Not Convinced This Goat Is Innocent

The Dark Continent has supplied RTBB with several stories for the Idiots section and I expect will continue to be a rich vein.

The latest stupidity from Africa concerns a goat, which was arrested in Nigeria for trying to steal a Mazda 323. Allegedly, one of the car thieves is a magician, who turned himself into a goat to (unsuccessfully) evade capture.

Apparently people in West Africa with magical powers can turn themselves into goats and get up to all manner of wrongdoing. Here is one “spreading the message of Islam”:

There is however, some doubt as to the goat’s guilt. National police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu explained:

"The vigilante group arrested the goat and took it to the police. But of course goats can't commit crime."

Don’t be so sure, Emmanuel. They are mischievous creatures. Many have eels as spirit guides, which makes me think this car thief was a pretty ordinary magician: a more powerful one would simply have changed into an eel and disappeared.

Goats can attach themselves to humans' backs, totally controlling their actions, just like in a sci-fi movie.

But there is hope for a fair trial. Kwara state police spokesman Tunde Mohammed told Reuters:

"We cannot confirm the story, but the goat is in our custody. We cannot base our information on something mystical. It is something that has to be proved scientifically, that a human being turned into a goat."

The Enlightenment reaches Africa at last!

More Sports Betting Arbitrage

There have recently been a lot of promotions on sports betting sites along the lines of: if your team loses by less than X points, or scores first and loses, we’ll refund your bet, up to $100. Alternatives are offering a bonus bet equal to your stake or winnings if your team wins by more than 20 points or at least 2 goals etc.

These offers are almost always able to be arbitraged by covering the range of outcomes on other sites. I’ll illustrate how with a practical example.

This week, Ladbrokes is offering bet refunds on the AFL and rugby league finals matches. For the league, you get a full bet refund if your team loses by 6 points or less. For the AFL, the refund is for a loss of 20 points or less.

Let’s take the Manly v Canterbury rugby league game. Canterbury are paying 1.62 and Manly 2.35, but 2.40 on another site (Betezy). This is at the time of writing this post, of course.

Suppose the maximum refund is $100. That’s what you should bet.

So, suppose you bet the $100 on Canterbury. If they win, the payout is $162.

If Manly win by 1 – 6 points, you’ll get a refund payout of $100, so you’ll need to bet enough on a straight Manly win at 2.40 on Betezy to pay out the remaining $62 ie. bet $26.

If Manly win by more than 6, you’ll get $62 from your $26 @ 2.40, but nothing else, so you have to back Manly with – 6.5 points start to recover the outstanding $100. Sportsbet, Sportingbet, Centrebet and Luxbet all let you pick your own line. Betezy often has a reasonable set of line bets. In this case, the best odds I found for Manly –6.5 were Betezy at 3.85. So, bet $26 @ 3.85 to win $100.

So, for each of the options: Canterbury win, Manly win by 1 – 6, Manly win by 7+, your payout will be $162. The total outlay is $152. Thus, you have a certain profit of $10, regardless of the game’s outcome ie. an arbitrage.

Readers may notice I have neglected the possibility of a draw. That’s because a draw is sufficiently unlikely that you are better off self insuring, rather than covering it.

Head to head bets (no draw option) pay out half in the event of a draw. Thus, in our example, you will receive $81 from your bet on Canterbury, plus $31 from your straight win bet on Manly. You’re $50 short in the event of a draw. Draws usually pay about 25.00, so you could cover this for around $2, but the frequency of draws at the end of normal time is approximately 1 in 33, meaning that you'll be ahead if you just keep the $2 needed to cover the draw in your pocket, since in the long run you will have saved $66 in bets for every missed $50 in payouts.

An alternative strategy for covering the draw outcome is to lay Canterbury on Betfair, which is currently costing 1.70. You’ll still need to back Manly –6.5 for $26 @ 3.85 to match the $100 refund if Manly win by 7+.

Suppose you lay an amount A. If Canterbury win, you’ll get $162 from Ladbrokes, but pay out 0.70 * A on Betfair ie. you will receive a total of 162 – 0.7 A.

If Manly win, you’ll receive $100 from either the refund or the Manly 7+ bet, plus 0.95 * A from the lay (Betfair takes 5% commission on winnings).

Thus 162 – 0.7 A = 100 + 0.95 A, giving A = 37.60.

This means you lay $37.60 on Canterbury at 1.70.

You have spent $126 and will receive $135.70, regardless of the outcome, which is roughly the same profit as before.

In the event of a draw, your lay bet pays out in full, plus you receive half of the $162 Canterbury win payout. This leaves you $19 short instead of $50, so the self insurance for the draw is also more profitable.

OK, so you’ve earned a guaranteed $10, regardless of the outcome of the match.

Suppose you want to actually have some money riding on the game, but no chance of coming out with a loss. That is, if your team loses, you’ll get nothing, but something if they win.

Betting on Manly is easy. Because the odds are better on an alternative site to the one with the promotion, just do the arbitrage, knowing you will receive a certain $10. Now bet the $10 on Manly at 2.40.

If Manly win, you’ll get $24. If they lose, you’ll end up with zero, but at least no loss.

Let’s suppose you want to bet on Canterbury instead. You could do the arbitrage and maybe find another site paying say, 1.64.

