What are the odds

Question

M: Who is our team playing tonight?
W: The New York Giants.
M: What are the odds?
W:
(a) We're the favorites at 3 to 2.
(b) It depends on who wins.
(c) You're right. They’re rather peculiar.
(d) I know. The Giants are much better.

can I interprte the sentence "What are the odds? " as " who, do you think, will win the game??

and.. what does "the favorites" in (a) mean?
thank you.

Avangi · Accepted Answer

Actually not, Bn77. That's what "favorite" means. "The odds" refers explicitly to the expression, "three to two." It means that the betting (or in some cases the consensus among knowledgeable people) has been running in such a way that one and one-half times as much money has been wagered on the home team to win as on the Giants.

"We're the favorites" means most people are betting that "we" will win.

IMHO you have a typo. "That's rather peculiar" would make much more sense. That is, it's strange that we're favored to win, when the other team is much better.

Best regards, - A.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

No exactly.
When people bet money on the outcome of a game, there is a probability that the better team will win.
So if I bet $1 on a contest with "100 to 1 odds", and the team wins, then I win $100.
The favorite is the team with the best odds. (the highest probability for winning).

Avangi · Answer

I stand corrected. A. Stars is right. There's always something taken out for the house.

But I always thought I made more money when I bet on the team which was expected to lose, and they surprised everybody and won!

If everybody bets on A to win, and he wins, where will they get the money to pay everybody $100 for every $1 they bet?

- A.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Avangi:
Well, I'm no gambler, and I was just giving a hypothetical example. Suppose the house takes nothing.
I bet $1 on A, and my partner bets $99 on B.The pot is $100 and the odds are 100-1 (for A). '
If A wins, I get $100. If B wins, he gets $100. So he bet $99 and won $100. (a small profit, but a relatively sure bet!)
Of course, the "odds" are calculated based on the betters' willingness to gamble that A will win or B will win. So the odds are usually calculated after the bets are in! There are of course the "oddsmakers" who try to guess ahead of time.

Avangi · Answer

Bn77 (a) We're the favorites at 3 to 2.

AlpheccaStars So if I bet $1 on a contest with "100 to 1 odds", and the team wins, then I win $100.
The favorite is the team with the best odds. (the highest probability for winning). Hi.
I'm no gambler either. I think it's safe to say there are two different and essentially opposite ratios at play here.

The first one is the probability of A winning. If A is the odds on favorite at three to two, those odds say he has three chances of winning compared to two chances of loosing, or three chances out of five, to put it another way. As a percentage that would be 60 out of 100, or 60%. The estimate may be based on the wagers at a certain point, or on the opinions of experts.

The second one is an expression of what the house is willing to pay if A wins. The "long shots," such as your 100 to 1 shot, are usually reserved for competitors who stand no chance of winning. Nobody's gonna bet on this guy! - except maybe one fool. If his man/horse/team wins, he gets everybody else's money.
The higher the payoff "odds" the lower is considered this competitor's chance of winning.

AlpheccaStars, you forgot to mention which team was the favorite and which team you placed your money on. But obviously the favorite lost.

Bn77, I missed the format of your example, as it wasn't essential to your questions. I now realize this was a "pick the best answer" exercise, and I was wrong to call it a typo.

Best wishes, - A.

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