Laying the Attractive WTA Players

For many years, I have had a theory that the ‘attractive’ players in the WTA are overvalued in the betting markets. If this were true, then there might be a valid strategy in laying these players. However, without testing this hypothesis, it had its merits, but it would be impossible to justify putting real money on.

The first thing to do is to compile a list of the top 10 most attractive players. Obviously, there is a large subjective element in determining which players are deemed attractive – different people find different women attractive. To put together a list, I ran a poll on DW on Sport asking people to select the three players that they felt were the ‘most attractive on the WTA Tour’. There were three standout players – Ana Ivanovic, Maria Kirilenko and Eugenie Bouchard. The next group contained Alize Lim, Sorana Cirstea and Mandy Minella, all of whom polled in double figures. The rest of our ‘Top 10’ were made up of Daniela Hantuchova, Heidi El Tabakh, Julia Goerges and Dominika Cibulkova.

Alize Lim is a lesser-known player on the WTA, but should be be laying
her purely based on her looks?

I will test this theory by focussing on when the players are the favourite in the betting market. There is no particular reason for this, but the majority of money is usually for the favourite. The favourite-longshot bias would tend to suggest that backing the favourite is the better strategy, which is backed up by the statistics. If you had staked £10 on every player in the top 100 for the last 50 matches where they have been favourite, you would have made a total of £640 from stakes of £50,000 at 1.3%. While this is hardly a great return, it is profitable nonetheless.

Ana Ivanovic has long been one of the most photogenic players on the WTA Tour

The first thing to do is to set a benchmark to compare our ‘attractive’ players against. As we have a list of 10 players, we shall randomly take samples of 10 players from the top 100 in the world. We can record the amount that we would have won or lost from £10 stakes per match, or £5,000 per sample. Having taken 100 random samples, the mean amount that we would have won from each sample of 10 players comes out at £57.68 or 1.2%. The standard deviation comes out at £51.17.

Now, we look at the sample of the ten players that we have. If we had staked £10 on each of the last 50 matches that each of them had played as favourite, we would have lost a total of £153 at 5.0%. Clearly, this reflects pretty badly compared to the overall average, however, at neither the 95% nor the 99% level, a hypothesis test does not prove that this is not just random variation. The table below shows the values for each of our players:

Player	Return As Favourite (Last 50 Matches)	Yield
Ana Ivanovic	£22.00	4.4%
Maria Kirilenko	£26.00	5.2%
Eugenie Bouchard	£50.50	10.1%
Sorana Cirstea	-£42.50	-8.5%
Julia Goerges	-£79.00	-15.8%
Dominika Cibulkova	-£23.00	-4.6%
Daniela Hantuchova	-£58.50	-11.7%
Mandy Minella	£6.00	1.2%
Alize Lim	-£42.00	-8.4%
Heidi El Tabakh	-£12.50	-2.5%

As we can see, there is plenty of variation among the players in the sample. Julia Goerges is comfortably the worst with a very poor -15.8% return as favourite, while Daniela Hantuchova, Sorana Cirstea and Alize Lim also show returns of below -8%. However, Eugenie Bouchard performs very well, returning a positive double figures, while Kirilenko and Ivanovic both show returns of over 4%.

Julia Goerges shows a particularly bad -15.8% return as a favourite

One question to look at is why our theory might be true. Casual punters will often be tempted to back the players that they are most familiar with. Generally, this is likely to be the top players – the likes of Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka are well-known to even casual tennis fans. Even the likes of Sam Stosur, Petra Kvitova, Li Na and Agnieszka Radwanska will be known to many.

However, the name recognition of players is usually related to their media profile and mainstream presence. Anna Kournikova, despite only just breaking into the top 10 in the WTA rankings, is arguably one of the most famous tennis players of all-time among the general public. This is not due to her tennis, but entirely due to her looks and the marketing and modelling presence that she had off the court. In the same way, the current attractive WTA players, albeit it to a far lesser extent than Kournikova, will often have name recognition that is significantly greater than it would be compared to another player of a similar standard, but without the looks.

