Friends of mine have made a bitcoin fantasy sports website called CoinRoster and there are a lot of opportunities for a sharp sports bettor to make profits. The challenge is their site doesn’t have that much liquidity, but over time I hope they can gain more traction.
CoinRoster posted a pari-mutuel pool on how many games the Toronto Maple Leafs will win in their first round series against the Washington Capitals. The way I began determining the odds was to consult the series betting odds at William Hill. I see the Caps are 1.25 to win the series against the leafs. These odds imply a % chance of 80% (1/1.25). This means there is a 20% chance of the Leafs winning the series, and expressed as a decimal, these odds are 5.00.
With this information in mind, I looked at the market at CoinRoster for how many games the Leafs will win the first round. I noticed that the odds for 4 games (which would mean the Leafs win the series) was currently 57.00. The sum of any other number of games (zero, one, two, and three) should also be the inverse of the odds to win four games (since the Leafs will either win or lose the series) and we already know this number (according to William Hill) should be about 1.25 (80% chance).
So if the current pool is 0.00836 btc, then 0.001672 btc should be bet on four games and the balance should be divided between the other four options (zero, one, two, three). Obviously, the market doesn’t think the Leafs will win the first round.
