How do they work out the odds?

RobM · May 1, 2017

Here's something I don't understand.

Southend were 4/7 to win yesterday, Bury 4/1 yet the shortest odds on a correct score were for a 1-1 draw.

How does that work?

southendkid · May 1, 2017

RobM said:
Here's something I don't understand.

Southend were 4/7 to win yesterday, Bury 4/1 yet the shortest odds on a correct score were for a 1-1 draw.

How does that work?

I won't try and get the right odds but you can get an example of 1-1 being the most likely scoreline but a home win being the most likely result easily enough. Imagine a game where there are the following probabilities for different scorelines:

1-0: 0.2
2-0 : 0.25
2-1: 0.1
1-1: 0.3
2-2: 0.05
0-1: 0.05
0-2: 0.05

(For the sake of this example we'll pretend other scorelines are impossible in this match.)

Clearly 1-1 is the most probable scoreline here, however if you add up the probabilities you can see that there's a probability 0.55 of a home win and only a probability 0.35 of a draw. So if you're going for correct scoreline 1-1 is most likely but if you just want the result a win is the most likely.

DEVILS ADVOCATE · May 4, 2017

Pretty much as above but of course there are only 3 realistic draw options (0-0 1-1 2-2) where as there are lots more home and away score options
.

btw think Fleetwood to draw at Bradford tonight is massive at 3.6 Betfair sportsbook...shorter on the exchanges.