Have the bookmakers got this World Cup wrong?
Everyone has an opinion, and you can make of mine whatever you want. But after watching Brazil’s lacklustre performance against Mexico on Monday, my friends and I turned to each other and asked: “What on Earth…?”
The bookies still rate the Brazilian team the prohibitive favorites to win this competition. The odds are just 7/2 at London-based betting giant Ladbrokes, and even shorter elsewhere.
That’s the equivalent of giving the host team a 21% chance of winning in a field of 32 teams. That’s way ahead of anyone else.
So far Brazil has eked out a 3-1 victory over Croatia that was far less impressive than the score would have you believe… and then drew 0-0 with Mexico, a team rated no better than 80/1 to win the tournament by the bookmakers.
The Mexican match could have gone either way. To my eyes, Brazil’s Thiago Silva was lucky not to be sent off in the 79th minute for a wild tackle.
I’ve already written about the way the professional bookmakers have rated this tournament, effectively, a three-horse race: Brazil, Argentina and Germany are the runaway favorites in the betting, with everyone else trailing in the distance.
I’ve also pointed out that the bookies usually known what they are doing, although in big tournaments such as this the weight of money from amateur members of the public will usually shift the odds, sometimes in irrational ways. (“Wisdom of crowds” cultists, eat your hearts out).
Nonetheless, these prices look wrong. Would you bet on Brazil at those odds? I wouldn’t. The eventual winner of this tournament doesn’t simply have to go through the group stage, but also win four knockout games. Anything can happen in 90 minutes. Raise that to the power of four for the final sixteen stage of the World Cup. How many of those games will go down to the random lottery of a penalty shoot-out?
My wager for this tournament is Holland. The Dutch crushed the Spanish World Champions 5-1 in the opener. Yet the bookies still rate them no better than 9/1 to win the championship. That seems ridiculous. I’ve asked someone in London to take a wager on my behalf.
The Dutch are the greatest footballing nation never to win the World Cup – yet. They fielded the best teams in the 1974 and 1978 cups, and arguably in 1998 as well, but have gone home so far only as bridesmaids. Could this be the year that changes? We’ll have to see. But 9/1 odds are generous.
As for Brazil: The country is already fermenting with anger over the amount of money spent on this tournament. For some odd reason crowds burned American flags in protest (I think at this point that has simply become a reflex in certain parts of the world). I hate to imagine what will happen in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo if the Brazilian team suffer the humiliation of getting knocked out as well.