Anna Kournikova was known more for her looks than her tennis

Conversely, we could argue that there are enough smart punters involved in the market that they will base their pricing purely on tennis-related statistics and reasoning. While casual punters might force the price out of line by supporting the attractive players, these smart punters will take the higher price and push it back into line.

Looking at our figures, it is not entirely clear whether our theory is correct. While the mean of our sample is low – negative in fact – but statistically, we cannot prove that it is not due to random variation. There are also plenty of other variables that affect the price – young players breaking through are often undervalued by the market, hence the impressive returns for Genie Bouchard, while some players simply struggle as favourites. Certain players may be overrated by the market for other reasons.

Genie Bouchard is receiving huge publicity both for
her tennis and her looks

The theory may well be true. The statistic is very close to the level where we would reject the null hypothesis of no difference in mean at the 95% level – a couple of matches won or lost either way might have nudged this over that level. However, we cannot say for certain that laying the attractive players is a guaranteed profitable strategy. We might be able to refine the strategy by taking more variables into account, but for now, it remains relatively inconclusive. Indeed, based on the hypothesis testing, there is a reasonable argument to be made that there is no link, which would back up the idea that the smart money outweighs the casual money in these markets. 

*The data used was correct as of 15th February when this study started

Solving the Wildcard Issue in Tennis

The wildcard system in tennis is one that often causes much debate among both fans and pundits. Which players will receive wildcards to Grand Slam tournaments prompts discussion each time the tournaments roll around. However, I am going to look at whether the system is fair and what changes could be made to improve it.

Since the start of the 2012 season, there have been a total of 517 wildcards that have been handed out to players. In general, Grand Slam events will hand out eight wildcards, Masters 1000 events will hand out four or five, while ATP 500 and 250 events will award three. Sometimes tournaments might award more than this number, while very occasionally they might hand out fewer. The vast majority of wildcards are handed out by the tournament director. What we should look for in determining the provision of wildcards we shall revisit later.

Jack Sock and his fellow Americans are huge beneficiaries of wildcards

The first thing to look at is how tournaments tend to allocate their wildcards. Since the start of 2012, there are five tournaments that have given all their wildcards to players not from the country that the tournament is being held in. These tournaments are Houston (2012), Dubai (2013, 2014), Malaysia (2013) and Memphis (2014).

Dubai is to be expected with the lack of players from the United Arab Emirates. Indeed, there is not a single Emirati player in the ATP rankings. Malaysia is similar with their only ranked player being Mohd Assri Merzuki ranked at 1,396. So, excluding these, there are just two tournaments that have not awarded wildcards to domestic players when given the opportunity.

In contrast, there were 57 tournaments that awarded all their wildcards to domestic players. Excluding the Grand Slams, there were 139 tournaments during the period that we are looking at. Therefore, over 40% of all the tournaments awarded all of their wildcards to domestic players. Looking at the Grand Slams, if we exclude the reciprocal wildcards that we shall look at later, the last two US Open events have seen all twelve wildcards go to American and the last two French Open events have seen all twelve wildcards go to Frenchmen. Wimbledon has awarded just six of its thirteen wildcards in the last two years to British players.

With the strong bias toward domestic players, players from those countries that have more tournaments are likely to benefit disproportionally from wildcards. The USA is the country that possesses more ATP events than any other country. In the 148 tournaments that fall in our sample, 29 of these have taken place in the USA. In other words, almost 20% of all tournaments have been in the United States since the start of 2012. In comparison, the closest countries behind them are France with 14, followed by Australia and Germany on nine.

Based on this, we might expect to see American players dominating the wildcard provisions over the period, followed by Frenchmen, Australians and Germans. This assumption would be correct. There is only one player in the top 10 wildcard beneficiaries that is not from one of these four countries – James Ward. Amazingly, Jack Sock has been given no fewer than 17 wildcards in this period, followed by Lleyton Hewitt on 16. Indeed, in 2011, every tournament that Lleyton Hewitt played in was as a result of a wildcard.

