$$$$$ > Patriotism
Posted: August 18th, 2008 | Filed under: Last Decade | No Comments »
Because betting against 12 gazillionaires is one of the must unpatriotic acts a person can commit. I guess I can be bought rather easily.
USA Men’s Basketball To Not Win The Gold +800 (Risking 1)
The odds on this were roughly +300 before the Olympics began.
The U.S. was flat out dominant during pool play going winning Group with a 5-0 record and a 32.2 point average margin of victory. That’s fantastic, but does it really make them that much more likely to win the gold?
I do not think so. You could argue that the US team is better than anyone expected them to be, and that the competition is weaker than it has been in past competitions, and I wouldn’t put up much of a fight, but ultimately the primary obstacle between them and the gold is the same as it was coming in. They need to win three straight games against tough opposition.
That’s the draw. Let me just say that it is complete horse manure that I had to fill that thing out manually. FIBA and the rest of the sites covering the Olympics need to get their collective acts together.
Odds are it will be Australia, Argentina, and then Spain. The spreads for those games would be 31, 21, and 18 respectively. Converting spreads to money lines to win probability is difficult with larger numbers because the spread-ML calculator that I normally use does not work for larger spreads. I have no choice but to estimate:
.98*.94*.92 = 84.75%
Now obviously there is no guarantee that they will draw both Argentina and Spain, but barring extremely improbable runs to the Gold Medal game by Croatia or China, their true chances of winning the tournament won’t change that much regardless of draw. For instance if they draw Greece and Lithuania instead, the numbers would look like this:
.98*.96*.94 = 88.4%
8-1 doesn’t look nearly as tasty at that figure, but the kicker in this discussion is the fact that the odds for the United States are severely titled in every game they play. Their true chances of winning this tournament are closer to 80% then they are to 90%.
8-1 is value. Now I just need to find a safe place to watch the games.
Where did you get that? I don’t see it anywhere
5 Dimes
Yeah, I eventually found it under prop bets. Just wanted to make sure because it had already changed to 7-1, but that was probably due to your action.
Not probably. Was.
It was 7-1 last night too. They are much more likely to win Gold after dispatching Germany in a meaningless game!
Change of subject, but do you ever bet college football season win totals? I am a Cincinnati fan and the total I saw was set at 7. That is surprisingly low considering they are coming off a 10 win season, play 13 games this season and return a lot of talent.
That line tells me I am in for major disappointment this season…
Won’t be betting them this year. I wasn’t ready for the openers.
Off-topic, but NCAAF contest has been started over at Wagerline. Very, very early in the process (only about 50-75 picks in so far), but so far the biggest surprise appears to be Florida-Hawaii. This will change, but Hawaii getting a majority (53%) of the picks right now.
The average entry in ML’s contest had this at Florida 70.2%. Median entry was 71.6%. Some of the highest values for any matchup. Can it turn around that much?
I just took a look at those numbers. Florida, Northwestern, and Wyoming were the ones I was WAY off on so far. They can change, but not that drastically. The line is now also 34.5 which probably makes a slight difference.
Let me restate that. The sample size is EXTREMELY small right now, so they can change drastically, but most of them probably won’t change a ton.
For what it is worth
From Carib
Hawaii vs Florida
Hawaii 50.00%
Florida 50.00%
432 Bets
Virginia Tech vs E Carolina
E Carolina 12.50%
Virginia Tech 87.50%
288 Bets