Isn't a bookie's business model based around laying off one side of a bet against the other rather than predicting the future? When you win at long odds, in a

Isn't a bookie's business model based around laying off one side of a bet against the other rather than predicting the future? When you win at long odds, in a perfect system, it's not the bookie's money you're taking it's a share of money collected from the punters who bet on the favourite (minus the bookmaker's margin). The bookie shouldn't care what's likely to happen or not, their pricing should be based on the collective opinions of the punters, right or wrong. > So how does a bookmaker set his original odds? We mentioned before that most of > the early bookmakers will have a number of experts in each sport and they will > come to a decision as to the opening prices. However, it is important to note > that the odds they set are not based on the true probability of the teams > winning, but rather what the general betting public perceive the true > probability to be. https://betting.betfair.com/the-art-of-bookmaking.html https://betting.betfair.com/the-art-of-bookmaking.html