Those odds for Obama are 1-3, (one pound win for a three pound bet), so he is a hot favourite. Romney is averaging at 2.5 - 1 across the board. Yes, it's a good site as it gives you the odds from a wide selection of bookies.

George 2

(246 posts)

2. math

Reply to CorBlimeyGuvnor (Reply #1)

Wed Oct 31, 2012, 11:17 PM

Oct 2012

1-3 doesn't reverse to 3-1 favorite? I thought they were flip sides of the same coin. You probably know better than me.

CorBlimeyGuvnor

(105 posts)

3. UK bookies would say Obama is 1-3 "on"....

Reply to George 2 (Reply #2)

Wed Oct 31, 2012, 11:24 PM

Oct 2012

...meaning you will get a small return of one pound back for a three pound bet. (He is still the favourite, but at very small odds) If he were 3-1 favourite you would get nine pounds back plus your stake money = £12. If you bet say £2 on Rmoney at 5-2 you would get £5 plus £2 stake money back. In a two-horse race so to speak, the bookies generally aren't wrong, which is why they are offering such miserly odds for Obama. And, I have to say, they aren't being too generous with Mitt either !

muriel_volestrangler

(101,316 posts)

4. The reason they don't offer both 1-3 and 3-1 is so they can make their profit

Reply to George 2 (Reply #2)

Thu Nov 1, 2012, 06:04 AM

Nov 2012

What this means is that they think Obama's chances are a shade under 75% (= 3 / (3+1) ), but they'll offer the win you'd get if they were exactly 75% - ie not quite as much as a 'fair' system should give you for an Obama win. Similarly, using the figure CorBlimeyGuvnor (great name, by the way!) gives, they'd think Romney's chances are a shade under 28.6% (= 1 / (1+2.5) ), but they set the winnings as if it's exactly 2.5-1. So their reckoning of Obama's percentage chance of actually winning would be about 73%, and Romney 27%.

(In fact, looking at the list of odds offered, none of the bookies offer both 1-3 for Obama and 5-2 for Romney at the same time - I think they like to take a bit more profit than that, so 1-3 is matched with 9-4 or 11-5, while 5-2 is matched with 2-7)

Reply to this discussion