Other players that have enjoyed a plenitude of wildcards include former top college player, Steve Johnson (13), the favourite of the American media, Ryan Harrison (12), French pair of Gael Monfils and Paul-Henri Mathieu (9), Australia’s James Duckworth (9) and veteran American James Blake (8).

In 2011, Lleyton Hewitt was awarded a wildcard into every event he played that year

It works out that 18.5% of all wildcards have gone to American players for no other reason than the USA happens to host more tournaments. Indeed, 43.7% of all wildcards handed out during this period went to players from the four Grand Slam nations. If you happen to be from a country without a Grand Slam or many ATP tournaments, you are unlikely to get many opportunities.

While one can see why tournament directors want domestic players in their main draws, there is an argument that they are actually having the opposite effect. The majority of wildcards do not progress particularly deep into a tournament, meaning that they often lose between Monday and Wednesday. Is there not an argument that by making them play in qualifying on the previous Saturday and Sunday, it means that there is more interest for the larger crowds that can turn up at weekends than during the week?

So, how can the wildcard system be made fairer? The first option is simply to scrap the wildcard system altogether. If your ranking is good enough to qualify for a tournament, then you qualify for the tournament. If it is not good enough, then you do not qualify. There is certainly an argument to adopt this, but there are certainly aspects of the wildcard system that are beneficial.

One simple rule to start might be to limit the number of wildcards that any one player can accept in a season. This might mean that wildcards are spread around the players slightly more than they are now. Instead of Jack Sock taking seven wildcards per year at the expense of other players, if he were restricted to three, then he would have to think about which tournaments to prioritise. If he decided not to use one of his three allocated spots, then other players would get the opportunity to impress.

While tournament directors clearly like to see well-known names at their tournaments, it is difficult to really justify wildcards going to players in their thirties and on the decline. The likes of Paul-Henri Mathieu, James Blake, Lleyton Hewitt and Marcos Baghdatis have received 38 wildcards between them during this period. Rather, one cannot help but feel that these wildcards would be more suited to younger players. Maybe there should be a limit that only one wildcard may go to a player over a certain age?

Grega Zemlja earned a Wimbledon wildcard in 2012 by winning the Nottingham Challenger

In terms of promoting fairness and competition, one of the strongest suggestions that I have is that there is an increase in merit-based wildcards. There are two wildcard tournaments for the Australian Open – one for Asian players and one for American players. The winner of these wildcard tournaments is given a wildcard into the Australian Open. One of the Wimbledon wildcards in 2012 was awarded to Grega Zemlja as a result of his title at the Nottingham Challenger event two weeks earlier. One of the US Open wildcards is given to the American player that collects the most points in a series of Challenger events in the months before the tournament. Instead of being handed a wildcard, you are earning the wildcard.

There is a strong argument for increasing the number of these merit-based wildcards, not just for Grand Slam events. One option is that each Grand Slam could have an associated Challenger event, where the prize for the champion is a wildcard into that slam. Just as Wimbledon used Nottingham, the French Open could use the Bordeaux Challenger that takes place just two weeks before Roland Garros. The Australian Open could either encourage the West Lakes Challenger to move to before the slam or could strike a deal with the Noumea Challenger. The US Open could continue to use its current system of whichever player gains the most points in a series of American Challengers, but open that up to players of all nationalities, rather than limit it to just Americans.

An alternative might be to introduce a series of wildcard events similar to those for the Australian Open, but open to players of all nationalities. There are currently two of these events, but one is only open to Asian players and one is only open to American players. Instead of this, why not hold five wildcard events across five continents – North and South America, Asia, Australia and Europe. These tournaments would be open to any entrants in the same way that other tournaments are, but the prize being a wildcard into the next Grand Slam and each tournament would take place on the same surface that the associated Grand Slam takes place on. With a 32-player draw in each tournament, it would mean that 160 players would be playing for the five available wildcards.

Additionally, for Grand Slam events, I would like to see the previous year’s junior champion given a wildcard into the main draw as a further prize. The player has clearly demonstrated great talent and ability on the surface to win the junior edition, so I would feel that there is a strong argument for rewarding them with an opportunity in the main draw.

