F1 is so predictable... Money where your mouth is?

[TheDeuce]

So many seem to say it's all predictable, not even worth watching... Yet I haven't yet seen anyone showing off their betting riches as a result of their powers of prediction.

But, I figured II'd take a quick look at some odds:

Mercedes to win WDC: 1/2 £1000 becomes £1500

Ferrari to win WDC: 3/1 £500 becomes £2000

Place both bets and any Ferrari fan would either break even, or make £500... So why would they not?

Or adjust the stakes slightly...

Mercedes to win WDC: 1/2 £2000 becomes £3000

Ferrari to win WDC: 3/1 £750 becomes £3000

And whoever wins, you get £250

The only downside is it's technically possible for another team to win, RB being the most likely...

If the £250 that is 'safe' unless Red Bull win, were to be placed on a 40/1 bet on them to win, the return would be £10,250.

So whilst the sport is fairly predictable, perhaps it should be lauded as an opportunity to try and make enough money at the bookies to pay to watch it the following season


So... why are we not all doing this? Or.. are you?

[Dark85]

Because bookmakers know it's predictable and set their prices accordingly.

[ukaskew]

Because most people don't have thousands of pounds that they'd be happy to be sat with a bookmaker for 9 months for the sake of £250? Also plenty of us who choose not to gamble for whatever reason.

You could make (significantly) more money buying higher end Lego sets and sitting on them for a few years. Worst case scenario you have some very cool Lego to play with

[TheDeuce]

ukaskew said:

Because most people don't have thousands of pounds that they'd be happy to be sat with a bookmaker for 9 months for the sake of £250? Also plenty of us who choose not to gamble for whatever reason.

You could make (significantly) more money buying higher end Lego sets and sitting on them for a few years. Worst case scenario you have some very cool Lego to play with

I have done that

I went through a period of looking for kits in good condition on ebay, at lower prices due to missing pieces... Ordered the missing pieces, put the entire set of pieces in the dishwasher on a low temp rinse cycle to clean they up, photographed the complete and now gleaming set and then flogged it again on ebay In the end actual work life took over but after a few years I had some kits left, and they had indeed gone up quite a bit more.

Going back to tying up money... £2750 tied up for the next 6 months to add a virtually guaranteed £250 to it upon repayment? That's nearly 10% ROI. I accept many don't have that money laying around, but also many do - and it's tough to find 10% ROI elsewhere with virtually no effort or risk required.

[TheDeuce]

Dark85 said:

Because bookmakers know it's predictable and set their prices accordingly.

I went to the effort of demonstrating the figures. In the first example you can see that unless something catastrophic happens to both teams, one has to get WCC and the bet will work out - irrespective of how the bookmakers have arrived at their odds.

In reality, I wouldn't tie up that amount of money for small return, I don't have that much laying around over and above what I can do to make much better use of it.

The point still stands though. Many complain that it's all predictable - but have you seen anyone on here point to the fact that they put their money where their mouth was for last 20 races and won the bet in 18 of them? There are people claiming the sport has been dull and predictable for the last 10 years+, they could all be living mortgage free by now..

[anonymous-user]

Many of us just don’t gamble?

Btw, Mercedes seem to be 1/4 odds with most bookies. 11/4 Ferrari. How does that work out?

In any case, given that RBR are 40/1, Hass 1000/1 and the rest even higher it does appear that no one expects it to be anything other than a two horse race, with one very strong favourite.

I would say that that implies predictability, whether we wish to bet on it or not.

[Deesee]

There’s just not that much liquidity in that betting market.

Here’s some graphs

Merc odds from open to date





As you can see there’s 40k + matched and 23k on Merc.

Ferrari





If you put more than 50£ on it would somewhat distort the market.

Nb, they will match up to 2k on Merc, but no more than 192£ on Ferrari.

[sgtBerbatov]

I'd stick a tenner on Mercedes to win all but one race this year.

[TheDeuce]

REALIST123 said:

Many of us just don’t gamble?

Btw, Mercedes seem to be 1/4 odds with most bookies. 11/4 Ferrari. How does that work out?