Alternatively, just bet less on Manly to win at 2.40. You should be able to calculate that if you bet $18.50 on Manly at 2.40, instead of $26, you will break even if Manly win and make a profit of $17.50 if Canterbury win.

So, with this strategy, you have essentially earned yourself a free bet.

I’ll finish the post with an example of how to arbitrage a bonus offer, such as a bonus bet equal to your stake (max $100) if your team wins by more than 10 points. Luxbet have been doing this a bit recently.

I’ll use the Manly v Canterbury game above as the example.

If you read my post on how to use free bets, you’ll see how to convert free bets into cash at 70 cents in the dollar (sometimes more). Thus, if you bet $100 on the win, treat the bonus as worth $70.

Suppose as before, you bet $100 on Canterbury at 1.62. If Canterbury win by 11+, you’ll actually get $162 + $70 = $232.

So, you’ll need to cover the outcome of Canterbury winning by 1 – 10 for $70. You can do this easily by backing Manly at +10.5. This option is paying 1.40, so spend $50 on Manly +10.5. This will give you $70 if Manly win, it’s a draw, or Canterbury win by 10 or less.

Now you just need to bet $67.50 on Manly for a straight win at 2.40 to receive the outstanding $162.

No matter what the outcome, your payout will be $232 for a spend of $217.50 ie. an arbitrage profit of $14.50.

As before, if you want to actually bet, but not lose any money, either do the arbitrage and bet $14.50 on Manly for a possible win of $34.80, or if you want to bet on Canterbury, just bet less on Manly ($57) for a $25 payout if Canterbury win.

Across the sports betting sites, there seem to be a few of these types of promotional offers every week at the moment, so plenty of opportunity to get some free cash for a few no stress bets.

The First Fleet's Arrival WAS The Defining Moment In Australia's History

The defining moment in Australia’s history was the arrival of the British colonial fleet in 1788 because the structure of Australian society today derives overwhelmingly from its colonisation by the British. Probably the second most defining moment is the formal creation of the nation of Australia through federation in 1901.

Despite some influence by the Aboriginal inhabitants and migrants from almost every country on Earth, modern Australia’s legal and political institutions, our financial and economic system, our language, our social and sporting culture, even our more informal social systems and values are all overwhelmingly British in origin. It is absurd to suggest that there is an event which altered the history of Australia and led directly to our current society more than the arrival of the first fleet of over 1,000 British settlers.

It was also the defining moment for Aboriginals, even more so than their ancestors’ arrival 40,000 years ago. The reason why is that the First Fleet was a colonial mission. They came to stay and succeeded, radically and irrevocably changing the Aboriginals’ world. Even though some Aboriginal tribes in the north of Australia had regular contact with Indonesian fisherman and traders for one to three hundred years before meeting the British and even though there were clearly multiple waves of ancient migrations to Australia, no event changed the Aboriginals’ world like the arrival of the British fleet in 1788.

So for Warren Mundine and other Aboriginal “leaders” to be blowing smoke because Tony Abbott decided to publicly articulate this fact is ridiculous. Their behaviour appears motivated by the usual combination of a) disliking being told (understandably) that the rest of Australian society has more important concerns than Aboriginal dispossession and b) manufacturing insults and grievances for political advantage.

GTA V Rape Mod: Fucking Hilarious

As soon as I saw the mod / hack of Grand Theft Auto V which allows you to have a nude character rape another character, I imagined how many people would be saying how terrible it was and that it “crossed the line”, or even that it ruined other players’ game experience.

Get over yourselves, you twats. Firstly, it’s just puerile humour in which a nude, glorified cartoon character pretends to bumfuck another glorified cartoon character, pissing the player off in the process. So what? Is this worse than a hack which blows up other players? Secondly, it occurs in a game which celebrates violent crime.

The Huffington Post has a pathetically twee report in which they describe the phenomenon as "disturbing". Here, you can see some video screen grabs of these “rapes” occurring. They are hilariously stupid. Here's some even better Youtube footage.

“Raping” characters in online games is not in any way the same as raping people in real life. It’s just a more sophisticated (and often less nasty) form of trolling. If you think otherwise, you’re the one with problems.

For a more worrying example of idiots confusing fiction and reality, read my post on the Red Cross's campaign to "encourage" game developers and even legislators to make the rules of combat games adhere to international humanitarian law.

BTW, creating mods / hacks for GTA is pretty easy. Here’s a thread which explains the basics and lists a few mods you can download.

The Most Expensive Bubbly Todd Carney Ever Drank

One Rugby League club should decide that its supporter base is going to consist of yobbos and their sympathizers. Just ignore the wowsers and glorified soccer mums.

After the “There are some ladies here to put their heads in your pants” incident, I was sure the Bulldogs would take up the challenge. Now Todd Carney has given the Sharks the chance to differentiate themselves as a club and target a large and loyal demographic of Gen Y yobbos.

Getting drunk and pissing in your own mouth sets a new “gold standard” in comedic yobbery.

The art of “bubbling” has apparently been common amongst skaters for years. According to the SMH, it’s “huge”. It's also fucking funny - as long as somebody else does it.

Does Todd Carney really deserve to lose his playing contract and therefore his livelihood over a photo of him pissing in his own mouth in a pub toilet? Especially when some idiot of a mate snapped the picture, then “lost” his phone.

