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It's unclear, but it sounds like there's insurance available in China that will simply pay you money if your flight is delayed by a certain amount of time. The
by Traster 6y ago
It's unclear, but it sounds like there's insurance available in China that will simply pay you money if your flight is delayed by a certain amount of time. The amount you get paid is not tied to the cost of the ticket it's simply a feature of the contract, so obviously there's a trade-off there with a profitability = Insurance Payout * Probability of Delay - Flight Cost
- gambiting 6y agoI mean, I'm sure such policy could be arranged elsewhere too as a custom thing, but it's basically gambling at that point. You might as well go to a bookie and place a bet that a flight will or will not be delayed(most bookies would be happy to accept such bet too).
- silvester23 6y agoI think the difference is mostly that a bookie might give you different odds for different flights. I assume the insurance costs the same, regardless of the current likelihood that a specific flight is going to be delayed.
- Nextgrid 6y agoIs this some sort of joke I'm not getting or are there actual bookies that take bets on real-world events, and if so how do they determine the odds (in sports from what I understand the odds are determined by the amount gambled on either side, but I can't imagine there is a big enough market for bets on flight delays to make that work)?
- caf 6y agoWell there's examples like this: https://www.sportsbet.com.au/betting/novelty-bets/-realdonaldtrump-futures/trump-v-twitter-5224696 https://www.sportsbet.com.au/betting/novelty-bets/-realdonal...
- rswail 6y ago> in sports from what I understand the odds are determined by the amount gambled on either side This is incorrect. This is what applies in a totalizator market like some racing betting agencies. They take the pool of money (eg for a win) and deduct a fixed fee before paying out to the winning bet. The "odds" there are determined by which competitor the market thinks is most likely to win. But bookmakers actually provide odds based on their own assessments. They are taking the "other side" of the bet and can suffer losses. And yes, there are bookmakers that will take bets on almost anything. They do it the same as any risk takers, by researching the probabilities. People bet on political outcomes, sports outcomes, all sorts of different real world events.
- webmaven 6y ago> And yes, there are bookmakers that will take bets on almost anything. They do it the same as any risk takers, by researching the probabilities. Aren't there insurance companies (eg. Lloyd's) that will do the same?
- gambiting 6y agoAt least in the UK a lot of bookies will take "custom" bets and those can be placed on nearly anything you want - political events, financial markets, sport events.....you could place a bet that there will be a pandemic declared in 2020, and well, you would have won. Obviously the more obscure the bet, the more likely the bookie will refuse or simply offer such stupid odds that it's not worth doing - depends how much is it worth them doing research into it.
- lqet 6y agoIsn't this extremely ambiguous in many cases because there are no clear definitions? For example, I could've placed a bet that there will be a pandemic in 2020, but when it actually happened, couldn't the bookie have used some arcane definition of a pandemic that the current one did not fit? Or is the definition agreed on beforehand?
- gambiting 6y agoThey would probably say ok, it must be declared officially by the WHO. For custom bets the conditions tend to be pretty clear on when the "win" counts.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]