World Cup, Round of 16 and Qatar-Finals

With a 0:0 draw between England and the USA on Thanksgiving Friday, diplomatic relations within the Cassini family have remained positive, although since then the fortunes for the two of us have gone in separate ways.

Only one of the Round of 16 matches (Croatia v Japan) was a game with no odds-on favourite, and Draw backers will have been pleased with the 1:1 score. The ROI on World Cup knockout matches without an odds-on favourite increased to 47.5%, just ahead of the Euros where the ROI is a mere 45.2%.

If you backed the Draw in all matches to level stakes you'd be down 0.74 units, or if you'd stuck with matches where the Draw was shorter than 4.0, you'd be up 2.26 units.

Hard to believe that only seven proper matches remain, and the Portuguese speaking quarter-finalists will both be odds-on this weekend, with the other two matches will be more evenly balanced. 

Some readers will have noticed that the eight knockout games so far have all been won by the alphabetically first team, and if this continues throughout, then England will lose in the final to Argentina. However, I wouldn't recommend this idea as a betting strategy. 

The shortest Draw price is Argentina v Netherlands at around 3.16 and the most evenly balanced game is England v France where the Draw is a rather rare underdog at around 3.28.

Since 2006, only nine previous World Cup knockout matches have had the Draw as the 'dog, with three wins each for the Favourite, 2nd Favourite and the Draw.

Notice that when the 2nd Favourite wins, it's always in some style. 

Looking at the slightly larger sample of non-World Cup elimination games, the value is on backing the favourite, with an ROI from the 22 matches of 39%.

Again, with one exception, when the 2nd Favourite wins, it's by three goals or more!