The 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee starts next Thursday, and BetUS has kindly provided us with some odds. Sadly, you can't bet on individuals like with the Miss USA odds, but there are three props available. As usual, I will attempt to break them down, and fail miserably.
I would go through how many guys have won over the last 20 years, but I'm looking at the list of winners, and I have no idea if half these names are male or female.Luckily, I have discovered a "roster of the 288 champion spellers" that will be competing this year. By my count, they say "her sponsor" 154 times, which means that 53.5% of the competitors are girls. So you'd be nuts to lay -140 on the guys here. Unless you think men are naturally better spellers. That's probably a discussion for another day.
I wish I had seen this when it first came out. The total here should be 9.5, or at least 9. 8.5 is an outrageously low number. Over the past 20 years, the winning word has been nine or more letters 15 times, a whopping 75%. Also--and I don't know if this is a random trend, or these competitions have gotten more difficult over time--the final word has been over eight letters in each of the past seven years.The over is clearly the way to go here. At -150, you need to win over 60% of the time to be profitable. That looks to be the case here.
I've got no stats for this one. Although my one strategy, in a contrarian sense, would be to go with "No", since I'd think "Yes" would be a public dog. Regardless, this is a fantastic prop.Photo: 2007 champ Evan O'Dorney from The Sydney Morning Herald.
6 comments:
I'll bet you wish you had laid those 20:1 odds on the Bulls winning the lottery now. I think you should throw a unit out on all three props. Female winner, over 8.5 letters, not wearing glasses. Money in the bank.
Actually, I think the price on the Guys is a decent one. Remember, the bigger the brain the better. While boys and girls have about the same average IQ's, the standard deviation on the guys is much larger. Out on the tails this is a big deal. Its why Mensa is made up mostly of guys. And why its more likely that a boy will have to repeat 3rd grade.
So why are more girls participating? For one thing, spelling bees just aren't cool. And girls at this age are more mature. I think the -140 is a reasonably accurate compromise.
"mjolnir"? Cool nick!
Thank you, dfobare. I did not know that.
We're down to two dudes, both dudes, both wearing glasses.
I guess the only prop left up for grabs is word length...
Naturally, two dudes are usually two dudes. My mistake. I'm just too excited about the bee.
So did I go 0/3 here? That'd be pretty upsetting.
At least the Rays won.
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