Judging by the spectrum of reactions, a lot of people think it’s too harsh a censure. The Facebook group Piss In Your Mouth For Todd Carney (including Fingo) demonstrated their support with practical action – more practical than the Greens policies, anyway. Unfortunately, the group seems to have been taken down.

People argue that a marquee player like Todd Carney is at a club to do more than play football. His high salary is a reward for drawing crowds and sponsors. That’s true. So just pay him the minimum NRL first grade wage of $80,000 a season, plus some incentive payments for on field performance. Cronulla should have been smart enough to structure his contract to accommodate large, at risk incentives, rather than simply sacking him.

Most fans don’t really care about players doing stupid, yobby things, as long as they are not hurting anyone else. We already know they are mostly morons. We only watch the games to see the football, not get a lesson in life.

Nothing Wrong In Jos Butler's Mankading

So England are all upset about Sri Lankan bowler Sachithra Senanayake Mankading England batsman Jos Butler in the final one day match. Do they have a legitimate grievance?

I don’t believe so. Butler had already been warned twice in the same innings by the same bowler. How much more should the fielding team have had to put up with?

The term Mankading – the bowler running a non-striking batsman out for backing up too far – was coined after Indian bowler Vinoo Mankad did it to Australian batsman Bill Brown in the 1947 Sydney test.

The law was originally that the non-striking batsman must be in his crease as the bowler delivers the ball. If he is not, the bowler is entitled to run him out. About 15 years ago, the law was changed so that the bowler could not run the batsman out after he had entered his delivery stride. In 2011, it was changed back to its original form.

Etiquette is that the batsman is first given a warning, which in practice consists of the bowler stopping, then either running the batsman out but not appealing, or threatening to take the bails off, but allowing the batsman to regain his ground. If, after being warned, the batsman continues excessively backing up (thus gaining an unfair advantage), it’s fair game to run him out.

How many warnings does a batsman deserve before the fielding team decides he’s taking too much liberty and actually runs him out? Should each batsman first get a warning, or does warning one batsman count as a general warning? Does being warned in one match, or even actually being run out count as being warned for all future matches? If so, for how long? The series? The season? One would hardly think “I warned you back in 2004, so you should have known” to be fair conduct.

The Vinoo Mankad Wikipedia link above contains the newspaper report from the time. Mankad had warned Bill Brown in a previous match, then actually run him out. He then ran him out without further warning in the Sydney test. There were complaints that Mankad should have again warned Brown prior to running him out in the test, with undercurrents that it wasn’t the sort of thing a decent white man would do … and at the time it probably wasn’t.

Most Australians (and Englishmen and New Zealanders) would have first given Brown another warning. This is where cultural differences come into it. Mankad clearly thought the previous run out was sufficient warning for the rest of the series. It’s hard to definitively fault him. Australian captain, Don Bradman stuck up for him.

What level of warning is appropriate before Mankading a batsman?

A bowler should definitely let the batsman off with a warning the first time they catch them. I think the most important thing is to make clear to the opposition what the warning means and this is where Mankad probably went a little awry.

If a batsman is actually run out after previously being warned, the bowler or captain should let the opposition know that there will be no more warnings for the match, or for the series, if that is their intention. Alternatively, if multiple batsmen have been warned, the fielding captain could say: “Right, you’re all doing it. No more warnings for anyone.” Then everybody knows the unwritten rules as well as the official ones.

As long as the rules of engagement are made clear in advance, batsmen can hardly make credible complaints if they ignore them. Australian captain Michael Clarke agreed, stating “as long as the player is warned … “

This is what happened in the recent England v Sri Lanka game. Sachithra Senanayake had twice stopped in his delivery stride and warned Jos Butler. Butler ignored the warnings and eventually the Sri Lankans became fed up and ran him out. What’s the problem here? Butler deserved it.

Here’s some Youtube footage which clearly shows the warning and subsequent run out. At 0.03 into the footage, you can see Butler a few inches out of his crease even before the bowler enters his delivery stride (which for a right handed bowler would be when he pushes off his right foot). Senanayake stops and warns Butler. At 0.12, we can see Butler is again clearly a few inches out of his crease even as the bowler passes the umpire, well before his delivery stride. Senanayake stops and this time runs Butler out.

There was commentary in the English press that because Butler was “hardly trying to steal a single”, the Sri Lankans should have withdrawn the appeal. Meaning what? That it would have been a third warning? And if he kept on doing it?

The difference between a batsman being run out or safe is often inches, so Butler’s excessive backing up really was giving him an advantage. Certainly, the Sri Lankans felt that Butler and Ravi Bopara abused etiquette in their stand at Lord’s. So why should they have continued to put up with it? The England batsmen were doing it deliberately and their protests after being caught out are hypocritical.

The only time I’ve seen a batsman Mankaded without warning was Australian fast bowler Alan Hurst’s run out of Pakistani tailender Sikander Bakht in the 1979 Perth test. I remember seeing it live on TV. In this case, the action’s intent was more nasty than it was grubby. It was an excessive response to an escalating sequence of incidents in what had been a spiteful series, including allegations of ball tampering against Sarfraz Nawaz and Imran Khan – later largely confirmed. Hurst’s body language at the time seemed to convey to the Pakistanis a final “Fuck off, you greasy cunts!”, although Mankading wasn’t the way to send that message.

