3) and Beckham (No 7) scoring once (7 x 1), the total is 37 and you would end up 13 points ahead, winning £130. However, if nobody scored, you’d actually end up owing the bookmaker £210 — all from just a “£10 bet”.
Another common spread bet involves guessing how many goals are scored in a game, regardless of which whichever regardless of which team scores them.
A glance at Cantor Spreadfair, a betting exchange for spread bets, shows that the market expects there to be about 160 goals in the World this year. They It also anticipates about 655 corners; and about 270 yellow cards. If you have reason to think that these figures are too conservative or too liberal (heck, a hunch will suffice) you can “buy” or “sell”. For instance, So if the weather were unseasonably very hot, you might imagine that tempers will flare more easily, and the spread for the number of yellow cards that will be given is too low. Potential profits are enormous, but so too are potential losses.
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