The Year Of The Fox Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 Anyone seen the William Hill Prem Predictor? £2 returns £50m if you correctly guess the final position of each side. Can anyone work out what the actual odds/probability is in doing that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fez of Mahrez Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 I think the actual probability would be meaningless, because you'd have to factor in every possible outcome (e.g. in three-quarters of the scenarios, Chelsea finish outside of the top five, which they're clearly not going to)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ttfn Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 I had this idea about 5 years ago and wanted to set it up as an online game but we'd have needed a licence from the Gambling Commission. The chances of paying out are absolutely minuscule but it's an easy throwaway £2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vacamion Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 Anyone seen the William Hill Prem Predictor? £2 returns £50m if you correctly guess the final position of each side. Can anyone work out what the actual odds/probability is in doing that? Firstly, I accidentally gave this a rep when I meant to quote it. I've got hands like udders, me... I was going to say that the odds will vary depending on the likelihood of the team finishing in that position. As unlikely as predicting the final table is, it's even unlikelier if that table has, say, Watford, Bournemouth and Norwich all surviving. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Year Of The Fox Posted 2 August 2015 Author Share Posted 2 August 2015 They're going to be higher odds than 25m/1 though aren't they? To settle a debate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xen Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 The pure odds (given every team being equally likely to finish in each position) is 20! (factorial) to 1, So (20x19x18x...x1):1. That's 2,432,902,008,176,640,000:1, for a return which is equivalent to 25M:1. In other words, the pure odds are 97B times higher than the payout. Now, Chelsea aren't going to finish bottom, and Norwich won't win the league, so let's try something different. Say you decide instead to group teams into one of 5 sets of 4, dependent on *roughly* where they'll finish in the table. Using the method above you'd have a 1/5 chance of getting it right, but because you can factor in a bit of real world context, let's say that on average you can get it right roughly 3 times out of 4. The odds of getting all 20 teams into the correct group is a little bit complicated, so for simplicity's sake I'll just apply this equally across the 20 teams (normally, the odds would change as groups fill up). 3/4 for every team results in probability of ~0.0032 that you get it all correct, 315:1. From there, you have to get each group in the correct order. For each one, the probability is 4!:1, or 24:1 (assuming pure random guesses). To get all 5 groups correct, raise that to the power of 5 and you get odds of 7,962,624:1 that all 5 groups are ordered correctly. You need to both put every team in the right group (315:1) AND get each group ordered correctly (7,962,624:1), so multiplying these together gives you overall odds of... 2,508,226,560:1 Which is 100x what the offered odds are. This is very crude maths, makes some fairly general assumptions and almost certainly isn't worth the money. But I'm still gonna stick a bet on anyway Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nalis Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 Beat me to it Xen but glad we came up with similar figures: 2.43290201E+18 The way I work it out was the possibility of positions in a smaller 'league' and multyping it by the total number of teams when adding a team to the league. Ie, in a 3 team league there are 6 possible outcomes. To get the possibilities for a 4 team league you multipy the 6 (from the 3 team league pssoibility) to 4 (ie the no of teams in the 4 team league) to get 24. Then to get the possibilities for a 20 team league I multiplied that total by 5 then 6 then 7, etc until getting up to 20. If you classify yours as crude maths Xen then god knows what you'd call mine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xen Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 Beat me to it Xen but glad we came up with similar figures: 2.43290201E+18 The way I work it out was the possibility of positions in a smaller 'league' and multyping it by the total number of teams when adding a team to the league. Ie, in a 3 team league there are 6 possible outcomes. To get the possibilities for a 4 team league you multipy the 6 (from the 3 team league pssoibility) to 4 (ie the no of teams in the 4 team league) to get 24. Then to get the possibilities for a 20 team league I multiplied that total by 5 then 6 then 7, etc until getting up to 20. If you classify yours as crude maths Xen then god knows what you'd call mine The part you've done is the least crude part of all of mine! That's the only part which doesn't use hypothetical scenarios... What you described (1x2x...x20) is the 'factorial' function I mentioned, which is denoted with an exclamation mark (n! is 1x2x...xn, whatever n may be). And that was a pretty perfect explanation of how permutations work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leicsmac Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 As