Baseball Botters and Bonders

It's been a while since I wrote about baseball, yes OK, it's been a while since I wrote about most things, but there was a very interesting occurence in the last game of the evening yesterday which has reportedly resulted in some bettors losing millions.

The San Francisco Giants were at home to the Los Angeles Angels and in the bottom of the 10th inning with the score tied 6-6 and the bases loaded:

[Rafael] Devers hits what is normally a ground rule double. The initial final score shown is an 8-6 Giants win (due to an official MLB scorer error). - Over 13.5 runs, Giants -1.5, and Giants team total o7.5 runs bond to 99c thanks to bots

However:

MLB rules state that a walk off ground rule double cannot score multiple runs and in this scenario counts as a single instead of a double - People start to realize this and insane action comes in to unbond the above markets. Prices go absolutely haywire, touching 1c and 99c multiple times

For readers not familiar with the term 'bond' it's equivalent to betting on Betfair at 1.01. In prediction markets, a market “bonded to 99c” means that bots or bettors pushed the price all the way up to 99 cents (to win $1) — treating the outcome as basically guaranteed.

How various companies settled these markets is unclear but presumably Betfair (if they did initially settle the o13.5 runs, Giants -1.5 and Giants team total o7.5 as winners) re-settled based on the actual final score of 7:6.

2026 World Cup Knockout Summary

The 2026 World Cup is over, and it resulted in another profit for followers of the Draw in knockout matches which sounds good, but without the Argentina v Cabo Verde draw in the Round of 32 the return would have been negative. 

Eight of the 31 matches ended as draws, and arguably we were a little unlucky with nine other matches seeing a goal in the 86th minute or later. 

The "hydration breaks" noticeably impacted games, but whether we can blame them for the draw-busting late goals or this is just down to chance, in my opinion it's too small a sample from which we can draw any real conclusions.

The raw numbers for the full system are 31 matches, 8 Draws, +3.81 units, ROI 12% but for those ignoring matches with an odds-on favourite, there was a small loss with 13 matches, 4 Draws, -0.25 units, and an ROI of -1.9%.

Backing the favourite would have made a profit of 2.6 units (ROI 8%) while backing the underdog would have been costly at -16.9 units, an ROI of -55%. 

The updated numbers for the Draw in all major International tournament knockout matches since 2004 (World Cup, Euros, AFCON, Copa América, AFC Asian Cup, Gold Cup and the UEFA and CONCACAF Nations Cup):

Beware the 'Dog

The Draw in the Argentina v Cape Verde match on Saturday ensured that the Round of 32 would end in a profit for draw backers, but at the halfway point of the Round of 16, not one match has yet gone to extra-time, although only Morocco v Canada was decided by more than one goal. 

Norway's win against Brazil was a very rare win in 90 minutes for the underdog, with only one other such outcome in the last 42 World Cup knockout matches (Morocco beat Portugal 1:0 in the 2022 Quarter Final.) 

We have had 95 knockout matches in the World Cup since 2006 and this was just the 12th underdog win with the ROI now at -50%. The ROI for the Favourite is -0.02%, with the Draw at 28%.

In the major Confederation tournament (Euros, Copa, AFCON, Gold Cup and Asian) knockout matches, backing the 'dog has an ROI of -23% from 317 matches. 

Bottom line: If you're on the underdog in these games, good luck - you'll need it.