Originally Posted by alfamale:
“But mathematicians don't do that do they! Or have you never bet on a sports event? Because i'd be amazed if you got odds of Evens on Djokovic winning a 1st round match against the world number 400.
So as history shows that 56% of teams in this exact format of competition that finish 3rd with 3 points and -2 goal difference make the next round then that's a reasonable approximation surely. You can get 6/4 on Albania making next round so the bookies obviously think Albania's chances are lower than 56%”
That's the exact point I'm making. If you only used maths, you'd say someone has a 50% chance of winning, but it's meaningless.
For example, how was this figured out? On the assumption that every team has a 33.3r% chance of either winning drawing or losing, and thus figuring out the chances of Albania getting to the next round, based on that? And where does goal difference sit in all this?
If you look at my post above where I was figuring out what results would be good for Albania, it is results like England beating Slovakia by a lot of goals and Wales drawing or beating Russia.
How would this formula fit in there? Would it simply say England has a 33.3r% chance of either winning, drawing or losing to Slovakia? And what about England beating Slovakia by a lot of goals? I don’t see how you can calculate things like that mathematically.