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The Betfair Prof: "Oh what a circus! Oh what a fight!"

The Betfair Prof, Leighton Vaughan Williams, tells us the importance of not over-reacting and basing decisions on the reality of what is in front of you while ignoring the hype...

Is it easier to call the result of a championship fight after the last bell has sounded or before the gladiators enter the ring? On the evidence of the markets on Sunday morning, it would seem on first inspection to be the latter. I refer to the contest over the weekend to find the 'Ring Magazine' light heavyweight boxing champion of the world.

With renowned ring announcer, Michael "Let's Get Ready to Rumble" Buffer strutting his stuff alongside Tom Jones, Joe Calzaghe and Bernard Hopkins, all that was left was for veteran referee Joe Cortez to assure both boxers that he was "fair but firm". At that moment the Betfair market confirmed that the Welshman was still the solid [1.4] favourite, giving him a 71% chance of seizing the belt on his first ever professional foray stateside.

Move forward six minutes exactly and you could take both fighters at even money. Fair enough, after a 10-8 first round for the American, but the odds available after the final bell sounded the end of the fight are still a little difficult to fathom. The man from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was backable at no more than [1.38] on Betfair (equivalent to a 72% chance) to slay the undefeated dragon, while the warrior from Westbridge could be grasped at around [4.6]. Of course, any price about the winner is huge after Michael Buffer has read out the judges' scorecards but what made this price so seemingly generous was that Calzaghe was trading at about evens at the start of the tenth round and nothing much had changed since then except for a barrage of combinations that had put the American on the semi-permanent back foot.

Apart, that is, from a low blow in the tenth that had Hopkins taking an extended time-out to the accompaniment of what might be described as a gesture of disrespect from his younger, faster opponent. Maybe it was the reaction to this of an outraged Sylvester Stallone in the seventh row which had the traders in a panic. Whatever it was, it was over-reaction. I had it at the end for Calzaghe by five rounds, scoring it 116-111, the same as veteran Las Vegas cardsmith, Chuck Giampa, and on the same side as Setanta Sport's Richie Woodhall and Barry McGuigan (who both scored Calzaghe the winner by 115-113). For the record, the fight 'stats' show that Calzaghe threw 707 punches to Hopkins' 468, and landed 232 (a strike rate of 32.8%) to the older man's 127 (27.1%).

So what's the moral of the tale? Perhaps it's to believe that the odds available before a punch has been thrown are a better indicator of the outcome than those at the end of the fight. I doubt that's a good general rule. No, the moral of the tale is not to over-react to one incident that has 'Rocky' in the seventh row up in arms. On this occasion at least, the money went to those who watched the fight and not the circus!

Professor Leighton Vaughan Williams is the Director of the Political Forecasting Unit and Betting Research Unit of Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, and Editor of the Journal of Prediction Markets

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