All-round Athlete

Chapter 44 OPAP Company

As the main venue of the Olympic Games, the Athens Olympic Complex itself has supporting commercial facilities. There are commercial streets and shopping malls planned near it. Most of them are not newly built, but are transformed 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 earlier than the completion of the stadium.

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

OPAP is the abbreviation of Greek Football Betting Company. Greek Football Betting Company is the largest betting company in Greece, and it is also a Greek state-owned company, which almost monopolizes the entire Greek betting market.

The Olympic Games is undoubtedly a huge gold mine for gambling companies, and for speculators, Olympic Games gambling is also a feast not to be missed. But Zhang Guan remembered a lot of Olympic results in his mind. Buying a few upsets through spinach and speculating is a good way to make a fortune quickly.

Therefore, before going abroad, Zhang Guan raised funds as much as possible and exchanged them into euros, even at the expense of loans. At the same time, Zhang Guan signed up for the rehearsal of the Olympic opening ceremony, hoping to arrive in Athens as soon as possible to participate in this gambling event.

Zhang Guan first went to the bank to apply for a debit card. Although the work efficiency of the Greeks is not high, but after all, it is during the Olympic Games. It is very easy for foreigners to apply for a debit card in Greece. Take out your passport and take it in minutes. It will be done.

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

If it is a few years later, the European online gambling industry is becoming more and more mature, Zhang Guan can handle online banking business, and then conduct online gambling through the website, but at this time Internet gambling has no legal status in many European countries, and some countries even have many restrictions . For example, Finland, the largest online gambling country in Europe, the law stipulates that only permanent residents of Finland can participate in online gambling; and the United Kingdom, the largest gambling country in Europe, has not yet implemented the "2005 Gambling Act" that legalizes online gambling, and other countries such as Germany China, Italy, Spain, etc. have no laws and regulations on online gambling.

Therefore, spinach in this era is mainly bet on-site through betting shops.

OPAP's betting shops are all over Greece, and most of the small and medium-sized betting shops only sell OPAP's sports lottery, while some large betting shops, in addition to selling OPAP's own sports lottery, also act as agents of major European gaming companies. Sports Lottery. The situation with OPAP is rare in Europe at a time when countries are still trying to protect their gaming industries.

The gambling industry is an industry where making money is easier than stealing money. From the perspective of the country, it is natural to hope that people in the country only buy lottery tickets in their own country; but from the perspective of a big gambling company, 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 euro zone, so it also hopes that EU countries can open up to each other, including some monopoly industries dominated by state-owned capital. Greece’s entry into the Eurozone at that time was actually opposed by many EU countries. In order to enter the Eurozone smoothly, Greece had to promise to open some areas of the country to allow foreign investment, including the conditional opening of the Greek gaming industry.

The Olympic Games is a big cake for the gaming industry as a whole, and Greece also 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. Big gaming groups put pressure on Greece through the EU. , so the Greek government allows foreign gaming companies to enter Greece through agency sales, but it limits the only agency to be the Greek state-owned company OPAP.

For foreign gaming companies entering Greece, Greece carries out strict approval and supervision. For each gaming transaction, OPAP will draw a certain fee as an agency fee. At the same time, Greece also stipulates that the products of foreign gaming companies purchased through OPAP must be You need to register an account with OPAP, and you don't need to register for an account to directly purchase OPAP spinach products.

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

...

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, and there were dozens of odds self-service inquiry machines, some of which could inquire foreign countries. The odds of the spinach company.

Zhang Guan took the bank card and passport he had just opened and registered with OPAP company. Then he came to a self-service inquiry machine. He first inquired about the odds of the men's 100-meter sprint event.

Basically, all the athletes who entered the Olympic Games with the Olympic A standard are listed. As for the B standard players, it is not worth the bookmaker to put them on the list, and even if they are put, no one will buy them.

The odds of the championship are ranked from low to high. The top three are all American players. The defending champion and world record-breaking sprinter Maurice Green is ranked first. After Maurice Green is Sean - Crawford and Justin Gatlin, Jamaican flyer Asafa Powell is only fourth, Portuguese Francis Obicviru fifth, followed by the Caribbean islands of St Kitts and Nivi Adams' athlete Kim Chris and British veteran Jason Gardner looked down, but Zhang Guan's name obviously didn't appear on the first page.