Combining these various measures for Grand Slams would mean that six of the eight main draw wildcards are awarding on a merit-based scale. You would have the five wildcard-tournament winners and the previous year’s junior champion. Two wildcards would still remain to be awarded at the discretion of the tournament director.

Given the prestige of the Grand Slam events, combined with the ranking points and prize money on offer, I believe that it is only fair that these events award their wildcards on merit. Otherwise, it does run the real risk of distorting the rankings for those players fortunate enough to be born in the right place at the right time, rather than those players that have earned their spot.

For regular ATP and WTA events, the issue is slightly less important. However, I would still like to see a change in the wildcard system. There could be similar links between certain ATP/WTA events and Challenger events, or possibly even high-level junior events, particularly the Grade A and Grade 1 events. This could even work in a tournament's favour by creating an attachment to that particular tournament among future up-and-coming stars, who may then return once they have made it big in the game.

By winning the Copa Barranquilla, maybe Olga Fridman should earn a wildcard
into the WTA event in Bogota?

To give a few examples, maybe the winner of the junior Grade 1 Copa Barranquilla, which takes place in Barranquilla in Colombia, could earn a wildcard into the WTA Bogota event. The winner of the junior Grade 1 Mediterranee Avenir event in Casablanca, Morocco, could earn a wildcard into the ATP Casablanca or the WTA Marrakech events. Maybe the winner of the indoor Texas Challenger event could earn a wildcard into the Memphis ATP event. The winner of the women’s $100k event in Cagnes-Sur-Mer could be rewarded with a wildcard into the WTA Strasbourg event. There are countless possible links that could be formed.

However, the main change that I would like to see here are fewer main draw wildcards, replaced by more wildcards into qualifying. It would give fans the chance to watch their local players in qualifying over the weekend, while players would have to earn their place in the main draw. You would no longer get the same players parachuted into the main draw. While they may get a spot in qualifying that belies their ranking, they would still have the opportunity to prove themselves.

There are obviously many ways that the wildcard system can be tweaked. I have mentioned a few, but they are by no means the only options. However, in conclusion, I would suggest an annual limit on individuals accepting wildcards, a transfer of wildcards from main draw to qualifying and a substantial increase in merit-based wildcards. Does that completely solve the wildcard issue? Of course not. However, it would help to spread wildcards across arguably more deserving players.

Analysing an ITF Match for Betting

Over the past five months, I have had great success betting on ITF tennis. For those that do not know, the ITF Tour lies below the ATP/WTA Tours and the Challenger Tour and generally represents the lowest level of professional tennis. It generally consists of career journeymen, a few former top 100 players in the last moments of their careers, players coming back from injury and young hopefuls, who are just starting out on their tennis careers.

These are players known by few tennis journalists or punters. However, every player starts out here at some stage in their career. Virtually every player in the top 20 in both the ATP and WTA have played and won ITF events early in their careers. The relative obscurity of the vast majority of players means that there are often profitable opportunities for the smart punter, who is willing to put in the research. Personally, I have a database of over 25,000 matches, consisting of matches from the leading global junior tournaments, American junior tournaments in a range of age-groups down to U14s, Australian money tournaments and European junior tour events.

At the moment of writing, I have logged 141 ITF bets on this website, showing a profit of 81.53 units on 352 units staked, giving an impressive ROI of 23.2% (see the breakdown here). Over the past few weeks, a number of people have asked about what it is that I look for in selecting bets and what information I consider when making the decisions. Thus, I have decided to put an example together based on my latest recommended bet to show the decision-making process and what resources I use. Rather than using my database, I will demonstrate it using resources available on the internet.

The match that I will use as the case study is Chiara Scholl against Peggy Porter. This is a first round match from the Gainesville ITF event in Florida, taking place on outdoor clay. Chiara Scholl is the seventh seed and Peggy Porter is unseeded, and both players had an automatic place in the main draw. As the image above shows, the starting odds from Bet365 are 4/6 on Chiara Scholl and 11/10 on Peggy Porter. The first thing to look at is the ITF website.

