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Betting Odds and television coverage...


manku

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This weekends event at Shadow Creek had many moments where the announcers would post and discuss odds on not only golfers, but live bets as well.  

 

Aside from having to listen to announcer saying Kokrak was a savvy bet at 80-1 (despite being 0/200+starts lifetime), and basically having every announcer turn into that barstool sports wanker, what do people think of this new trend?

 

It's funny...because in England where sports wagering is legal (bookies even have kiosks in soccer stadiums!), I can't recall announcers or broadcasts ever mentioning gambling odds...and many of the teams are also sponsored by betting companies (see jerseys).

 

I think it's terrible...mainly because the vast majority of people lose money (I read that 93% of draftking accounts are losers...which sounds about right), but many also destroy their lives doing so...I'm a pro legalized gambling guy, but you don't need to promote it and make it seem like "easy money".

 

Or maybe I'm just bitter because I bet Jason Day (at 25-1) right before he teed off on Sunday :(

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I hope that they don’t go down that route of mentioning Odds repeatedly. Pretty crass if they do. Sports Betting here in the UK is inescapable when you are watching sports but I can’t recall many mentions at all of odds, etc when the games are actually being played.

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19 minutes ago, MattyO1984 said:

I hope that they don’t go down that route of mentioning Odds repeatedly. Pretty crass if they do. Sports Betting here in the UK is inescapable when you are watching sports but I can’t recall many mentions at all of odds, etc when the games are actually being played.

I do believe that you can bet on each hole if I'm  not mistaken. Golf is great for the bookie....LOL!

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  • 5 months later...

NBC has a partnership with PointsBet and the PGA Tour has a relationship as well and the stake may increase in the future.  The midday golf show that replaced Morning Drive has segments every week and they've been pushing it since they came on the air.  You may have noticed that there were betting sideshows streaming during some events earlier this year and even Lerner keeps working the betting angle into his comments and plenty of little remarks on air all the time about it from almost everyone - I think every week they make "picks".  They never fail to publish odds at some point and commentators acting all "in the know" about the betting angles.

 

Slippery slope, IMO.  Not into gambling, enjoy it if you like it, but letting it creep into golf and now promoting it constantly is annoying and inappropriate, IMO.  I watched Phil the other day and all I could think on a couple of holes was that he was taking a dive, lol (and I'm sure he wasn't).  

 

With their level of investment they'll just keep pimping it.

 

 

Edited by Hawkeye77
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There is obviously a push in that direction. I would expect more of the same. I mentioned in the LPGA forum a month or two ago that sports betting legalization is apparently going to be on the ballot here in Florida. I have been receiving numerous phone surveys on the matter from various firms. It is not a balanced survey but questions obviously designed to tilt opinion in favor of wagering. Stuff like, "Do you realize that...?"

 

Included in the survey they ask opinion of numerous sports. To my initial surprise, the first one they asked about was the PGA Tour. Then every subsequent survey also asked about the PGA Tour first. I knew immediately that meant the companies involved thought there was great potential for golf wagering. And it does make sense. After all, you can have action beginning at 7 or 8 in the morning and then all day long on matchup wagers or over/unders on a specific player. That's exactly the type of thing the betting companies want, as opposed to waiting around until nighttime tipoff. 

 

They also asked opinion of various companies. It was a standard list of names I expected...Draft Kings, Fan Duel, MGM, but the one that surprised me was Disney. I was wondering if Disney is planning some stake in gambling and sports betting? Maybe it's already happened. I don't follow the tentacles.

 

I'm a lifelong gambler and have wagered on golf since 1984. Harrah's in late 1987 told me I was banned from wagering on golf in its sportsbook. I had a big hot streak in the matchups that year and they overreacted since it was the first year they offered matchups on majors. I'll never forget how nice the guy was. The sportsbook manager's name was David Lee. He approached me and said he liked me and I was welcome to wager in the sportsbook...just not on golf. Despite that background I preferred it the old way, when the events were announced toward the result only. I've been to Europe numerous times. As others have emphasized, the announcers in Britain don't feel compelled to spit out a punter reference throughout. It's seldom if ever mentioned. Brent Musberger was always a huge favorite in Las Vegas because occasionally he'd slip in a mention but didn't over do it. Scott Van Pelt's Bad Beats segment is one of the best on television. But that's fun times and well after the fact, not during competition. BTW, I have plenty of old material for him, including when I lost a matchup wager on Steve Jones circa 1993 when he led the matchup by 18 shots with 6 holes to play then got disqualified for having two balls in play at the same time. I'll never forget Ben Wright's summation, "Back here on 13, where tragedy has just befallen poor Steve Jones." With an 18 shot lead I'm thinking, how tragic can it be? 

 

My favorite golf wagering era was late '90s and early '00s when I was just figuring out that 5 foot 6 was ideal height for LPGA golfers. Matchups were being offered, specifically at Imperial Palace and a few online sites. But the height was not listed for every player. One friend and I attended LPGA events at Desert Inn for specific purpose of estimating the height of every player. He's take one side of the course and I'd take another. We'd estimate every player. Then the following day we'd switch waves. Only at the end of Friday would we compare notes, with our estimated height for every player. Those were great times and the data paid off in superb fashion. 