The larger problem with this incident was stand-in Australian captain Andrew Hilditch’s failure to withdraw the appeal and recall Bakht. In retaliation, it led to one of test cricket’s most unedifying acts of grubbery from one of its biggest grubs. In Australia’s second innings run chase, Andrew Hilditch was given out handled ball for picking it up and throwing it back to the bowler after Sarfraz appealed and Pakistani captain Mushtaq Mohammad refused to withdraw it.

That incident really did lay bare cultural differences. The handled ball appeal was not something an Anglo-Saxon player would have done, not due to DNA, but culture. Thinking that such behaviour is reasonable retaliation can only come from a culture in which cheating is the currency of everyday transactions and acts of grubby bastardry are commonplace, which they are in most of Asia. Hurst’s Mankading of Bakht was also bastardry, however Safraz’s appeal is clearly an order of magnitude worse.

If England want to have a go at the Sri Lankans for something, make an issue of Senanayake’s dodgy bowling action. Mahela Jayawardene had a whinge that people had found fault with Senanayake’s action, implying that Sri Lanka are being picked on.

The truth is that once Muttiah Muralitharan got away with chucking, partly due to white racial cringe, a whole generation of sub-continental players, Sri Lankans in particular began copying their idol. So, it’s hardly surprising that most suspect actions are those of sub-continental bowlers. By a remarkable coincidence, they are all brown people.

So yes, brown people are being disproportionately accused of chucking. But that’s not because they are brown per se. It’s because their bowling actions are dodgy due to them identifying with and hence copying the original culprit, who happens to be a brown person. This is what needs to be said to sub-continental players and officials when they almost invariably play the race card as a defence to legitimate questions about many of their bowlers’ actions.

Update: It appears the ICC has finally seen what was instantly obvious to most people watching and banned Senanayake for chucking.

End Of Western Civilization As Gay Man In A Dress Wins Singing Contest

Is this ...

really sillier than this?

The first picture is Austrian Conchita Wurst / Tom Neuwirth, winner of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. The second is Finnish band Lordi, winner in 2006.

But it’s the win by a bloke in a dress which stirred up the most controversy. Populist, right wing Russian politician, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, from the inappropriately named Liberal Democratic Party described this year’s winning entry:

“There’s no limit to our outrage. It’s the end of Europe.”

Indeed, sir. Europe’s decadence has rendered it a rudderless ship. What it needs is a firm hand. Let’s resurrect that other Austrian who knew how to wow an audience.

In keeping the beard, Conchita Wurst is making a serious statement about sexual and gender stereotyping. Perhaps the irony helped him / her win. Not having seen the other entries, I don’t know whether this year’s win was entirely due to talent. I’m certainly not convinced 2006’s was.

I think it’s a positive thing that sufficiently many people can judge the performance on its artistic content, as opposed to not being able to get past: “Fuck! Is that a bloke?”

Conchita Wurst isn’t the first drag act to do well in a big singing competition. Australian Courtney Act made the semi finals in Season 1 of Australian Idol (2003).

Here’s Conchita’s winning song and Courtney’s … and Lordi’s for good measure.

Clearly, none of them are as good as 1981 Eurovision winner, Buck’s Fizz. Perhaps that is the true lesson here … the world would be so much better if it was full of blond haired, blue eyed people performing wholesome songs approved by the government.

Lefty Lawyers' Wank-Fest As Marshall Islands Sues Nuclear States In ICJ

The Republic of the Marshall Islands (pop 68,000) has decided to sue the nine nuclear weapons states in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Why?

Because Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) states that:

“Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

The Marshall Islands’ claim is that the five nuclear states who have signed the NPT: USA, Russia, China, Britain and France have violated Article VI by “not pursuing nuclear disarmament negotiations in good faith” and “instead, taking actions to improve their nuclear weapons systems and to maintain them for the indefinite future”.

Despite not actually being signatories to the NPT, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel are also included in the suit.

The claim is that signing the NPT makes these states legally liable to attempt to enact all of its articles. They must therefore be bound by the ICJ to do so.

Hmm … could there possibly be a flaw in this line of reasoning?

Oh yes, that’s right … international law and the ICJ are largely a fantasy of international socialists and pompous, hubristic lawyers like Geoffrey Robertson.

Read about the structure and function of the ICJ, in particular, its jurisdictions and it is immediately obvious that any authority the ICJ has is derived from either:

1.      The UN Security Council being able and willing to enforce its judgements.

2.      The mutual consent of both parties in a dispute to be bound by the Court’s decision.

The Court has in the past been used to provide a layer of legal legitimacy to diplomatic actions, such as its first ever case, in which Britain sued Albania over two of its ships hitting mines in the Corfu Channel. The ICJ found in favour of Britain and awarded damages of £843,947. Of course, the Albanians refused to pay, which the British always knew they would. However, Britain was also holding 1,574 kg of Albanian gold, which they kept.

The Court can be useful if both parties intend to employ it in good faith, such as in the Gulf of Maine maritime border dispute between the USA and Canada.

However, one party may simply withdraw its consent after a verdict it doesn’t like. This would then require the UN Security Council to implement some enforcement action, such as diplomatic and economic sanctions, or even military action.

