What betting lines tell us about who might win the 2016 Tour—and how to win your fantasy cycling league. – By Joe Lindsey
Image By Rob Schleilffert
The Tour de France is once again upon us, kicking off our annual debate over which rider will win. Gut feeling-based arguments aside, in sports the best information often comes from betting markets, where oddsmakers adjust odds based on bets as they come in—a truly crowdsourced wisdom. Of course, sometimes the wisdom of crowds doesn’t quite pan out, but more often than not, the books tell a statistical story worth listening to.
Last year, our odds analysis correctly picked four of the top five finishers in the overall standings, so this year we got data from the same 10 major European bookmakers. The chart at the bottom of this article shows all this data, including a simplified decimal average and fractional odds average (like you’d find in a sports book).
This year, I’m also including an average win probability, which converts fractional odds to a percentage likelihood to win. So if you were somehow able to host the Tour de France 100 times, Chris Froome, for example, would win 45 times. This stat just reveals in starker terms exactly how top-heavy this field is.
Without further ado, here is this year’s spread. Use it to pick a killer fantasy cycling team, or simply to display your impressive prognostication skills on the next group ride.*
**As with all things gambling, this piece is intended for fun. We can’t recommend placing money based on this story.
via Bicycling » Tour de France http://ift.tt/29jfcUd
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