Wanna Bet? Some Current Euro Odds and Oddities

June 2nd, 2008 | By: Laurie | 1 Comment »

There is apparently at least one bookmaker giving 14-1 odds that David Trezeguet will score a hat trick in Euros.

A word to the wise: Hold onto your money. Trezeguet did not even make France’s preliminary team list, let alone the final 23. Of course, there’s still the chance that he could get called up if another striker were to get injured. But speaking as a France fan, I’d sit on my wallet until the odds reached at least 500-1.

This is just one of the unusual things that risk-takers can bet on in the upcoming Euros. A betting website called SearchumOdds is listing a wide variety of the issues and events that various bookmakers would like to use to take your cash.

Of course, there are the obvious ones, like “Who Will Win?” Current favorites? Germany, at about 4:1, followed by Spain (11:2), Italy (7:1), Portugal (15:2) and France (9:1.) Longshots? Euro newcomers Poland (66:1) and Austria (125:1.)

Or you can bet on teams to make the finals (Germany faces low odds), Top Goalscorer (Fernando Torres — pictured — faces shortest odds, followed closely by Cristiano Ronaldo), or winning group (no surprise that Group C, with Italy, France and Netherlands, is the favorite at 9:4.)

But picking a winner is boring. So let’s look at some of the more interesting things people can bet on.

Highest scoring group? Group B (Poland, Germany, Croatia and Austria) is the favorite, at 7:4, followed by Group A and Group D, both about 3:1. The Group o’Death, Group C, (Italy, France, Netherlands and Romania) faces the longest odds at aproximately 7:2.

Team expected to win the most penalty shootouts? Germany, of course, which hasn’t lost a penalty shootout since 1976. (5:1)

Top Bundesliga goalscorer is expected to be Miroslav Klos, (5:2), followed by Luca Toni (7:2.)

Total red cards? Top odds are for 0-5, at 2.25:1.

You can also bet by group, or by team. Or even by player.

Or you can bet on the fun stuff:

Number of games to go to extra time. “Exactly 2 matches” (as opposed to…I don’t know…2.7?) is most favored at 15:8. “No matches” faces the longest odds, at 15:2.

Number of games to go to penalties? The favorite is 1 match, at 6:4. (And how that differs from 3:2, I have no idea.)

And my personal favorite, Number of Red Cards to be Issued by [English referee] Howard Webb: Top odds are for None (8:13), with the longshot being 3 or more. (20:1.)

And leave it to idiosyncratic Irish bookmaker Paddy Power to offer up this little deal-sweetener. “If a player is shown a red card in any of the group matches Paddy Power will refund all losing 1st/last goalscorer, correct score & scorecast singles on that match.”

All odds are approximate, by the way, and various bookmakers are offering different odds for each kind of bet.

And while we at World Cup Blog don’t encourage you to gamble, if you’re going to do it anyway?

Don’t bet on Trezeguet.

Bet on Euro 2008 here