Bachelor Australia - Matt Agnew - Season 7 - Betting Odds - *Sleuthing Spoilers*

@sprite @zaynab it makes sense, but if we factor in money put down and profit made, the max payout (or Sportsbet's max loss) is fairly even for all hair colors. Albeit with black hair having the lowest max payout. If we consider the max payout a wash then I think it makes sense to look at odds as the next indicator.

Black hair has the longest odds while blonde hair has the shortest odds. I went back and looked at Taite's odds because his categories had the lowest max payouts but just barely, but along with that, he had the shortest odds too.

Yes that's right - age/state/hair colour is not usually a huge giveaway, which is why I was so shocked about the apparent overwhelming evidence for black hair!  It makes sense for the figures to be tighter at this stage than we previously calculated.

HOWEVER!  It is worth noting that even though the difference between the payout figures is now less, black hair and NSW/VIC are still the lowest max loss, as per @Enough 's post.  And blonde still the least likely winning colour, along with brunette.  

So even though our miscalculations exaggerated the margin, Sportsbet are, technically, still predicting a black haired winner from NSW or VIC, and in past seasons, these categories have always proven to be accurate when compared to the winner.

Enough wrote: Correct me if I am wrong. Based on the above max bets and winning:

Blonde    Sportsbet will lose $100($243 -$143)
Black       Sportsbet will lose $97.50
Brunette  Sportsbet will lose $98.90
Red           Sportsbet will lose $100

With the states where the F1 will come from, the min loss for Sportsbet is either Vic or NEW with $50 nett loss

@Dirty Street Pie would you possibly have time to check the current max bets for the age brackets, so we can get a full profile?

Have just crunched the numbers again (properly this time  ), and the max losses for all categories are very tight, I think we'll get a better picture once the girls are all released:

                        Max bet.     Max Win.       Max loss

25 or less.            40.             140.             100
26-28.                  43.            141.90.          98.90
29-30.                  50.            150.               100
31-33.                  22.            121.               99

Blonde.                 143.          243.10.          100.10
Brunette.              43.            141.90.          98.90
Red.                     20.            120.               100
Black.                  15.             112.50.          97.50

Vic.                      50.             100.              50
NSW.                    25.             75.               50
WA.                      20.             80.               60
Qld.                      20.             130.             110

So if we're going purely on the odds, the winner is now 26-28, with black hair, from either NSW or Victoria. But those differences are so small, and the difference in the max losses for pretty much everything are so small that I'm inclined to think it doesn't mean anything yet. 
The picture will become clearer soon, but I'm not counting anyone off the table yet based on Sportsbet.

Dirty Street Pie wrote:Have just crunched the numbers again (properly this time  ), and the max losses for all categories are very tight, I think we'll get a better picture once the girls are all released:

                        Max bet.     Max Win.       Max loss

25 or less.            40.             140.             100
26-28.                  43.            141.90.          98.90
29-30.                  50.            150.               100
31-33.                  22.            121.               99

Blonde.                 143.          243.10.          100.10
Brunette.              43.            141.90.          98.90
Red.                     20.            120.               100
Black.                  15.             112.50.          97.50

Vic.                      50.             100.              50
NSW.                    25.             75.               50
WA.                      20.             80.               60
Qld.                      20.             130.             110

So if we're going purely on the odds, the winner is now 26-28, with black hair, from either NSW or Victoria. But those differences are so small, and the difference in the max losses for pretty much everything are so small that I'm inclined to think it doesn't mean anything yet. 
The picture will become clearer soon, but I'm not counting anyone off the table yet based on Sportsbet.

Sportsbet must be deciding to keep everything on the DL, maybe because they've realized if there is an obvious winner people are less likely to shill out on the other options or categories. I don't know that much about sportsbet.
ETA: however in general, I do agree that sports bet knows like @bobette said once the final 1 is picked there criteria for the final 1 stays pretty consistent.

@Dirty Street Pie

Yes, the differences are small, but don't forget - THOUSANDS of people bet, so that $2.60 difference between black and blonde will be multiplied, and Sportsbet are not going to lose even one cent if they can help it.

