Bet of the week: snooker

First we take a look at the weeks events in Italy. This plot shows the full development in the chance, as determined by his betting odds on betfair.de, of Silvio Berlusconi becoming the next prime minister.


Last weeks bet was looking good for a while, but it now seems that Romano Prodi will indeed be the next prime minister of Italy. I said to back Berlusconi on Friday morning at a quote of 5.7 (roughly 18%). His quote stayed at this level until the first big drop in his chances (down to 5%) came with the exit polls on Monday, but by the end of the day things were looking up again. Right now it looks very unlikely that he will win, so I think we can write this one down as LOST.

Moving swiftly on, I will go for Stephen Hendry to win the Snooker World Championship. The main reason is that he has a nice graph. I know nothing of his current form, and Hendry is getting on a bit, but apart from Ronnie O'Sullivan, who is rather unpredictable, there is nobody who stands out. So why not go with Hendry, who won it several times in the 90's. And he has a very nice graph

Note how the as the volume increases the fluctuations in price decrease in magnitude. This is all pre-tournament betting, so there are none of the mad reactions to events as seen in the italian election. Let's see how this one goes.