 

If golf wagering becomes more of a topic maybe Golf Channel and Steve Sands can begin to grasp the true meaning of the term "odds on favorite." I have mentioned many times here that Golf Channel and specifically Sands have mangled that term for more than a decade. They somehow seem to believe that any favorite is an odds-on favorite. John Hawkins used to similarly butcher the term in that primetime Golf Channel show sponsored by a beverage company a decade or so ago. He couldn't wait to blabber odds-on favorite, even if the favorite was 7/1. Meanwhile odds-on favorite means less than even money...greater likelihood than the rest of the field combined. It never happens in golf. Tiger Woods has never been an odds-on favorite during his PGA career. The lowest was during his absolute peak, the 6/5 odds in both the 2000 British Open and PGA Championship.

 

On NBC horse racing coverage I have been very impressed that Ahmed Fareed was given that studio assignment only a year or two ago but obviously was so devoted to his craft he picked up on the terminology almost immediately, including flawless use of the term odds-on favorite.

Edited by Awsi Dooger
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2 minutes ago, Awsi Dooger said:

There is obviously a push in that direction. I would expect more of the same. I mentioned in the LPGA forum a month or two ago that sports betting legalization is apparently going to be on the ballot here in Florida. I have been receiving numerous phone surveys on the matter from various firms. It is not a balanced survey but questions obviously designed to tilt opinion in favor of wagering. Stuff like, "Do you realize that...?"

 

Included in the survey they ask opinion of numerous sports. To my initial surprise, the first one they asked about was the PGA Tour. Then every subsequent survey also asked about the PGA Tour first. I knew immediately that meant the companies involved thought there was great potential for golf wagering. And it does make sense. After all, you can have action beginning at 7 or 8 in the morning and then all day long on matchup wagers or over/unders on a specific player. That's exactly the type of thing the betting companies want, as opposed to waiting around until nighttime tipoff. 

 

They also asked opinion of various companies. It was a standard list of names I expected...Draft Kings, Fan Duel, MGM, but the one that surprised me was Disney. I was wondering if Disney is planning some stake in gambling and sports betting? Maybe it's already happened. I don't follow the tentacles.

 

I'm a lifelong gambler and have wagered on golf since 1984. Harrah's in late 1987 told me I was banned from wagering on golf in its sportsbook. I had a big hot streak in the matchups that year and they overreacted since it was the first year they offered matychups on majors. I'll never forget how nice the guy was. The sportsbook manager's name was David Lee. He approached me and said he liked me and I was welcome to wager in the sportsbook...just not on golf. Despite that background I preferred it the old way, when the events were announced toward the result only. I've been to Europe numerous times. As others have emphasized, the announcers in Britain don't feel compelled to spit out a punter reference throughout. It's seldom if ever mentioned. Brent Musberger was always a huge favorite in Las Vegas because occasionally he'd slip in a mention but didn't over do it. Scott Van Pelt's Bad Beats segment is one of the best on television. But that's fun times and well after the fact, not during competition. BTW, I have plenty of old material for him, including when I lost a matchup wager on Steve Jones circa 1993 when he led the matchup by 18 shots with 6 holes to play then got disqualified for having two balls in play at the same time. I'll never forget Ben Wright's summation, "Back here on 13, where tragedy has just befallen poor Steve Jones." With an 18 shot lead I'm thinking, how tragic can it be? 

 

My favorite golf wagering era was late '90s and early '00s when I was just figuring out that 5 foot 6 was ideal height for LPGA golfers. Matchups were being offered, specifically at Imperial Palace and a few online sites. But the height was not listed for every player. One friend and I attended LPGA events at Desert Inn for specific purpose of estimating the height of every player. He's take one side of the course and I'd take another. We'd estimate every player. Then the following day we'd switch waves. Only at the end of Friday would we compare notes, with our estimated height for every player. Those were great times and the data paid off in superb fashion. 

 

If golf wagering becomes more of a topic maybe Golf Channel and Steve Sands can begin to grasp the true meaning of the term "odds on favorite." I have mentioned many times here than Golf Channel and specifically Sands have mangled that term for more than a decade. They somehow seem to believe that any favorite is an odds-on favorite. John Hawkins used to similarly butcher the term in that primetime Golf Channel show sponsored by a beverage company a decade or so ago. He couldn't wait to blabber odds-on favorite, even if the favorite was 7/1. Meanwhile odds-on favorite means less than even money...greater likelihood than the rest of the field combined. It never happens in golf. Tiger Woods has never been an odds-on favorite during his PGA career. The lowest was during his absolute peak, and 6/5 odds in both the 2000 British Open and PGA Championship.

 

On NBC horse racing coverage I have been very impressed that Ahmed Fareed was given that studio assignment only a year or two ago but obviously was so devoted to his craft he picked up on the terminology almost immediately, including flawless use of the term odds-on favorite.

People also confuse betting favorite and favorite to win.

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