Black hair has been the one constant in the numbers since the FRC and unless that changes I personally can't discount it until the individual odds come out and/or I'm confident we aren't getting any black haired intruders.  

The age bracket change is interesting though.  I would have expected the under 25 bracket to have had a surge in bets considering 4/5 of the girls released so far are around that age, but no.  Curiouser and curiouser...

Or maybe because sports bet says the odds are based on their promo picture or whatever it is called someone changed their hair color in between taking those pictures and the show filming or somethings, I don't know when their 'headshot' or picture their released in is taken. but the age and place still has been consistent since the F1 ceremony.

This early though, IMO it's not thousands of people betting, big numbers only start to kick in once the show is well underway. The only people betting now are paps, family members and people in the know. I agree that the difference between blonde and the other colours make a blonde winner unlikely, but I can't split black and brunette at this point as they are so close, and the state, which was previously in favour of NSW is now even.

All valid points @Dirty Street Pie however I would add that the paps IMO would be the ones placing the biggest bets, so Sportsbet would want to get the odds right from the moment of the FRC IMO to avoid getting taken to the cleaners.

Also, people placing bets in any given category would drive those odds down, so I would probably place more credence on the figures from last week, before any of the girls were made public, and most people were clueless, if that makes sense?

I know you're right @Bobette, a little part of me always wants Sportsbet to be wrong so that's there's more suspense in the sleuthing!

Dirty Street Pie wrote:I know you're right @Bobette, a little part of me always wants Sportsbet to be wrong so that's there's more suspense in the sleuthing!

Oh don't worry I hear you @Dirty Street Pie - every season I hope Sportsbet are wrong!  Unfortunately I just think they are far too good at their jobs.  

Taite was nowhere near my radar before the name/state/age odds came out for Ali's season, but they fit him perfectly, as with Stu and Laura before him.

I just don't think Sbet would bother to have a market if they weren't sure they'd make money from it.  It's not just an office sweep for them, KWIM?

Hence why I'm so stuck on black hair...

I'm going to preface this with the fact that I don't know much about betting, but I'm decent at math. One thing that has always bothered me about the black hair as F1 assumption we are making based off max loss is that the odds for a blackhaired winner are so high.

Taite's categories had the lowest max loss but his odds were also relatively low. Think of it this way--max loss only factors in when somebody decides to place the max bet, but there are also many people who won't place the max bet.

So, if someone were to place a bet on black hair for 10 dollars (at 7.5 to 1 and the winner has black hair) they would be paying out 75 dollars for a 10 dollar bet, which means they would lose 65 dollars.

But, say, if someone were to place a bet on blonde (assuming the odds are 2 to 1 and the winner is blonde) for 10 dollars, they would be paying out 20 dollars for a that 10 dollar bet, meaning they would only lose 10 dollars. If someone were to place a 50 dollar bet, they would pay out 100 dollars, so that means Sportsbet would lose 50 dollars all things considered.

I think it's the high odds for black hair that is tripping me up because while I don't expect it to be the lowest odds, I'd expect it to be not as high as it is currently.

Very valid points @olive54321 - I'm going back through the archived shows now and will bring some stats over to to compare past seasons.

Perhaps I've been placing too much emphasis on the name/age/state stats, and should just wait till the individual odds are out.  

ETA:

Ali's season.
Winner = Taite 28 yo brunette from Vic



Matty's season.
Winner = Laura 31 yo brunette from NSW
(couldn't find age stats or max bet info - we didn't have a dedicated thread back then!)

Bobette wrote:

Sophie's season.
Winner = Stu, 40+ yo brunette from NSW

SugarAndSpice wrote:

Bobette wrote:

Max loss for "30 to 34", "35 to 39" and "40 or over" are all $50. The remaining two categories "Less than 25" and "25 to 29" are loss of $250 and $81, respectively.

ETA: And losses for the states are NSW = $50, VIC = $52, QLD = $60.