We can see some basic facts about the two players. On the left, 21-year old Chiara Scholl is currently ranked at #544 in the world, significantly below her career high ranking of #164 that she achieved back in late 2011. On the right, 18-year old Peggy Porter is ranked at #742, which is virtually a career high ranking, just one place behind the #741 that she achieved in October last year. In terms of other information that we can glean from this page, we can see that Scholl lists hard courts as her favoured surface. One thing to bear in mind is that young players are limited in the number of tournaments that they are allowed to play. As a result, their rankings can often be lower than they should be.

The activity tab shows us every match that each player has competed in on the ITF or WTA tours over either the last 12 months or their entire career. For Scholl, we see that she has played 36 matches in the last 12 months compiling a 10-26 record – far from impressive. Indeed, she has won just 4 matches from 20 matches on clay, although several of them were against significantly higher ranked opponents. Only one of those clay court wins was against a player inside the top 600 in the world, while several of the defeats were against players either outside the top 1000 or unranked.

Going further back, she does have a handful of quarter-finals in ITF $10k and $25k events, but the most recent was back in mid-2012 with the majority being during 2011 when she had her run to her career highest ranking.

Peggy Porter has compiled a 7-6 record on clay in the last 12 months, including a run to the semi-final of a $10k event in Bethany Beach in June last year. Furthermore, only one of those defeats was against a player outside the top 600 in the world.

To get a further idea about the players, particularly Porter, we can look at their junior records. For this particular matches, there is little information of use. Scholl never played a junior match on clay, suggesting that she does not like the surface, while Porter played a handful with little real success.

Our next stop is the American college scene. A large number of the younger American players come through the college system, where we can often find a number of matches that are not detailed on the ITF website. As it happens, Chiara Scholl is one of the rarer American players that has not been involved in the college system. At 18-years old, Peggy Porter has not started college yet, so does not show up on the system either.

However, where we can find information to expand our knowledge of Porter is the American high-school and junior tournaments. The basic information is shown below:

We can see some more information here. She is from Dallas, but she has committed to go to college in Florida, which we can presume is likely to be one of the reasons for her playing these ITF tournaments in Florida. The University of Florida is located in Gainesville, which is where this tournament is being played. Whether there is any home advantage is unknown, but it could be something to bear in mind.

She is rated as a blue chip recruit, which is the highest rating for high-school players. Furthermore, we can see that she is rated as the #3 ranked player nationally for the ‘Class of 2014’ and rated one place higher at #2 in the IMG TennisRPI list. The TennisRPI rankings are updated weekly and are used to determine the top junior players across the USA. It takes into account a player’s winning percentage, a player’s strength of schedule and the strength of schedule of a player’s opponents.

We can see that she has compiled a record of 26-9, giving a winning percentage of 74.3%. While this is below several of the players below her in the rankings, it is balanced out by the fact that she has played the second-toughest schedule of the players in this class. We can compare her ITF ranking against those players around her to get an idea of how representative it is. As a comparison, Brooke Austin is ranked at #586 and Louisa Chirico is ranked at #349. Possibly we can conclude that her ranking might be slightly below its true position due to having played fewer tournaments.

Looking at her activity, there is one tournament that stands out as containing potentially useful information. We can see that she played in the U18 National Clay Court Championships last year with some success. She reached the semi-final of the tournament, where she lost to Chloe Ouellet-Pizer, who is a decent clay court player that reached the third round of the prestigious Eddie Herr tournament in December. In other words, while clay may not be Porter’s favoured surface, she is not completely out of water playing on it.

The final check often will not turn anything up, but is worth doing. By searching the player’s name on Google, we can occasionally find news articles or pages that may provide the odd snippet of information. By searching for Peggy Porter, we find a press release from the University of Florida with one useful piece of information. It mentions that she won the 2013 Collegiate Clay Court Invitational, again suggesting that she may be a decent player on the clay courts. For Chiara Scholl, there is no particularly useful information.

