Betting
odds
Gambling
is cool. Sitting in a smoky, piss-sodden room surrounded by flat-capped cancer-ridden
coffin dodgers and glue-sniffing teenagers, to the accompaniement of horse racing
commentary. What better way could you spend a day, other than actually working
for your beer money? But I digress. Since mma got athletic committee sanctioning
(and therefore bookies could feel confident fights weren't fixed) you can now
put your money where your mouth is. None of this 'maybe he'll win if he does this
but then again, this could happen too' bullshit. Moreover, a look at the betting
line is a reality check for all the plotting you've been doing as you read down
the preceeding sections of this feature. If you've come to the conclusion that
Tim Sylvia is gonna kayo Emelianenko Fedor, but the bookies have him at minus-5,
it might be time to rethink. Of course you might be right and the world might
be wrong. Evander Holyfield was minus-25 when the Tyson fight was first signed.
Odds
represent the anticipated action, not a fight prediction
Bookies
are not trying to predict the winner of the fight. They couldn't give a shit.
They make their money from the margin taken on each bet, and therefore they want
even betting so they cannot lose no matter what happens in the ring. Therefore
betting odds are second-guessing how gamblers will react to a fight, not what
will happen in the fight itself. They are related, because the gamblers
are betting on the fight itself, but it's not a one-to-one correlation.
Example:
Lennox Lewis is always a stronger favourite in UK bookies than Las Vegas. Why?
Because us patriotic Brits want to back the fighter we like, we still believe
in the Empire, and therefore Lennox gets alot of action over the counters. Anticipating
this, the UK bookies offer harsh odds to him to encourage more action on his opponent.
In the US, they still think Lennox is a chump and the American gamblers get behind
whichever stiff-with-a-record gets thrown in with the champ. So Lennox has longer
odds to counter-act it. Remember its all about two-way action.
But
because bookies stand to lose big money if they muck it up, there's not alot of
sentiment behind the odds. If a reporter says 'Sylvia in one round' and Fedor
cleans his clock, it'll be quickly forgotten. If a bookie gets the line wrong,
there's a rush of money of Fedor, then they are looking at a big loss and banks
don't forget. So the rule is Ignore the reporter (unless it's me) and trust
the bookie's odds
Put
your money where your mouth is
This
feature is principally geared towards enjoying the fight, right? So once you've
decided who's gonna win, put some money on it (even if it's with your mates in
the audience) let the cheering and swearing begin.
Make
a prediction
If
you never risk defeat, you can never win (unless you're Hidehiko Yoshida). Get
off the fence and make a prediction for every fight on the card. If you can't
find out anything about the fighters before the bell, try to size them up in the
first minute or two and then make a prediction on the fly. Just try to do it before
the referee has stepped in to wave it off. Then there's not just the fight on
the line, not just your stake money, but also the respect and love of your peers!
The
End
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