Getting the best odds? Right2bet world cup report

Right2bet have conclusively proven what we already knew…monopoly betting operators offer terrible odds to their customers.

Today they released their world cup odds report, which shows that European monopoly betting operators on average offered odds that were 32% worse than the best odds offered by private betting operators.

You can read the full report here which includes all raw data used to compile the report.

Summary analysis and results are set out below.

The test methodology…

Simple; for EVERY world cup game the odds offered by the following State owned monopoly* operators:

• Svenska Spel (Sweden)
• Danske Spil (Denmark)
• Lotto Bayern (Germany)
• De Lotto (Netherlands)
• OPAP (Greece)
• PMU (France)
• FDJ (France)

were compared to the odds offered by the best priced private operator (ie best market price) out of:

• bet365
• Bwin
• Unibet
• Ladbrokes
• Betfair
• William Hill
• Stanleybet
• Victor Chandler

The results…

Overall, if you were one of the punters unfortunate enough to bet with a monopoly operator, on average you were getting odds 32% worse than what you would have received on the open market.

If you backed your home nation, you would have been 35% worse off.

German punter get the worst deal coming out 48% behind the market. The complete by-country outcome is below.

• Germany: 48% worse of
• Sweden: 40% worse off
• The Netherlands: 35% worse off
• France: 31.5% worse off
• Greece: 31% worse off
• Denmark: 14.4% worse off

Another perspective…

A very interesting next step that could be taken with this data to give it a real sense of order of magnitude is to translate the odds differential into an approximate Euro value to see just how much EU monopoly operators are costing their customers.

Maybe the guys at Right2bet are already on the case?  Just in case they’re not – below is my quick and dirty back of the envelope attempt…

UK bets alone on the world cup were expected to top £1 billion.  Using this a figure as a yardstick, and assuming:

• the same propensity to bet per-capita in the other countries;
• 75% of bets in those countries are placed with monopoly operators, 25% leakage to private; and
• private operator margin on all bets placed for world cup of 1%.

The total cost to affected European punters for the world cup alone is over €10 million…

	Popn. (m)	WC bets (£m)	Per capita	Total (€m)	With monopoly	Margin differential	Euro differential
UK	62	1,000	= 16
Germany	81	1,306	16	1,568	1,176	0.48%	5,644
Sweden	9.3	150	16	180	135	0.40%	540
Netherlands	16.5	266	16	319	240	0.35%	838
France	64	1,032	16	1,239	929	0.32%	2,926
Greece	11	177	16	213	160	0.31%	495
Denmark	5.5	88	16	106	60	0.14%	115
Total (m)							10,559

To vote for your right to choose, click here

* the term monopoly is loosely taken to mean an operators given preferential access to local betting markets to the exclusion of private operators by virtue of government laws