With all this information, we can now return to the prices. We have Chiara Scholl, who enjoyed a few good runs on clay back in 2011 when she was playing much better tennis than she is currently playing. She does not play much on clay and has struggled on the surface in recent times, while she is also horribly out of form. Her previous high ranking does suggest that she does have talent, but there is little in the past year to suggest that she is anywhere close to that right now.

On the opposite side, we have Peggy Porter, who is playing in a location that she is set to call home for the next few years. She has enjoyed some good clay court results at the junior levels, while she has also reached a $10k semi-final on clay last summer. She is one of the top ranked players in her class and similar rated players have enjoyed reasonable success recently – Chirico reached a $25k quarter-final on clay and reached the semi-finals of the Junior French Open, while Austin has reached a $10k semi-final and taken a set off the talented Kleybanova.

Obviously, we have to weigh up all of these factors to decide whether either of the prices is value. In this situation, I am happy to back Peggy Porter at odds of 11/10. However, this is the decision that is up to you. Some people will put different ratings on the various aspects and may come up with a different conclusion. Maybe some people will think that Scholl is the value. Others may feel that the prices are right and that there is no bet in this match. That is the joy of betting – no two people will have exactly the same view on a match.

Regardless, I hope that this article has given people an idea of some of the resources and statistics out there and how they can be used to weigh up and analyse a tennis matches. If anyone has any further ideas as to what could be added to this analysis or different ways of approaching it, feel free to mention them in the comments below.

Bookmakers and Obvious Errors

Everyone has certain gripes about how the bookmakers operate. For me, the aspect that particularly frustrates me is the handling of what the bookmakers refer to as ‘Palpable Errors’ or ‘Obvious Errors’. Formerly known as palpable errors, the wording of bookmaker rules were changed to refer to obvious errors in an attempt to clarify the issue.

As former IBAS Chief Executive stated in 2008, “the industry needs to remove the term ‘palpable error’, or its equivalent, from their rules. It has become a mere device lacking true definition.” In 2014, the vast majority of the bookmakers now refer to these issues as ‘Obvious Errors’.

So, what exactly is the wording of this rule concerning these so-called errors? Bet365 state:

Prior to the start of an event, in-play or after the event, where an Obvious Error is identified, any bets will stand and be settled at the bet365 revised price.

In my view, there are a number of problems with this rule, which I shall discuss. The first involves the identification of an obvious error, the second involves the revision of the price and the third concerns the timing of the identification.

Let us consider an event where the market, based on a standard 8% overround, prices Team 1 at 1/6 and Team 2 at 7/2. With the market prices determined across the board, if a bookmaker opens their prices at Team 1 being 7/2 and Team 2 being 1/6, then I am happy to accept this being an ‘Obvious Error’. In this situation, it is quite clear that the prices have simply been entered the wrong way around. A careless mistake for sure, but it is clearly an obvious error.

Pre-event, the determination of what constitutes an obvious error is easier. However, in-play, it becomes more difficult. Different traders will view matches as progressing in a different manner. If a trader is not concentrating on a tennis match properly and misses a break of serve, or a football match and misses a goal, should any bets that are placed by the punter in good faith be classed as an obvious error, or does it become an error made by the trader?

Thirdly, once the results of an event are determined, the identification of what are now errors in pricing are easier to spot. Using the example of the Aston Villa against Norwich match today, it could be argued that the final score of 4-1 to Aston Villa makes the price of 4/1 on Aston Villa to win the match after 20 minutes look like an error. Clearly it is not – the price of 4/1 was justified on Villa at 1-0 down, but knowing the final result makes it easier to class something as an error.

As you may have guessed, this article has been provoked by an incident that happened today, which to me, calls into question all three of the issues that I have raised above.

The bet in question was during the Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne cycling race that took place this afternoon. The situation was that there was a breakaway group of 10 riders, including Stijn Vandenbergh. They had approximately a 60 second lead over the chasing group with just under 25km remaining. Bet365 were offering the race match-bet between Vandenbergh and his teammate, Niki Terpstra with Vandenbergh at 23/20 and Terpstra at 13/20.