has been exhaustively detailed above, it's about as far from a value bet as is humanly possible. Leave it alone, though I'm sure there will be some mugs who go for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingcarr21 Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 Forget probality its easy money Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Year Of The Fox Posted 2 August 2015 Author Share Posted 2 August 2015 As has been exhaustively detailed above, it's about as far from a value bet as is humanly possible. Leave it alone, though I'm sure there will be some mugs who go for it. Well it is only £2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Facecloth Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 As has been exhaustively detailed above, it's about as far from a value bet as is humanly possible. Leave it alone, though I'm sure there will be some mugs who go for it. It's £2, and a bit of fun. If you luck out you win a lot of money. I don't think it's worth looking at the value, and certainly don't think anyone having a stab at it is a mug. It's not like putting on a Lamby accumulator with 40 games from the Albanian lower leagues. £2 on something you can at least put some thought into the outcome and win £50m is much better value then the lotto. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Collymore Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 I cant normally pick 1 correctly let alone 20! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benguin Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 It's basically a euro millions lottery ticket. Although I'd rather do this then Euromillions as it's more exciting. Essentially it's never gonna happen but for £2, you will probably gain the value in the fun, particularly if it looks promising for a little while Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain... Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 The way I thought of it was if you are randomly picking 20 clubs out of a hat and putting them in that order then 20! works. Chance of getting first pick right 1/20, having got the first pick right the chance of getting the second pick right is 1/19 as there are only 19 balls left and so on 1/18, 1/17...1/1 multiply them all together you get 1/(20 x 19 x 18 ...... x1) = 1/2,432,902,008,176,640,000 As Xen was saying you can apply some knowledge to it, we know the winner will come from 1 of 4 teams, and 2,3,4 will most likely come from 6 teams and you could assume 10 teams are really in the relegation mix. 1. 1/4 2. 1/5 3. 1/4 4. 1/3 18.1/10 19. 1/9 20. 1/8 1/172800 chance at randomly selecting top 4 and bottom 3 from predefined pots which leaves 13 teams for the rest of the league 2 of which are the "big 6" which are likely to finish top 8 so we will have to flip the process a little, for these 2 teams they will finish in 2 from 4 positions, so the chance of getting that right is 1/4, then 1/3. Adding these 2 factors in puts us at 1/2,073,600 with 11 teams to fit into 11 spots Of the teams left we can rule out some of them of breaking into the top 8, leaving the last 2 top 8 spots to be filled by 5 teams (Southampton, Swansea, Everton, Stoke, West Ham 1/5 1/4 1/41,472,000 Leaving 9 teams which will finish 9th - 17th 1/9 1/8 1/7 1/6 1/5 1/4 1/3 1/2 1/1 So assuming no absolute stinkers, or real surprise package teams and that you agree with my assumptions I make it around 1/15,000,000,000,000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScouseFox Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 pretty confident im gonna win it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leicsmac Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 Well it is only £2 It's £2, and a bit of fun. If you luck out you win a lot of money. I don't think it's worth looking at the value, and certainly don't think anyone having a stab at it is a mug. It's not like putting on a Lamby accumulator with 40 games from the Albanian lower leagues. £2 on something you can at least put some thought into the outcome and win £50m is much better value then the lotto. Yeah, perhaps I was a bit harsh there. It is only £2 after all That being said, the only winner of this is guaranteed to be Wills - the odds are so far in their favour it's unreal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScouseFox Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 ive got 5 to do, but that's cos each willy hill shop gets set a target of how many to do and i owed my old shop a favour so said i'd do a tenners worth just to boost their figures . gonna take em into work or down the pub later and it'll be a fun discussion for an hour or so. Yeah, perhaps I was a bit harsh there. It is only £2 after all That being said, the only winner of this is guaranteed to be Wills - the odds are so far in their favour it's unreal. tbf if someone actually manages to win then hills will be a massive loser cos there's no chance they're selling 25 million of these. they're just obviously certain nobody will win. bit like that coral competition where you had to pick every correct score for both legs of every round of 16 champions league game i think it was, and that was free to play and the winner got £10m (i think). obviously nobody won. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Facecloth Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 Yeah, perhaps I was a bit harsh there. It is only £2 after all That being said, the only winner of this is guaranteed to be Wills - the odds are so far in their favour it's unreal. The odds are massively in their favour, but unless they get 25 million entries, if someone lucks it and gets it spot on they'll lose money on it. They'll most likely not have to pay out more than the guaranteed £100k, but there's a small chance they could lose big time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leicsmac Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 ive got 5 to do, but that's cos each willy hill shop gets set a target of how many to do and i owed my old shop a favour so said i'd do a tenners worth just to boost their figures . gonna take em into work or down the pub later and it'll be a fun discussion for an hour or so. tbf if someone actually manages to win then hills will be a massive loser cos there's no chance they're selling 25 million of these. they're just obviously certain nobody will win. bit like that coral competition where you had to pick every correct score for both legs of every round of 16 champions league game i think it was, and that was free to play and the winner got £10m (i think). obviously nobody won. The odds are massively in their favour, but unless they get 25 million entries, if someone lucks it and gets it spot on they'll lose money on it. They'll most likely not have to pay out more than the guaranteed £100k, but there's a small chance they could lose big time. That's true. Let's say they get about 55.500 punters placing on it (makes the maths easier). Taking Xen's odds above (2,508,226,560:1) and assuming that no two punters have placed all 20 teams identically, that means they have a 2,508,226,560:55500, or a 1:46000 (roughly) chance of having to pay out the £50m. So they have a 99.997826% chance of scoring about 110k, and a 0.002174% chance of losing £50m. 1:46000 chance for a 1:460 (roughly) money difference. So, overall, their edge is in this case about 100x better than an even money bet (they'll make 100x as much money as they lose in the long term if they did this over and over evening out variance). As long as they're insured for losing the 50 mill (and given that edge I'm guessing someone would do it for them), it's a huge money maker. I struggle to think of many other bets where the odds you get are over 100x less than the worked-out mathematical chance of it happening - even the Lotto jackpot when it's low is only between 5-10x less on that score. Sorry for geeking out a bit here, but it is a really good example of having a fun flutter where the "house" has a truly massive edge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hollism Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 I think it was for 2010 World Cup, where The Sun ran something similar. Bet £1, get the correct score of ALL 64 games, and you win £100million. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain... Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 They could lose out and lose out big, because if one person gets it then there is a good chance others will as most people think in the same way and are influenced by the same sources, and will be influenced most heavily by last season. A lot of people will put Chelsea for the title, the top four made up from Arsenal and the Manc clubs, Liverpool and Spurs 5th & 6th then Southampton, Swansea and Everton. The bottom 3 most people will put the promoted clubs, then the bottom half made up of the rest. I imagine a lot of people will have very similar tables, meaning that if it is a very predictable season this could cost them a lot of money. They are relying on a Southampton or Swansea having a stinker or a Villa or Newcastle having a flyer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benguin Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 They could lose out and lose out big, because if one person gets it then there is a good chance others will as most people think in the same way and are influenced by the same sources, and will be influenced most heavily by last season. A lot of people will put Chelsea for the title, the top four made up from Arsenal and the Manc clubs, Liverpool and Spurs 5th & 6th then Southampton, Swansea and Everton. The bottom 3 most people will put the promoted clubs, then the bottom half made up of the rest. I imagine a lot of people will have very similar tables, meaning that if it is a very predictable season this could cost them a lot of money. They are relying on a Southampton or Swansea having a stinker or a Villa or Newcastle having a flyer. I'd imagine it's a £50mill pool, if say 20 people got it right they'd get 2.5mill each Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 Some good publicity for them if someone did win though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Posted 2 August 2015 Share Posted 2 August 2015 Was in Betfred yesterday and the lad behind the counter says theres a new bet you'll like, basically it's like a Scoop 6 (Anyone into horse racing will know what that is - For those that don't, it's 6 selected races you have to pick the horse that wins in each race) but for football, basically there will be 6 selected games you have to pick the correct score in each game, £2 a go, I presume the payout depends on how many enter. I kindly told the lad, it's not a bet I would like, I can't pick simply which team is gonna win, even as a single bet, let alone picking 6 correct scores! Bloody hell. I'll stick to Sky's Super 6 and fail for free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.