Football Pools - Fixed Odds Betting
Fixed Odd bets began in the 19th century when in the 1880’s newspapers started offering fixed prizes to people for correctly predicting the outcome of games. These became known over time as ‘fixed odds’ Basically what this means is that they don’t change. When the odds are publicised they are fixed so that from the moment of publication to the moment they cease to take bets on that game or match, the odds will remain the same. They don’t vary according to how many people bet for or against the various options, they don’t change when a member of the football team is swapped out for someone else, they remain the same regardless of what happens.
Today the process still continues. Bookmakers still offer fixed odds prizes for correct predictions of the score on football matches. When a high street bookmaker publishes a list of the odds on the matches they print a long list and as soon as they print this, the odds become ‘fixed’. Internet bookies have more flexibility with this as they don’t need to print their list, but regardless of this for the most part, the odds on most matches remain the same right up until the match kicks off making them fixed odds.
What this means for any one placing a bet that uses fixed odds is that you know the odds aren’t going to change from when you place the bet. As an example, if you read on the board that the bet is 1/4 then you’d be betting your one coin against four belonging to the bookmaker.
They are setting a probability that they believe there is only 1 chance against 4 that your chosen team will win – this is a ratio of 20% to 80%. So if you bet £1 at these odds, and your team won, you would win £4. If the odds were 4/1 then the bookmaker thinks that there is an 80% chance they’ll win and a 20% chance that they won’t so then you would have to bet £4 in order to win £1. These odds being fixed, this is the amount you would win whether you placed the bet 1 week or 1 minute before the kick off of the match that you are betting on regardless of any new information that came to light such as a player having an injury or something.
