Need Help in Predicting the Outcome of Tour de France 2015?

Two cycling experts reveal their methods of odds making for the current Tour de France.

Tour de France, the oldest and most prestigious of the three Grand Tours, started the 2015 edition past Saturday offering us so far 5 exciting days with the world’s cycling elite. The 2015 Tour de France favorites are already well known, but the favorites do not always win in the end. Small accidents or crashes can easily turn what seems to be a plausible prediction into nothing. How to predict the final results of the Tour is something that gambling experts are usually bothered with during the whole year before the race. GamingZion throws a glance on their methods.

• Sportsbooks employ cycling experts for Tour de France oddsmaking
• Computational models are not sufficient for plausible prediction
• The June’s results are parameters with greatest influence

When Tour de France starts, the power houses in the betting industry have already finished half of their job concerning the predictions of the outcome of the tour. It is widely known that some of the greatest online sportsbooks in EU, engage with experts in odds making use of what they consider to be key parameters. These elements are used to calculate the probability for the yellow jersey winners, the final podium and other categories that allow the placement of a wager. How do they do it? Romain Lang from PaddyPower and Michael Pett from the Unibet web site reveal some secrets in the odds making art.

No algorithms for predicting the Tour de France

Many would say that betting is half science and half luck. The oddsmakers, however, deny this. No model of computation can allow someone to predict with precision the final outcome of any sport event, nor of Tour de France. What one needs to possess in order to assign betting odds for the race is an excellent knowledge of cycling. But this is something that we already know. Some other character traits maybe? Yes, reveal our experts: you need to be a bike geek, a cycling historian with extraordinary long term memory and have a chirurgic precision when the riders and routes are concerned.

Romain Lang, now 35 years old, has been an admirer of Tour de France since his teenage years. For more than 20 years he has been following all the races of the UCI WorldTour, including some smaller races during the season. This is definitely what a fan of cycling does. But what distinguishes him from the ordinary followers of the sport is that he uses tools pertaining to database and risk management to construct odds for each rider. The parameters he considers as crucial for making the odds include: the recent results of the rider, his overall strength, an evaluation of rider’s motivation, the rout of the Tour, review of the doping and final injuries, not excluding from consideration even the “games behind scenes” between the teams and UCI.

Unibet Sportsbook have a similar strategy. They employ cycling experts right after the end of Tour de France, that use the results from that year in order to start developing odds for the upcoming Tour. However, the Tour route changes every year, so the odds shift first when the tour for the next year is announced and then once again with the start of the new season. During the race they continually vary on daily bases. Thus, in the beginning of the Tour, Chris Froome (Sky) chances for victory were rated at 36.36% by sites providing internet betting in EU. However, after he took the yellow shirt (two days ago), other sites increased his chances to an incredible 50%.

Critérium du Dauphiné and Tour de Suisse: the most plausible parameters

Nobody denies that the greatest impact in making the odds for the Tour de France, have been the results concerning the overall victory on Critérium du Dauphiné. Additionally, the Tour de Suisse as well as the previously held Route du Sud and the Tour of Luxembourg also helped shape the odds. Sometimes the stage wins or extraordinary rides can also influence the creation of the chances. But this is not always the case. The victory of Alberto Contador’s (Tinkoff-Saxo), for instance, on the Route de Sud, was not a sufficient reason for oddmakers to rate higher his chances for recovering from Giro d’Italia. At the beginning of Tour de France, he started with 22.22% winning chances, but they dropped considerably after the Monday’s route at 16.7%.

Many oddmakers agree that the hilly stages are somehow easier to bet on, especially the stages of 8, 13, 14 and 16, reports gambling news. But why this is so relevant is something they do not reveal. What they do stress here, is that other information such as whether the route goes through a rider’s hometown, or if a rider tells the media that he plans to attack on the stage, can have an important influence for changing the odds for the riders.