On some sort of principle, I don’t bet on sporting events. But for research purposes (seriously!) I was looking up the odds to win the division on “this site”:http://www.bet365.com/home/default.asp. And the NL odds are just crazy. The Cardinals are at 1.38 to win the _Central_. That would be about fair odds if the other teams had an 8 game head start. The only team I can really see getting close to them are the Brewers, who are at 12.00. If I were the gambling type (and I’m not), I’d have $100 on the Cards and $12 on the Brew Crew, for just about a guaranteed $26 – $32 return. In the NL East, the Braves are at 2.65. I’d say anyone who doesn’t believe the Braves will win the East again is an example of the inductive sceptic we talk about in epistemology classes as if they were a fictional character.

There is basically no positive return for me writing this, but if the Cubs or Astros win I bet I’ll never hear the end of it. So unlike the gambling strategy above, I seem to have settled on a lose-lose proposition. (And that’s why I don’t bet.) If the Mets or Phillies win I’ll be shocked (because induction is a good way to learn after all), but no more shocked than I was at seeing white swans I guess.

By the way, if the markets were liquid enough there would be arbitrage possibilities between Bet365 and “Tradesports”:http://tradesports.com/aav2/trading/tradingHTML.jsp?evID=44246&eventSelect=44246&updateList=true&showExpired=false#, especially on the Brewers Indians, but I suspect you can’t find enough traders to really take advantage of it.

(This post updated because I miscalculated which team had a sure win bet going. Another reason I don’t do this with real money…)