Of course, if the party which withdraws its consent, or otherwise chooses to ignore the ICJ’s decision is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council with veto powers (the five nuclear weapons states listed above), or one of their allies, or even one of the other four nuclear armed states, a contrary ICJ decision is effectively unenforceable.

A case in point is Nicaragua’s complaint against the USA resulting from the United States’ continuing support of the Contras. The Court found in favour of Nicaragua and awarded reparations against the USA, which predictably ignored the judgement.

An easier route is for states to withdraw or modify their declaration of consent to submit to ICJ arbitration. An example is Australia, who modified their declaration in 2002 to exclude disputes on maritime boundaries. Clearly, this was to prevent an impending challenge from East Timor, who gained their independence two months later.

Even in the case of the many international treaties which contain a compromissory clause providing for dispute resolution by the ICJ, if one party simply decides to ignore the Court and that party has sufficient military or economic strength, there is little in practice which can be done.

What do the Marshall Islands and their lawyers believe will be the outcome of their suit?

Have a look at the list of the 15 current ICJ judges. Although it’s not compulsory within the ICJ articles, there has always been one judge from each of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (there cannot be more). So, I suppose it’s diplomatically compulsory. India also has a judge on the current panel. I think we can guess which way these 6 judges will vote. The concept of judicial independence from their respective governments is laughably naïve, especially in the cases of Russia, China and India. The British, French and American judges may possibly vote against the policy of their current governments if they were appointed by the previous ones, but in this matter, I doubt it.

Even if all 9 of the remaining judges find in favour of the Marshall Islands’ claim, does anyone believe this action will achieve anything meaningful?

In reality, the USA, Russia, China, Britain and France have violated Article VI from the moment they signed it. This facile statement was never anything other than “do as I say, not as I do”; arch diplomatic hypocrisy. But did anyone bar the most naïve internationalist expect otherwise? India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel aren’t even signatories to the NPT, so what the Marshall Islands and their lawyers believe the ICJ will say in relation to them is beyond me.

Is their goal to use the Court as a vehicle for exhibiting the nuclear powers’ hypocrisy? This hardly requires the ICJ.

In reality, this whole charade is an exercise in legal and academic onanism. A bunch of international socialist lawyers, self importantly strutting about, debating or rather, preaching on the wrongs of nuclear weapons, all at taxpayers’ expense.

Because who is footing the bill for this pseudo-intellectual wank?

The taxpayers of the countries who fund the ICJ. Even if the Marshall Islands pays a significant amount of the cost of its suit, look at its economy. The majority of its GDP is US foreign aid, although much of that could be viewed as compensation for the nuclear tests. Any ICJ legal bill will be paid by the American taxpayers.

I’m not entirely convinced the Marshall Islands should even be an independent nation. Material steps toward independence began under that great and decisive American leader, Jimmy Carter. Why the Reagan administration allowed them to follow through to actual sovereignty, I’m not sure. Perhaps there was a more cynical reason. If the Marshall Islands were formally annexed by the United States, it may have opened the way for more law suits and even larger compensation over the environmental damage from the atomic tests on Bikini Atoll.

Of course, whatever the ICJ says, it will be ignored by any state with nuclear weapons. In the event the ICJ decides to hear the suit AND finds in favour of the Marshall Islands, some sanctimonious, delusional wanker will probably write an article for the Guardian, in which they will claim that Britain is now not only morally, but legally obliged to take meaningful steps to eliminate its nuclear arsenal. Some middle class twat might start a petition on change.org.

But nothing meaningful will happen as a result. Nor should it.

What would you think if your government abrogated its right to maintain a nuclear arsenal to a court which “as a whole must represent the main forms of civilization and the principal legal systems of the world”?

Thankfully, the majority of Western citizens still expect our governments to defend our own civilization against the vastly more corrupt and oppressive civilizations of Asia, Africa and the Middle East and their so called “legal systems”.

A ₤43,000 Fine For Fare Evasion - It's How He Was Caught That Should Worry You

I’m writing about what appears at first reading to be, in the grand scheme of things, a trivial matter, in part because I’m interested in the psychology of the offender, but primarily because of what it reveals as to what can be deduced about our behaviour from the data collected on us by governments and corporations.

A highly paid executive in a City of London fund manager has repaid ₤43,000 in assessed fares he is alleged to have evaded over a five year period. That’s $AUS 77,000.

Apparently, his modus operandi was to board the train at his no barrier, country home station of Stonegate in East Sussex, then tap off with his Oyster Card when he reached London, where he was charged the maximum city fare of ₤7.20. By some means, he then avoided tapping his card through the entry barrier in Cannon St, London for the return journey each evening, knowing there would be no problem at Stonegate.

I take this to be the allegation, because the one way fare from Stonegate to London is quoted in the article as ₤21.50. Twice that, minus the ₤7.20 he paid each morning gives an amount of ₤35.80, which he allegedly evaded each day. If you divide 43,000 by 35.80, you get 1,200 ie. 5 x 240 days = 5 x 48 working weeks over 5 years. The ₤43,000 is actually ₤42,550 in fares, plus ₤450 in legal costs.

After reading the above linked article, you might have thought (as I initially did): “The bloke must be mad. Why admit to something like this?”

