4 ms·
If you bet at 10-1 here, your bet is 10-1 on your receipt, and your odds are 10-1. Your bet at that price may change the odds for everyone who comes later, but
by sago 8y ago
If you bet at 10-1 here, your bet is 10-1 on your receipt, and your odds are 10-1. Your bet at that price may change the odds for everyone who comes later, but that doesn't affect yours. It is quite possible to arbitrage odds between bookmakers. Or it would be, if they didn't do such a good job of conferring and mutually underwriting their risk themselves.
It must be crazy having the odds change on you after your bet.
- surfsvammel 8y agoFor Swedish harness racing there is only one bookie. The state has had monopoly on betting in general for a long time and is very strictly regulated also today. So, there won't be any arbitrage across bookies for these races at least.
- Scoundreller 8y agoWhat if... bear with me... somebody outside of Sweden took bets on Swedish harness racing?
- CamTin 8y agoYeah the whole idea of parimutuel betting is that there is no "bookie" and that you are betting against the other gamblers. No central entity is taking a side in the bets. This makes sense when you realize that the central entity is, for example, the State of Kentucky. Do you want a bureaucrat making millions of dollars in bets on behalf of taxpayers? Probably not. Instead, let's just collect all the bets from race fans, take out say 5% for the state, and then pay out to the fans holding tickets for the winning horse (forget about exotics like exactas and trifectas to keep things simple, but the idea is the same). That way, we don't need to have handicapping experts set odds in order to ensure the state makes money. Instead, it's all simple math that can easily be audited and still guarantees a profit. The side-effect of this is obviously that you can't know the final odds until the last ticket has been sold at post time.