The athletes on the front page only listed their odds of winning the championship. Obviously they were considered to be sure to enter the final, and the subsequent athletes gradually listed their odds on entering the final and semi-final.

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

"Only one company offered me the odds of entering the semi-finals, and the odds were very low, only 1.2 to 1. Obviously, the bookmaker thought that I would definitely enter the semi-finals. The odds for me entering the finals, Ladbrokes is 1 to 2, Ribo is 2.5 to 1, William Hill is 2.1 to 1, Sports Bo is also 2.5 to 1, hey, this Spanish company offered me the highest price, 3.3 to 1.”

According to these data, Zhang Guan knows that the major European gaming companies are relatively optimistic about their ability to enter the finals.

"Look at my odds to win the championship... Well, Ladbrokes is 80 to 1, Ribo is 100 to 1, William Hill is 80 to 1, Sportsbook is 100 to 1, this Spanish bookmaker opened 1 120 to 1, and this Italian company offered 150 to 1! OPAP offered me winning odds of 180 to 1, the Greeks are going to die! I am trying to get rich!"

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

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

Large gambling companies have an upper limit when setting odds. Among them, the upper limit of odds given by British gaming companies is basically 100 to 1. Since the UK is the most developed country in the gaming industry in Europe, Western Europe and Central Europe All gambling companies basically refer to this standard in the UK.

The biggest business of a gambling company is football betting. Spain, located in southern Europe, has La Liga, and Italy has Serie A. These two top leagues also compete with the Premier League. Naturally, Spain and Italy will not be on par with the British in terms of odds setting. In particular, many Italian gambling companies have the shadow of the mafia behind them, and it is not uncommon to manipulate the game situation artificially. Naturally, they are more bold in terms of odds, and can offer odds of more than 150 to 1. Odds of 200 to 1 for death in China like the Greek OPAP company also occasionally appear.

As for the small gambling companies in Northern Europe and Eastern Europe, they can only hang out in their own countries, and basically have no market and influence overseas.

The larger the company, the more conservative the odds are. For example, in the World Cup in Brazil, the odds offered by the big gambling companies to North Korea are 100 to 1, which is the upper limit, while the odds offered by some small companies are It can reach 700 to 1 compensation.

Zhang Guan began to check the odds of other games. The single events are similar, the odds for the favorites to win the championship are very low, and the odds for the hopeless players are about 100 to 1.

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

"The national men's basketball team performed very well in this Olympic Games. Although there is no hope of winning the championship, they also entered the quarter-finals. It's just why the Greek men's basketball team ranked second. Could it be that the reason for the loss is that there were too many buyers, and the odds were lowered abruptly?" Zhang Guan thought to himself.

The odds given by the gambling company are not static. According to different game performances, the odds will always change. In addition, if the amount of buying is too large, the odds will also decrease. Theoretically, even if the odds are 100 to 1, as long as you buy enough, it may drop to 1.1 to 1.

"I remember that the Olympic basketball champion is Argentina, but Argentina has performed very well in the past two years. It is not an unpopularity. The odds are also very low, and there is no profit if you buy it. Let's watch football!"

Zhang Guan began to check the odds of football events.

European football has the strongest atmosphere, and the top European leagues have annual betting sales of tens of billions of euros. Therefore, Olympic football is not only the most watched, but also the most involved in betting.

However, there is an age limit for Olympic football players, who cannot exceed the age of 23. This makes many famous big-name football players miss the Olympics, and it also increases the uncertainty of Olympic football. If you are not a senior fan, I am afraid that you will not know much about athletes under the age of 23. Therefore, the odds given by the bookmaker have become the most direct way for fans to understand the strength of each team.

From the perspective of odds, 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.

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The first chapter has been delivered. I didn’t recommend streaking this week. If you don’t give it, you’d better rush to the newcomer list and try it. Please recommend tickets and support, thank you.