But an article in his local paper explains the circumstances more clearly. Coming through the barrier in London, a ticket inspector noticed his fare flash up as ₤7.20, indicating he hadn’t tapped on at the commencement of his journey.

He was then identified by some means (we’re not told how, or indeed, why he allowed himself to be). Presumably, inspection of his Oyster Card account revealed the same maximum, default fare of ₤7.20 being paid every day, with nothing on the way home. It was subsequently found that the last record of his purchase of a season ticket from Stonegate (prior to being questioned) was November 2008. He then purchased another season ticket in November 2013, a few days after being questioned at Cannon St.

A Southeastern Trains spokesman told The Guardian that it was the recent purchase of another season ticket which aroused their suspicion. Hence the allegation of five years of fare evasion.

Southeastern then calculated the amount of ₤43,000 based on five years of ₤21.50 single fare journeys, twice a day.

Despite at no stage formally admitting the allegations and despite the actual amount being about half this had he been buying season tickets, the man eventually reached an out of court settlement in which he paid the full amount of the claim, thus effectively admitting the allegations. The fact that not only was the matter settled out of court, but was done so with a confidentiality agreement, implies the man was represented by an experienced (and presumably well paid) solicitor, as would only be sensible in such circumstances.

What should concern people most about this matter is not the fare evasion (which I actually find amusing), but rather how he was discovered. The ability of people, or more likely, automated algorithms to interrogate large amounts of behavioural data and draw conclusions which can result in accusations of wrongdoing is something we need to actively guard against.

That the conclusions were almost certainly correct in this case is not the point. If you allow your behavioural data to be collected, how can you control, or even know who (or what) has access to it and how it will be selectively analysed and interpreted? If you care about your liberty, either keep collection of your behavioural data toa minimum, or carefully manage which aspects of it are collected.

By this last phrase, I mean allow the information to be collected which tells the story you want people to read. Being totally “off the grid” requires a lot of unnecessary commitment and is suspicious in itself.

Many government departments and corporations eg. banks and utility companies know where you live. The tax department knows where you work as well. If you’re travelling to and from work, what’s the harm in using a card which tracks payments and journeys? If you use Paypass on your credit card to buy your lunch in the food court next to your office, so what? It’s not providing details about your behaviour which cannot be deduced from other information. In fact, it’s better to do it and look like a normal citizen.

Now, suppose you want to go somewhere and keep it private. Buy a paper ticket. Pay with cash. It’s pretty simple.

The man in this case was caught because he was foolish. He was prepared to do something wrong, but didn’t make the effort to inform himself as to how he could be discovered.

The default fare of ₤7.20 is clearly unique and thus a device to allow inspectors to spot people who haven’t tapped on. The person who thought it up is not dumb. That tells you that having a lot of ₤7.20s on your Oyster Card account is evidence you don’t tap on regularly. If you live outside London, the most reasonable conclusion is that you’re not buying a ticket at your home station. So, if you’re going to do this, use an unregistered card!

His registered card allowed the rail corporation to flag him in a database, possibly linked by his address. Then he probably used a credit card to buy a season ticket from Stonegate after a five year hiatus. An algorithm detected “abnormal activity” and sent a report to some cunt with nothing better to do. Next thing, he gets a demand for the contrived amount of ₤43,000: “Pay us double or go to court.”

It’s reasonable to infer that he gave in and settled Southeastern Trains’ claim in full due to being threatened with prosecution and / or a civil claim and the attendant public exposure.

Manuel Cortes, leader of the TSSA complained that:

"There seems to be one law for the rich and one law for the poor when it comes to criminal prosecution. The rich seem to be able to walk away and claim secrecy while the poor get hauled up in front of the local magistrates court and publicly ridiculed. This guy can buy silence, but that isn't offered to most people who are caught fare dodging."

Yes, he bought silence and avoided prosecution, at a heavy price. In fact, public transport companies seem to have turned this into a nice little earner, blackmailing all manner of people with inflated fines to avoid court, although the “middle class youth worker” in this linked article should also have been fined ₤43,000 just for being a complete prat.

So what are you saying, Manuel? That taxpayers’ money should be wasted prosecuting everyone caught, even though most will end up paying less than the offered “settlement”? Where will the money to pay your wage claims come from then?

The Stonegate man paid an amount which could never have been recovered in a civil claim, had it proceeded to court. There is simply nothing other than circumstantial evidence suggesting wrongdoing. A criminal prosecution could not have succeeded. There is no evidence of fare evasion on the London network, as he pays the maximum fare. It is impossible to prove that the man even travelled on a train outside of London on all those days during the period in question. In a criminal matter, with the burden of proof on the prosecution, he would not have even needed to make a statement.

However, this apparent practice of the public transport companies blackmailing offenders into paying exorbitant fines under the guise of “legal costs” to avoid prosecution needs to be stopped. It is genuinely mediaeval. Just issue a fine, record the offender’s details and be done with it. That would stop the blackmail. Serial offenders could be prosecuted.

Finally, two questions I asked myself about the psychology of the Stonegate fare evader:

Firstly, why did he allow himself to be identified in the first place? He’s in a high paying position at a fund manager, where a criminal prosecution could not just damage his reputation, but get him fired. But he decides to evade train fares, using an Oyster Card registered to his name and address as part of his scheme. Then, when eventually challenged, he had no plausible defence.