In any case, given that RBR are 40/1, Hass 1000/1 and the rest even higher it does appear that no one expects it to be anything other than a two horse race, with one very strong favourite.

I would say that that implies predictability, whether we wish to bet on it or not.

Odds vary, so I imagine it's common place when betting on two opposing results, to seek the best odds for each from different bookies. I just pulled my two examples from oddschecker.com

I agree, and would not contend that it's predictable one of those two teams will win. So that's an example of a predictable result, and hence, a slim but more or less guaranteed return on a bet. Although, I suppose if a person could afford that tiny risk, and bunged £100k on it, then in about 6 months time they would get their money back along with a return sufficient for several weeks in the Caribbean, or a cheap new car...

What motivated me to post was that I already see people stating that the upcoming Azerbaijan GP will just be another predictable race. Which is ridiculous, as it never is predictable. If Mercedes have a totally clean race, then they will probably take a win. But that does require them to not make any mistakes of their own, and not to suffer from anyone else's mistakes, or not to lose out on strategy due to safety car timing etc etc. These type of things are all but guaranteed to happen in Azerbaijan, so I would say placing any bet on the result would be a little brave... Yet others are so convinced it's all a predictable event that they post on here claiming they won't be bothering to watch it (they have the energy to post about that - which is odd..).

[rdjohn]

REALIST123 said:

In any case, given that RBR are 40/1, Hass 1000/1 and the rest even higher it does appear that no one expects it to be anything other than a two horse race, with one very strong favourite.

I would say that that implies predictability, whether we wish to bet on it or not.

With only 3-races gone, that seems to be the inevitable reality of F1 today.

It is fortunate that a full season offers much more that just “who wins the WCC”

I do not think that individual races have anything like this much predictability. Just now, a 4th Mercedes 1,2 seems a bit unlikely. But it would not be a surprise either.

[TheDeuce]

rdjohn said:

With only 3-races gone, that seems to be the inevitable reality of F1 today.

It is fortunate that a full season offers much more that just “who wins the WCC”

I do not think that individual races have anything like this much predictability. Just now, a 4th Mercedes 1,2 seems a bit unlikely. But it would not be a surprise either.

Quite right. To say it's all predictable because Mercedes are already very likely to win WCC & Hamilton WDC, entirely misses the point of what happens the other 90% of each season. Midfield battles.. The tracks, such as Azerbaijan, where I would say a shock winner is probably more likely than Mercedes 1-2... Which teams are showing signs of progressing with development... To say it's all predictable just makes me think some people only watch the cars at the front. That can only ever be so exciting, it's right that the best car/drive/team package will win the season, so they do.

[dunc_sx]

TheDeuce said:

Yet I haven't yet seen anyone showing off their betting riches as a result of their powers of prediction.

Perhaps they just don't want to come onto a forum and let the world know about it?

I had never betted but because the WDC seems to be fairly obvious of late I've been putting on a reasonable bet on the WDC winner prior to testing (for the last two years).

There's not really much of a thrill in it though as others have pointed out you don't really get much back on the easy bets like that plus a long time to wait for not a lot.

Dunc.

[anonymous-user]

TheDeuce said:

rdjohn said:

With only 3-races gone, that seems to be the inevitable reality of F1 today.

It is fortunate that a full season offers much more that just “who wins the WCC”

I do not think that individual races have anything like this much predictability. Just now, a 4th Mercedes 1,2 seems a bit unlikely. But it would not be a surprise either.

Quite right. To say it's all predictable because Mercedes are already very likely to win WCC & Hamilton WDC, entirely misses the point of what happens the other 90% of each season. Midfield battles.. The tracks, such as Azerbaijan, where I would say a shock winner is probably more likely than Mercedes 1-2... Which teams are showing signs of progressing with development... To say it's all predictable just makes me think some people only watch the cars at the front. That can only ever be so exciting, it's right that the best car/drive/team package will win the season, so they do.

But you’re the one who started this thread specifically about betting on who would win the WCC and whether that was or wasn’t predictable.

You have since changed the tack to one of is Baku predictable?

