Betting for the European Championship? ‘It's not necessarily advantageous to bet on the favourite’
Will the Netherlands win the European football championship? That is the question on many people’s mind in the run-up to the European Championship. Some even dare to place a bet with friends or colleagues. But what should you bet on? Folia asked statistician and psychologist Henrik Godmann.
German PhD candidate Henrik Godmann has already got the orange fever going. For his PhD, he studies complex statistical models to predict outcomes of different therapies against depression based on probability theory. And this comes in handy when making sports bets with his friends and colleagues in the run-up to the European Championships. We asked Godmann for a quick lesson in statistics to increase the chances of more than recouping your bet.
Do statisticians or mathematicians have a significant advantage when it comes to this kind of betting?
“Haha, if that were the case, all those scientists would not be sitting here at university, but somewhere on an island in the Caribbean. We can do a lot with probability, but what will actually happen always remains a gamble. At the level of betting with friends or colleagues, it is not possible to predict it with a degree of certainty that will make you rich. Even someone with all the knowledge of football, mathematics and statistics cannot predict with 100 per cent certainty how the game will turn out; there are too many uncertainties for that.”
And if you still want to try? How can you increase your odds?
“If you record your bets in Excel, on paper or a whiteboard, the first thing I would do is look for websites where bookmakers have estimated the odds, or probabilities, for the upcoming championship. They use a big dataset to come to their predictions, such as previous game results, the fitness of teams and players, and possibly even AI.”
“Good to know is that bookmakers are often not transparent about how they arrive at their odds. They at least use ‘the wisdom of the crowd’ in their models, as with the popular ToTo, an online betting platform for football. They incorporate into their figures the betting behavior of the crowd and then build in a good margin for themselves to earn from it.”
How do you use those odds?
“Let me give an example: on the website I use, for example, I see that for the Netherlands-Poland match, the odds are set at 1.55 that the Netherlands will win. For every euro you bet, you will receive 1 euro and 55 cents – including the bet - if they actually win.”
“But to better understand that number in terms of odds, we do a little math and divide the number 1 by those odds (1/1.55), transforms the odds to probabilities, in this case of 0.65. So the probability of the Netherlands winning are estimated at 65% by the bookies. But it could be that you yourself are well informed about football and the bookmakers’ odds don’t quite match your own believes. Then you can compare them. For example: I know that the Netherlands have won eight of the last 10 matches and have only lost to France and Germany, which are strong teams. Poland has won seven of its last 10 matches and drawn twice, including a win over Germany. Because of Poland’s win over Germany in particular, I would rate Poland’s chances of winning a bit higher than the bookies do, meaning that a bet on Poland could be more favorable in my opinion.”
Isn’t betting on the best team always a good thing?
“It is not necessarily advantageous to bet on the favorite. Another example: suppose the odds for France are very low, let’s say 1.3, representing a 75% chance of them winning a team (1/1.3=0.75). Many people will probably bet on France. And if that country then wins, the margin on the money you can make is very low, simply because everyone shares the price. This often makes betting on the favorites unprofitable in the long run and interesting to watch the ‘underdog’, where the margin can again be very high.”
“Besides, if you are sure of the outcome every time, there is no reason to watch football anymore, is there? Fortunately, the favorite will lose one time or another anyway, which also makes it so exciting!”
Gambling costs money...
“True... My main advice is to only play with money you can lose without any problems. This applies to shares, sports betting and casinos. Know that in sports you cannot predict the outcome with enough certainty to get rich from it, it is still gambling. Therefore, play with money whose losses do not affect you, then it remains fun and exciting.”
“In addition, many people do not know that addiction rates in sports betting are very high. Unlike, say, roulette in the casino, where the probability of the ball rolling on red or black has a fixed probability, anything can happen in sports. Still, people feel that they have some degree of control over what happens on the football field, which makes it highly addictive. Even if you are a psychologist and know a lot about it, it is hard to stop yourself from doing so. At the end of the day, it remains a gamble.”
Are you for the Netherlands or for Germany?
“Haha, I think it will be very exciting in the pool phase for the Netherlands with Poland, France and Austria. Although I am a German and the European Championship is taking place in Germany, I would definitely put a bet on the Netherlands. But not with all my money.”
