Tokyo Olympics betting

[blackswan]

I've enjoyed the myriad of betting opportunities on the Tokyo Olympics and was wondering if anyone else has been getting into it?

I've been mainly backing short-odds favourites (i.e. Sweden v NZ in women's soccer, Ledecky in the 1500m freestyle, Mu in the 800m athletics).

I also took a punt yesterday on China to top the gold medal tally and the odds have shortened from 2.00 to 1.38 since then.

Some upcoming markets I'm looking at are:

- Under 2.5 in the football finals (all four semis were 1-0 or 0-0 at fulltime)

- Ryan Crouser in the shot put

- Hungary in the women's K-4 500m (sprint kayaking) - I'll keep an eye on the heat times on Friday

- Lisa Carrington or Hermien Peters in the women's sprint kayak 500m, depending on the semi-final times tomorrow

- Shame the odds are so short for Russia in the women's synchronised swimming duet. They look a class above the rest.

[blackswan]

For those into medal betting, FiveThirtyEight has a neat medal tracker, which shows how many medal events remain for each country:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/olympics-medal-count/?cid=rrpromo

Unfortunately it focuses on total medals, not golds. I'd be more interested to see if they forecast China or the USA to pick up the most golds.

[blackswan]

To continue my theme of backing short-price favourites, I will side with the USA in the men's basketball final against France. There will be an element of revenge in this one after the round robin shock 76-83 defeat. Since then the United States have beaten their other group opponents by far wider margins than France managed. Australia gave the States a bit of the scare in the semi-finals before they romped home to an 18-point win. With more matches under their belt this time around the States should be too strong for France.

[blackswan]

It looks like the gold medal race between China and the United States will come down to the wire. Because the USA has more silver medals in the tie-breaking rule I chose to hedge my gold medal bet to lock in a smaller profit.

I also have a low odds bet on the USA to beat Japan in the women's basketball final. They beat Japan in the group stage of the competition 86–69 and both of the States' knockout stage wins were by 20+ points. Japan have done well just to reach the final given they were the 5th seed after the group stage.

[Farraj90]

It was one of the best Olympics, despite the pandemic and the fact that my country did not take very many gold medals

[blackswan]

Agreed. The Japanese were wonderful hosts.

[Farraj90]

By the way, I prefer winter sports XD

[blackswan]

I enjoy watching both. I particularly love alpine skiing (downhill top favourite) but it's become difficult to watch in Australia since Eurosport is no longer available to us.