Of course there’s unpredictability in other areas; but as far as the WCC is concerned it’s highly predictable as random, non racing incidents will even out over the season.

I would also argue that, if unpredictability relies on contrived circuits, accidents and other forms of chaos, it paints a worse picture of the sport than otherwise.

Surely unpredictability because of closely matched cars and teams is what we really need?

[TheDeuce]

REALIST123 said:

But you’re the one who started this thread specifically about betting on who would win the WCC and whether that was or wasn’t predictable.

You have since changed the tack to one of is Baku predictable?

Of course there’s unpredictability in other areas; but as far as the WCC is concerned it’s highly predictable as random, non racing incidents will even out over the season.

I would also argue that, if unpredictability relies on contrived circuits, accidents and other forms of chaos, it paints a worse picture of the sport than otherwise.

Surely unpredictability because of closely matched cars and teams is what we really need?

That's fair - to be honest I started the thread as I was a bit fed up with the constant 'it's all predictable' comments, and in doing so become slightly side-tracked wondering just how eacy it would be to take advantage of what is predictable, in order to place a safe bet. But, my main point., which I see I muddled, was that those saying it's all predictable, actually mean that only the WDC/WCC is generally predictable.

As for the contrived tracks.. I think a track designed to be challenging is OK. Also DRS, just to make a pass possible is OK in principal, without it, these days passes would hardly occur at all - at least not without re-introducing a lot of risk back in to the sport. I do feel the new increase in DRS is overkill though.

The only way to make it entirely fair is to head down the Indycar route, where budget is mostly irrelevant, you get the same car - the end. But that doesn't seem very F1.

I prefer to accept it's a team sport, and that some teams will be more resource rich than others, and will mostly quite easily rise above teams with a far smaller budget. There is still plenty of sport though. We know that Mercedes and Ferrari have broadly similar budgets, so watching how each budget matched team compares, where they find the advantages, that is sport. For me at least.

What would you do to make it more sporting?

[rdjohn]

TheDeuce said:

What would you do to make it more sporting?

I feel sure that Liberty have that covered for 2021. Restricted budgets, reduced external aero, no DRS, more reliance on driver skill and more razzmatazz on the day.

So a lot more like Indy, only with high tech elements and a worthy World Series.

[TheDeuce]

rdjohn said:

I feel sure that Liberty have that covered for 2021. Restricted budgets, reduced external aero, no DRS, more reliance on driver skill and more razzmatazz on the day.

So a lot more like Indy, only with high tech elements and a worthy World Series.

The direction is in many ways good, I'm not sure I agree with the increase in spec components, it takes away yet more areas for the engineers to prove their worth - but I understand it's all wrapped up in the drive to make the sport more affordable.

I'll be happy so long as they don't totally stamp out innovation in the sport.

[anonymous-user]

TheDeuce said:

rdjohn said:

I feel sure that Liberty have that covered for 2021. Restricted budgets, reduced external aero, no DRS, more reliance on driver skill and more razzmatazz on the day.

So a lot more like Indy, only with high tech elements and a worthy World Series.

The direction is in many ways good, I'm not sure I agree with the increase in spec components, it takes away yet more areas for the engineers to prove their worth - but I understand it's all wrapped up in the drive to make the sport more affordable.

I'll be happy so long as they don't totally stamp out innovation in the sport.

What if strongly consider doing, as you asked, is increase the opportunity to do exactly as you say.

Free up the regulations in many areas, including dimensions, technology and aero, within a set, though significant, budget. (Sorry Claire, might still be a bit rich for you and Frank!)

Innovations in the past like the F-Duct, double diffuser, mass damper etc have all created situations which have, at least temporarily, upset the ‘natural’ order.

Good ideas don’t necessarily cost the earth.

[LosingGrip]

I still kick myself not putting £10 on Button winning that year .

[sandman77]

I’m hoping this weekends race is unpredictable. I put a couple of quid on Danny Ric at 600/1 and Max at 25/1.

[TheDeuce]

sandman77 said:

I’m hoping this weekends race is unpredictable. I put a couple of quid on Danny Ric at 600/1 and Max at 25/1.

I assume those are odds to win? Not just podium?