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Friday, June 18, 2010
World Cup odds
Nate:
More generally, in fact, the bookmakers’ odds seem to be too slow to catch up to the matches that have been played so far. France, remarkably, is still being offered with odds of only about 120:1 against winning the tournament, even though it has just one point between two matches: they are about 30:1 against even making it out of their group. Meanwhile, teams like Paraguay and Ghana, who are very likely to advance, do not seem to be getting enough credit for it.
With 16 teams in the knockout round, that means the odds for the average team is 15:1. For France to be only 30:1 to make it out of the group, the only way for them to be 120:1 is if they are fantastically great (i.e., around 4:1 in the knockout round, while the average team is 15:1). I don’t think so.