“Are you making an accusation? There has been no fare evasion. You just saw me pay. I don’t know what happened. The gate at the other end was open. I tapped my card. I didn’t notice it hadn’t registered. I was in a hurry.”

A little prior research on London stations with no barriers would have made his story plausible. An unregistered Oyster Card would have given the ticket inspector no chance to dispute the story.

Secondly, since he’d already shelled out for a lawyer, why pay the ₤43,000? Even had he been sufficiently fearful of a civil claim, why not have his solicitor earn his fee by at least trying to talk the amount down?

The civil claim is actually the dangerous one, since the burden of proof on Southeastern Trains is not as onerous. His Oyster Card account history is pretty damning if combined with any CCTV at Stonegate, or local residents embarrassingly called as witnesses to prove he lives there. Probably better to settle the matter quietly, given he’d already been foolish enough to provide his accusers with a trail of evidence.

Any halfway decent solicitor should have been able to prevent a criminal prosecution. Apart from the possibility of CCTV at Stonegate, there is no evidence he even caught a train from there. Even had he been on CCTV on previous occasions, where is the evidence he did not buy a ticket, or have a seasonal ticket, now expired and discarded? He does not need to prove he did: the prosecution must prove beyond reasonable doubt he did not.

Bizarre behaviour all round. Definitely one for the Idiots section of RTBB. He repeatedly took a low probability risk many times, making no effort to hedge the severity of the consequences of being caught, despite the possible damage. And this bloke is managing large amounts of other people’s money. Need you ask where the GFC came from?

No Take Away Alcohol After 10pm? Bullshit!

I hadn’t paid much attention to NSW’s new liquor laws until I tried to buy a bottle of wine on the way home after having to work back late. I had left a shade before 10pm, catching the train home. I walked into a bottle shop attached to a still open pub, expecting to be able to buy a bottle of wine, so I could have a glass or two with my late dinner.

“I’m sorry, sir. We can’t serve you after 10pm. It’s now 10.10. We’re closing up.”

A (mostly) law abiding citizen cannot buy take away alcohol after 10pm, from any outlet in the entire state? Are you fucking kidding?

The government’s explanatory web page shows its new plan of 1.30am lockouts and 3am last drinks at “large CBD values”. Small bars and restaurants are exempt, as they should be.

I don’t really have a problem with the government enforcing stricter licencing regulations upon big hotels, beer barns and nightclubs. Those are the venues where trouble ie. violence tends to occur. That’s because the types of people who tend to be violent when intoxicated are (surprisingly) disproportionately the types of people who frequent big hotels, beer barns and nightclubs. Letting large groups of potentially violent morons drink into the early hours of the morning is certainly a recipe for trouble, particularly as drinking for that length of time often involves stimulants such as amphetamines.

I agree with the new, “risk based” licence fees, given that such high risk venues consume a disproportionate amount of police (and probably health) resources. If those extra licencing costs are passed onto consumers through higher drink prices after midnight, that’s a reasonable implementation of a user pays philosophy.

But where is the connection between these demonstrable concentrations of drunken violence and take away liquor sales after 10pm?

This is just thoughtless, knee-jerk policy, attempting to appear to be acting strongly and decisively to appease the bleating, middle class voters.

Policy which restricts the rights of citizens to freely engage in commercial, recreational or social activities must be based on clear evidence. This is part of the basis upon which citizens allow the state coercive power.

How does an adult buying take away alcohol from a suburban bottle shop between 10 and 11pm (the previous closing time) demonstrably increase the level of alcohol related violence?

I asked the guy at the bottle shop if they had noticed much effect.

“Working an hour less a night costs me about $100 a week. The owner’s not too happy about the $9,000 a week drop off in sales either.”

There you go. No decrease in violence … just a decrease in economic activity, employment and the reasonable amenity of citizens.

Good work, Mike Baird and Troy Grant (actually it was Barry O’Farrell and George Souris who brought this law in). You’ve certainly improved the wellbeing of your constituents ie. your employers with this policy.

If you’re as angry about this as I am, do what I did: write to Premier Mike Baird and responsible minister, Troy Grant. The law will only change if enough citizens make their opposition known.

Parents Who Intentionally Have Disabled Children: How Should A Liberal State React?

A person in a free society will naturally want to explore and understand their identity, to try to be the person they feel they really are, or can be.

Parents usually want to raise their children to share many elements of their cultural identity.

But what if the “person you want to be” is a result of delusions caused by a mental illness, even if the person doesn’t agree they are mentally ill? What if this “self-actualisation” would result in self  harm and becoming a burden on society?

What if the “elements of their cultural identity” the parents want to give their children are actually disabilities?

When should a Liberal society override people’s freedom and forcibly prevent such actions? How far should it go in this prevention? In which circumstances should it punish people?

There are cases where the answer is clear. If the parents have grown up in families exhibiting generations of incest, which they now believe is normal or part of their “culture”, we should still remove the children and deal with the adults through the legal system, although the upbringing of the adults may give reason for mitigation. Just because incest is a cultural norm in certain highland tribes of New Guinea, doesn’t mean relativist arguments re harm translate to modern societies.

