Bachelor Australia Season 6 - Nick Cummins - Betting Odds - *Sleuthing Spoilers*

Bobette wrote:

flojo031 wrote:
I'm not Australian, so not familar with Sportsbet. Bobette, how often are they right about certain things? Do they have insider knowledge?

@flojo031.  Always.  They are always right.  At least, they have correctly predicted the winner for every season I have sleuthed since I joined the forum and I believe before that too (for Bach, Bachette, and even who would get engaged on BiP AU, which no one else saw coming, although we did find paparazzo pics when the odds came out and I went hunting for evidence).  

I think they definitely have insider information.  I suspect it's probably the paparazzos or people who work directly or indirectly for the show (cameramen, editors, catering staff, makeup artists, cleaners etc etc; there would be a lot of people who would be in the know) but it wouldn't surprise me if the info comes from TPTB themselves and Ch 10 is somehow profiting.

It could be argued that the odds reflect who the audience think will win (i.e. large bets get placed on a contestant, and the odds get shorter, other people see them as a favourite, so they also place bets, and the odds get shorter accordingly etc etc). This is how it works with regular betting (horses etc). However this doesn't sufficiently explain the odds for a TV show.

The person who is F1 has always had the lowest Max Loss figure from their first appearance on the show (either on night 1, or in the case of Sophie's F1 Stu, when he arrived as an intruder).  And they have always had a disclaimer that "the show is pre-filmed and results may be known" (i.e. THEY KNOW!).  There's been debate about whether accepting bets on a pre-determined outcome is ethical, and at one stage it looked like it was going to be banned, but it's still going on.

To explain Max Losses:

The odds are a good indication of who will win but that's only part of the story.  Sportsbet also have a limit on how much you can bet on someone (called a Max Bet).  This determines how much Sportsbet will actually have to pay out if that person wins (the Max Loss for Sportsbet).  This enables them to be tricky and disguise the winner to a certain extent, or make it look like a close race when then know it's not.  

Say for example they give the winner odds of 1.75.  That means that for every dollar I bet, if that person wins, Sportsbet have to give me $1.75.  They obviously want to minimise their losses, so they might set the Max Bet at $10.  This means I can only bet up to $10 on that person.  My maximum payout is $17.50, but they already have my original $10 so my actual profit (and therefore Sportbet's Max Loss) is only $7.50.  Once they take their fees, I'd be lucky to get enough profit to buy a cup of tea.

Conversely, they might set another contestant's odds at 8.00, with a max bet of $100.  That means if I bet $100 and that person wins, I get $700 profit! ($800 payout minus my original $100 bet).  If that person is edited on the show to look like they might win, uneducated punters rush to throw down $100 each, thinking they're onto a winner, but of course they don't win, and Sportsbet keeps their cash.

Things get even more tricky when the results are not yet known. Check out these calculations made by @Sundy on Nick's Bachelor betting odds page Here

Sundy wrote:Max bets odds on www.sportsbet.com.au are as follows- 

Hair colour 
Black @$7.50 and max bet of $15.00 = total profit - $97.50
Brown @$2.50 and max bet of $67.00 = total profit - $100.50
Blonde @ $1.75 and max bet of $133.00 = total profit $99.75

Age
31-35 @$3.00 and max bet of $50.00 = total profit of $100.00
25-30 @ $2.00 and max bet of $100.00 = total profit of $100.00
Less than 25 $4.00 and max bet of $33.00 = total profit of $99.00

State
QLD @  $4.50 and max bet of $29.00 = total profit of $101.50
Vic @ $3.50 and a max bet of $40.00 = total profit of $100.00
NSW @ $2.50 and max bet of $67.00 = total profit of $100.50
SA @ $7.00 and max bet of $17.00 = total profit of $102.00
WA @ $8.00 and max bet of $14.00 = total profit of $98.00

You can see that although the odds for blonde, brunette etc are wildly different, the actual Max Loss for Sportsbet is practically the same.  This means they don't yet know who wins (or didn't at the time - these sums were done a few weeks ago before he picked his F1) and are not taking it very seriously at this stage since what they lose on one they will make back on another.

As soon as the girls arrive on night 1, the hair colour/home state markets will close, Sportsbet will set up a market for the individual girls by name, and it will be immediately obvious who wins IMO.  We know that none of the intruders make it to the end so the girl with the lowest Max Loss figure after the premiere is almost guaranteed to be F1.

Sportsbet are in the business of making money and they are not going to risk people placing huge bets on the winner early on, and they don't care about spoiling the show, so they just set the odds to make them maximum profit (lowest max loss for the winner and enticing odds for other contestants who look like they might win, to encourage people to bet).

During Georgia's season they made the mistake of placing Lee's Max Bet too high and his odds too long, loads of people bet in the first few hours and made a killing, from what I can gather.  They are not going to risk that happening again and we saw this with Matty's season - Laura was a clear frontrunner from the minute she stepped out of the limo.

Sundy wrote:Ever so slight change in one of the betting fields. Qld now has a max bet of $25 with a return of $5. It kinda works out the same as before but not sure why it’s moved???

Sundy wrote:Can anyone see the betting odds for The Bach on Sportsbet?

Dirty Street Pie wrote:Choosing no one is their best case scenario, as it's winner takes all, so no one wins. I'll be a bit suspicious if the odds come back and there is an option for him to pick no one.