Soto and Euros (W)

In my half-time MLB report a few days ago, I mentioned that Juan Soto had:

"reportedly turned down a 15-year, $440 million contract extension last week, and will likely be traded."

While there were rumours at the time that my wife's San Diego Padres (she's a fan, not the owner) were interested, I didn't want to tempt fate by mentioning this, but apparently the rumours had more than an element of truth to them with Soto now headed to America's Finest City.

The Padres sit 12 wins behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West, but are currently in a play-off spot.

Pinnacle have cut the price on a Padres World Series win to 10.81 from 23.17 while the Dodgers are favourites at 4.6 to win with the New York Yankees second in the betting at 5.0.

The Women's Euros ended rather perfectly with a 1:1 draw at 90 minutes followed by an England win in extra-time. The seven elimination matches produced three Draws for a 3.81 unit profit and the other four games were all won by the favourite. 

While 65 matches is only a small sample, the total ROI on backing the Draw in elimination games (World Cup and Euros) is just 1% but in the 31 games with no odds-on favourite (at fair odds), the ROI is a rather more eye-catching 22%. 

Euros also seem to be more competitive than World Cups with an ROI of 21% compared to -14%, although if we exclude the Round of 16 matches, the World Cup returns become positive with an ROI of 10%.   

No winner for Draw backers in the FA Community Shield this season, but overall this is still a profitable event for this strategy. This is the first time since odds are available that consecutive underdogs have won: