Almighty Athlete

Chapter 44: OPAP Corporation

Views:

As the main venue of the Olympic Games, the Athens Olympic Stadium itself has supporting commercial facilities, and commercial streets and shopping malls are planned nearby. Most of them are not newly built, but renovated from old buildings. Although the construction speed of the Athens Olympic Stadium has been criticized, the construction speed of the business district is very fast, even before the stadium is completed.

At the corner of a commercial street, there was a dense flow of people. Zhang Guan stood in front of a building and looked up at the big "OPAP" sign on the signboard. He took out the tourist map and checked it. He found that he was in the right place and walked in.

OPAP is the abbreviation of the Greek Football Gambling Company. The Greek Football Gambling Company is the largest gambling company in Greece and a Greek state-owned company. It almost monopolizes the entire Greek gambling market.

The Olympic Games is undoubtedly a huge gold mine for betting companies. At the same time, for speculators, Olympic Games betting is also a feast not to be missed. However, Zhang Guan remembers many Olympic results in his mind. Buying a few unpopular games through spinach and speculating is a good way to get rich quickly.

Therefore, Zhang Guan raised as much money as possible and exchanged it for euros before going abroad, even taking out loans. At the same time, Zhang Guan signed up to participate in the rehearsal of the Olympic opening ceremony, hoping to arrive in Athens as early as possible to participate in this gambling event.

Zhang Guan first went to the bank to apply for a debit card. Although Greeks are not very efficient at work, it is after all during the Olympics. It is very easy for foreigners to apply for a debit card in Greece. They can take out their passports in minutes. It can be done.

Then Zhang Guan came to the largest betting station near the Olympic Stadium.

If in a few years, the European online gambling industry becomes increasingly mature, Zhang Guan can completely handle online banking and then conduct online gambling through the website. However, at this time, Internet gambling does not have legal status in many European countries, and some countries even have many restrictions. . For example, in Finland, the largest online gambling country in Europe, the law stipulates that only permanent residents of Finland can participate in online gambling; and in the United Kingdom, the largest gambling country in Europe, its "2005 Gambling Act" that legalizes online gambling has not yet been implemented. Others such as Germany , Italy, Spain, etc. also do not have laws and regulations on online gambling.

Therefore, in this era of gambling, betting is mainly done on-site through betting stations.

OPAP's betting stations are located all over Greece. Most of the small and medium-sized betting stations only sell OPAP's own sports lottery tickets, while some large betting stations, in addition to selling OPAP's own sports lottery tickets, also act as agents for major European gambling companies. Sports Lottery. While European countries are still trying to protect their own spinach industries, OPAP's situation is rare in Europe.

The gambling industry is an industry where it is easier to make money than to steal it. From a national level, it is natural to hope that local people will only buy lottery tickets from their own country; and from the perspective of major gambling companies, it is natural to hope that all countries can open their markets.

The EU has always been committed to the economic and financial integration of the Eurozone, so it also hopes that EU countries can open up to each other, including some monopoly industries dominated by state-owned capital. At that time, Greece's entry into the Eurozone was actually opposed by many EU countries. In order to successfully enter the Eurozone, Greece had to promise to open some areas of the country to foreign investment, including conditional opening of Greece's gambling industry.

The Olympic Games is a big cake for the entire gambling industry, and Greece knows that it cannot monopolize this big cake. Moreover, in order to build Olympic venues, Greece also borrowed a lot of money from the European Union. Large gambling groups put pressure on Greece through the European Union. , so the Greek government allows foreign gambling companies to enter Greece through the agency sales model, but it restricts the only agent to be the Greek state-owned company OPAP.

Greece carries out strict approval and supervision for foreign gambling companies entering Greece. For every gambling transaction, OPAP will charge a certain fee as an agency fee. At the same time, Greece also stipulates that if you purchase the products of foreign gambling companies through OPAP, you must You need to register an account with OPAP, but you do not need to register an account when purchasing OPAP’s gambling products directly.

Although there are many restrictions, there are still many people who are willing to spend more effort to buy products from foreign gambling companies. Many of them are tourists, especially local tourists in Europe, who are more inclined to buy products from their own country.

Zhang Guan walked into the lobby of the betting station and saw LCD TVs hanging on the wall, broadcasting the odds of various Olympic events in real time. There were also dozens of self-service odds query machines, some of which could query foreign countries. The betting company's odds.

Zhang Guan took his newly issued bank card and passport and registered at OPAP. Then he came to a self-service inquiry machine. He first inquired about the odds of the men's 100-meter dash event.

Basically, all the athletes who entered the Olympics with Olympic A standard results are listed. As for the B standard athletes, they are not worth listing them at all. Even if they were listed, no one would buy them.

The odds of winning the championship are ranked from low to high. The top three are all American athletes. The top one is the defending champion Maurice Green, a famous sprinter who once broke the world record. After Maurice Green is Sean -Crawford and Justin Gatlin, Jamaican flyer Asafa Powell only ranked fourth, followed by Portuguese Francis Obikwelu in fifth place, followed by the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitt and Nevi. Sri Lankan athlete Kim Chris and British veteran Jason Gardner looked down, and Zhang Guan's name obviously did not appear on the first page.

The athletes listed on the first page only listed the odds of winning the championship. Obviously they were regarded as certain to enter the finals. The athletes after that gradually listed the odds of entering the finals and the odds of the semi-finals.

"Where am I?" Zhang Guan kept pressing the page button and finally found his name.

"Only one company offered me odds of entering the semi-finals, and the odds were very low, only 1.2 to 1. Obviously the betting company thought I would definitely make it to the semi-finals. The odds for me to enter the finals were from Ladbrokes. It’s 2.5 to 1 for Ribo, 2.5 for 1 for William Hill, and 2.5 for 1 for Sportsbook. Hey, this Spanish company offered me the highest price, which is 3.3 to 1.”

Based on these data, Zhang Guan knew that major gambling companies in Europe were relatively optimistic that he could enter the finals.

"Look at what my winning odds are... Well, Ladbrokes is 80 to 1, Ribbon is 100 to 1, William Hill is 80 to 1, Sportsbook is 100 to 1, this Spanish betting company is offering 1 to 1 120, and this Italian company offered 150 to 1! OPAP offered me winning odds of 180 to 1. The Greeks are seeking death! I am going to get rich!"

Zhang Guan was secretly happy, but looking at it again, starting from the fourth page, all athletes had the same winning odds as himself, ranging from 80 to 1 to 150 to 1.

"It seems that this is the highest odds offered to me by various gambling companies." Zhang Guan thought to himself.

Large gambling companies have an upper limit when setting odds. The upper limit of odds given by British gambling companies is basically 100 to 1. Since the United Kingdom is the most developed country in Europe's gambling industry, Western and Central Europe Gambling companies basically follow this British standard.

The biggest business of gambling companies is football betting. Spain in southern Europe has La Liga and Italian Serie A. These two top leagues also compete with the Premier League. Spain and Italy naturally do not match the British in terms of odds settings. In particular, many gambling companies in Italy have the shadow of the mafia behind them, and artificial manipulation of the game situation is not impossible. Naturally, they are more bold in the odds, and can offer odds of more than 150 to 1. Occasionally, Greek OPAP companies offer death odds of 200 to 1 in local markets.

As for Northern and Eastern Europe, they are all small gambling companies that can only operate in their own countries and basically have no market or influence overseas.

The larger the company, the more conservative the odds it gives. For example, in the World Cup in Brazil, the odds offered by the big gambling companies for North Korea to win were the upper limit of 100 to 1, while some small companies offered odds of winning. It can reach 700 to 1.

Zhang Guan began to check the odds of other games. The single-player events are all similar. The odds offered to the favorites to win are all very low, and the odds for the players who have no hope of winning are all about 100 to 1.

In the team event, the favorite to win the basketball championship is of course the US team. The second most likely to win is the Greek men's basketball team. The Spanish men's basketball team ranks third, followed by the Argentine men's basketball team and the Italian men's basketball team, followed by Germany, Russia and Serbia. Black, as for the Chinese men's basketball team, Ladbrokes' winning odds are 1:80. Of course, the Chinese team is not the worst. The Japanese team and the Nigerian team with the highest odds of winning are 1:100.

"The performance of the men's basketball national team in this Olympics is still very good. Although there is no hope of winning the championship, it has also entered the quarter-finals. But why is the Greek men's basketball team ranked second? The Greek men's basketball team has been in the second place for the past two years. Could it be that the loss was due to the host country? Too many people bought the game and the odds were suddenly lowered?" Zhang Guan thought to himself.

The odds given by betting companies are not static. They will change according to different game performances. In addition, if the amount of buy-in is too much, the odds will also decrease. Theoretically speaking, even if the odds are 100 to 1, as long as you buy enough, it may be reduced to 1.1 to 1.

"I remember that the basketball champion of this Olympic Games is Argentina. However, Argentina has performed very well in the past two years. It is not an upset. The odds are also very low. There is no profit in buying it. Let's watch football!"

Zhang Guan began to check the odds of football events.

European football has the strongest atmosphere. The top leagues in Europe generate tens of billions of euros in gambling sales every year. Therefore, the Olympic football project not only attracts the most attention, but also attracts the most gambling participation.

However, there is an age limit for Olympic football players, who cannot exceed 23 years old. This has prevented many famous football players from participating in the Olympics, and has also increased the uncertainty of Olympic football. If you are not a senior fan, you may not know much about athletes under the age of 23. Therefore, the odds given by betting companies have become the most direct way for fans to understand the strength of each team.

Judging from the odds, the four teams of Portugal, Italy, Argentina and Paraguay are the favorites to win the championship. However, Zhang Guan did not pay attention to the odds of these strong teams, but directly found an Asian team-Iraq.

——————

The first chapter has been delivered. I don’t recommend streaking this week. If not, I’d better rush down the newcomer list and give it a try. Please vote for recommendations and support. Thank you.

(End of chapter)