Australia Sports Betting

Anyone who has been betting on Wimbledon this year will be lamenting the horribly low odds offered on the likes of Federer and Murray to win their early round matches. For example, you would be lucky to be offered more than 1.01 for Federer to win.

The problem with these odds is you feel compelled to make a sizable bet to make it feel worthwhile. After all, on a 1.01 odds fixture, a $100 bet will only win you $1. For this reason I tend to target fixtures with 1.30 odds or more. Because the odds are higher, I feel I can bet less on each game, and therefore place more bets.

Lately, rather than bet on individual matches, I have been creating multibets by combining them with low odds fixtures. This creates an ‘odds boost’ because the odds are multiplied by those of the low odds attachments. This increases my payout, and if I choose my additional bets wisely, adds only a small increment to risk.

For example, yesterday I wanted to place a bet on Stepanek to beat Falla in his first round match. The odds for this fixture were 1.30. I felt certain that Del Potro and Murray would win their respective matches so I created a multibet by adding Del Potro’s match (1.06 odds) and Murray’s match (1.01 odds) to this bet to give myself an increased payout of 1.30*1.06*1.01 = 1.39178. Stepanek won his match, as did Del Potro and Murray, so I was able to boost my earnings by adding what I felt were near certain bets. Note that the multibet odds are 1.39178 and not 1.39. Even if the bookmaker lists the odds at 1.39 in your betting slip, they typically do not round the odds when determining payouts.

For those who are unfamiliar with multibets, they enable you to combine multiple fixtures where you only receive a payout if all of your selections win. As compensation you receive a higher payout than if you had made separate bets that were all individual winners. Creating multibets is very easy. For example, with Sportsbet you simply add a number of bets to your betting slip and then click on ‘Convert to Multi Bet’. Once you have done this the bets are then combined, with the new odds displayed.

As a word of warning, multibets actually increase the betting agency’s advantage, so be careful when creating them. I have been using low odds fixtures to ‘boost’ my primary bets with good success, but in doing so I invariably increase my risk.

I was planning to write a post about a betting anomaly on Sportsbet, but it turned out to be intentional.

On the 9th of June I placed a bet on Federer to win Wimbledon, but before the tournament has even begun, Sportsbet has credited me with a win!

It turns out that Matt Tripp, the CEO of Sportsbet was quoted as saying “Federer lose Wimbledon?! Ha ha, he is an absolute certainty! He can’t lose, now Nadal is out.” Sportsbet staff then challenged him to pay out all Federer bets in advance if he was so sure of the outcome. The CEO has agreed, so any punter who placed a bet on Federer as the outright winner of Wimbledon before 2pm on June 21 has been paid out! This won’t affect Sportsbet if Federer actually wins, but they’ll be paying out punters for two different winners if he doesn’t.

I had set my Wimbledon winner bets up so that if any of my selections won I would be profitable for the tournament. Because my Federer bet has paid out, I’m sitting pretty before the first point has even been played! If one of my other four picks actually does win the tournament I will be sitting very pretty. Thank you Sportsbet!

It’s interesting how extremely low odds can influence your behavior.

Every now and then you see fixtures with one outcome paying only 1.01 to win, and you think to yourself, “it must be a sure thing then! All I have to do is pick ten 1.01 fixtures per year and I would make over 10% profit [x*(1.01)^10]. That sure beats my term deposit rate!”

The problem is, however, there is no such thing as a sure bet in sports.

Yesterday I had my finger on the trigger to place a bet on England to beat the Netherlands in the opening match of the Twenty20 World Cup. England were only paying 1.03 and the Netherlands were paying something like 11.00. Because the odds on England were so low I felt I should make a large bet to make it worthwhile. At the time I had in mind $100-$200. However, I figured the risk-to-reward ratio was too high, because upsets are easier to come by in the shorter version of the game. For this reason, I decided to sit on the sideline and not back England in the fixture.

Well, I’m sure glad I didn’t. On the final delivery of the match, the Netherlands scored two runs to beat England in what will go down as one of the biggest upsets in cricket history. The Netherlands, only an associate member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) beat England, the founders of cricket.

It just goes to show the perils of low odds bets. People tend to place more on them to “make it worthwhile”, but you just never know when it comes to sport. Also, people can get thrown off by the low odds, believing that a win must be virtually assured if odds that low are offered.

My suggestion is to only stick to low odds bets where you feel very confident about the outcome, and where you very familiar with that particular sport and the teams involved. For example, I would be more inclined to bet on a low odds tennis match than I would a College American Football game. Also, never bet more than you can afford to lose, because the downside risk is always 100% of your bet.