Amazingly, Bet365 did not even change the odds in their results area

At the prices, I felt, as did a number of other cycling experts on Twitter, that the odds on Vandenbergh were value, given the strength of the leading group and the reasonable chance that the break might stay away. As a bit of background, a common accepted adage in cycling is that the peloton is usually able to close a gap of around one minute for every 10km remaining. In a situation such as this, with a strong leading group and a chasing pack that was poorly organised, the chances of the break being brought back were less than in a standard sprint stage, but it was far from guaranteed.

Was the 23/20 an error? Quite probably – the real odds should probably have been shorter. Was it obvious enough an error to class it as an Obvious Error? Highly debatable.

The second aspect is the revision of the price. As I have just stated, the price was almost certainly too big. There is a reasonable argument to suggest that the prices could have been the opposite way around with Vandenbergh at 13/20 and Terpstra at 23/20. Had the break been caught, Vandenbergh would almost certainly have been dropped out the back and Terpstra would have won this match bet. In effect, it was a bet as to whether the break would stay away.

When I received a message stating that the odds had been changed, I was disgusted to see that the odds had been changed to 1/10. There is virtually no argument that I can see to convince me that, at the moment that I placed the bet with 25km remaining, odds of 1/10 on Vandenbergh were the correct odds. Had Bet365 offered the match bet with Vandenbergh at 1/10 and Terpstra at 5/1, I imagine they would have seen plenty of money on Terpstra at the 5/1.

This ties in with the time of the timing of the change. Despite the fact that the bet was placed with 25km remaining, which works out at approximately 30 minutes of cycling, the bet was not changed until 20 minutes after the race had finished, at which point is was clear that Vandenbergh had beaten Terpstra.

As the point was made earlier, it is easy to conclude after the event that Vandenbergh and the break would stay clear of the chasing pack, in which case, it is possible to conclude that it might have been a 1/10 shot at the time. However, decisions on price changes should surely not be made after the result is known? It is only natural that the final outcome will significantly bias the retrospective opinion of the chances at the time of the bet placement.

Having approached Bet365, the only reasoning for why it was classified as an ‘Obvious Error’ was “Our Trading team are aware that the original odds offered were incorrect so resettled the bets at the correct odds.” When I asked again as to what specifically caused it to be classed as an ‘Obvious Error’, I was told that they “don't have any further information.” In other words, they do not have any information as to why the odds might have been wrong. For something that was clear enough to be re-priced as an ‘Obvious Error’, this seems crazy.

They were also unable to provide any information as to why they determined that the correct odds at the time should have been 1/10 as opposed to any other odds. Again, it was simply a trading decision.

To make the situation more complicated, I was informed by several people on Twitter that they had placed the same bet, but at the odds of 7/5 only moments before I placed my bet at 23/20. In other words, Bet365 had seen money coming in at 7/5 and changed the odds to 23/20 to reflect this. It makes you wonder that, if it were such an obvious error at the time, why the trader only changed the odds from 7/5 to 23/20, if they have determined that the correct odds at the time were 1/10. It begs the question of what the trader was doing if he only dropped the odds to 23/20? It also begs the question of whether it was the same trader that later decided, once the race was finished, that it was an ‘Obvious Error’.

This is not something that is particularly aimed at Bet365 – all bookmakers are guilty of using this ‘Obvious Errors’ clause to their advantage. In my opinion, it is something that really needs to be more strictly regulated and more clearly documented. Otherwise, it is simply something that the bookmakers can use to adjust their books after the event has finished by changing some of the bets placed at bigger odds to whatever odds they fancy.

If they were able to provide a valid explanation as to why they felt it was such an obvious error and as to why they felt that 1/10 was the correct price, then I may well have been able to accept it, even if I still disagreed with it. However, the fact that they were unable to provide any information is simply disgraceful, given that their actions concerning the price moves in-play did nothing to suggest that the prices were incorrect.