Running a book

Kerrnal

Hi all its my golf clubs club championship this weekend and I would like to run a book for the potential winners, I am looking for some advice on how I would go about this . I am not doing it to make loads of money but purely as a bit of fun I obviously don't want to lose alot in the process either day. Hopefully this is the right place to ask

kapowblamz

Will it be a pen and paper book? How well do you know the players? You will probably have to bake in an absolutely humongous overround to make this viable. If your market isn't efficient enough(the accuracy of your odds) and your overround too tight you will likely lose money. That said, even if odds are not efficient, as long as your overround is huge and you have mug punters, you should make money.

Kerrnal

Yes it will be a pen and paper book. I Know the players reasonable well enough. There are around 20 or so that can win it and I was thinking of capping the max bet at 10 pounds per person. I am guessing you mean try and make the odds more favourable to myself so that I don't go bust. What would be your suggestion with the favourites and the long shots.

daphne56

if its being run on stableford scoring system just let everyone put a tenner in winner takes all (you have heard the word bandit

Kerrnal

Luckily I am only doing the scratch potential winners so should be reasonable easy to organise but want to make sure I have all bases covered

kapowblamz

If you use something like this overround calculator you can input some odds and try and get the book% to something like 120%. 100% book% would mean the book was perfectly balanced and theoretically, if odds were perfect, then no one could win or lose money over an infinite amount of matches. If book% is 120 that means over a million matches you would make 20% profit.

Seeing as you're not a professional handicapper then you might want to go higher than 120 unless you have a really good idea who should be handicapped at what price.

https://overroundcalculator.com/

gpc70

I did a similar book on a snooker tournie many years ago at a club i ran all players 28 I think played to handicap already set.
the best player was a top amateur back in the late 70s 80s playing Steve Davis Willie Thorn etc his h/c was -28 some of the worst players were +32 so he had to give them 60.
but he was far the best and my book had him clear fav i thought only 4 or 5 had any chance of winning comp,so priced up around those 6 with other 22 all at between 14/1 and 33/1 as all the rags are going to back themselves teneers and scores easy money for the layer.
these were prices as i remember
2/1 only wanted the player to back himself which he did for £200
4/1
4/1
6/1
7/1
8/1
priced it as a dog race 6 runner's overround about 110%
only these 6 had a realistic chance the other 22 runners were between 14/1 and 33/1
the whole field was covered everyone backed there own ability for tenners and scores
a couple who fancied there chances had a ton on.Anway took about £950 in bets with the only loser being the fella who had £50 on himself at 33/1 terrible player had no chance.
The final was between the 2/1 fav and the 6/1 shot i'd taken 200 from the player no one else backed him the 6/1 shot had £40 on himself.So i took about £950 and either paid out £600 or £300 all good fun .