Female circumcision is common in parts of East Africa. That doesn’t mean we should allow it here because it’s part of “religious” or “cultural identity” … and any adults involved in such an act should be vigorously prosecuted.

What if two deaf parents deliberately have a deaf child, or conceive a child knowing there is a 50% chance it will be born deaf? If it’s their own child, conceived through natural means, is this even immoral? Many would say “yes”. If so, should it warrant intervention from the state?

What if they are lesbians and must actively seek out a deaf sperm donor to achieve their goal? That’s not hypothetical: an American couple, Sharon Duchesneau and Candy McCullough actually did this, twice. Disturbingly, they are both mental health professionals.

According to the article in the Journal of Medical Ethics, Duchesneau and McCullough are part of a subculture in which deafness is the defining and unifying feature of their culture and does not view deafness as a disability.

The first part is quite reasonable. The second is delusional, to the point of causing actual harm.

Duchesneau stated that “she grew up feeling that she was flawed”. Clearly she is not the only one and clearly this type of experience during formative years has caused many deaf people to form and mutually reinforce the delusion that deafness is not a disability in order to avoid feeling negatively about themselves.

We should not pander to clearly absurd assertions in order to protect some people’s fragile self esteem.

Unfortunately, deafness IS a disability, caused in many cases by a genetic flaw. Hearing is a very important and highly successful evolutionary adaptation. Deaf people are not some alternative genetic line. There is something wrong with them: they can’t hear. That’s not something you should deliberately cause your children.

Loony, far left, identity political arguments along the lines of: “They are part of their own culture which understands them” are false. The children are part of the wider world, the overwhelming majority of whom can hear. Had they not been born deaf, they could have joined it, yet still had meaningful relationships with their parents. But Duchesneau and McCullough have deliberately prevented their children from ever being fully part of that world. They will never hear speech, music, or the 360 degree soundscape of normal life in the world around them. That, in my opinion, is at best insanity. At worst, it is criminal child abuse.

But now they have had the children, who are already deaf, what can, or should a Liberal state do?

This is not a case of ongoing abuse. The issue regarding either intervention or sanction is that the damage was done at conception and there is no evidence suggesting any further harm (other than whatever rubbish the children’s parents may fill their heads with – but they don’t need to be deaf to do that).

What sort of sanction, if any, would be of benefit to society?

Should the state remove the children from their crazy parents? What would that achieve? Where would they be placed? With another deaf couple? With a couple who can both hear, but know how to sign? What would be the point, other than a demonstration of state authority?

Should the parents be charged? With what? Child abuse? Intentional endangerment of a child? Maybe, but then what happens to the children?

What should the state’s attitude be toward parents deliberately or recklessly conceiving children with other genetic abnormalities, such as congenital blindness? What about cystic fibrosis?

Deliberately conceiving a disabled child places an extra burden on the state, as all disabilities require extra support services. That, coupled with the harm to the child should be sufficient for society to want to prevent these nutters from doing it again.

My natural feelings are that people like this are insane and need to be prevented from having more disabled children.

But how to stop them?

What if there is a court order, or law preventing people from deliberately conceiving children with disabilities? What if people such as Duchesneau and McCullough ignore it? Are they then to be prosecuted? Jailed? Should they at least be made to compensate society for the fiscal burden they have deliberately placed on the rest of us? Could you allow such children to sue their parents for maintenance and punitive damages for reckless or intentional infliction of distress and harm?

Given that it’s often not certain that a genetic mutation will be passed on, how to construct such a body of law? Would it only apply in cases where the probability is sufficiently high as to render the conception reckless? How would that probability be quantified in cases of complex, spectrum type disabilities?

The above assumes the parents are sane, but mental illness is a spectrum and culpability can sometimes be a grey area. Should people who deliberately conceive children with disabilities instead be scheduled under the Mental Health Act?

How could that ever work in practice? Would they have a court appointed medical guardian for the rest of their childbearing years? Would they necessarily be deemed insane for the entire period? What if they recanted?

How could such a guardian prevent a future pregnancy anyway? More importantly, what could be done once a pregnancy occurred? Would the guardian force an abortion? Why would this reasoning then not extend to people who discover they are carrying a severely disabled child, but want to carry it to term?

Now we’re so far from Liberalism that a few deliberately created, disabled children may be preferable to the totalitarian alternative.

This post is so far, mostly a series of questions because like me, you’re probably thinking that there’s something wrong about people deliberately conceiving disabled children, but can’t see any way to prevent them from doing so which does not descend into a draconian legal labyrinth.

I sort of like the principle of allowing deliberately conceived disabled children to sue their parents, but as soon as you start thinking how it would work in practice, it begins to lose its appeal.

Who would actually bring the lawsuit? What would be the test for material harm and suffering? How disabled do the children have to be? Could the right extend to children who are identified as disabled in utero? That would be an interesting test for litigious and religious America.

Certainly, children should be able to sue their parents for sexual abuse, if a criminal conviction has been recorded. But what about suing for neglect, or abandonment? Perhaps, again, only in the event of a criminal conviction.

So, lots of questions, but few practical answers. However, we need to be asking these questions outside of philosophy courses, because these aren’t hypothetical situations. As described above, people are doing these things now. Some problems are best solved by groups, rather than a few people reasoning from a set of premises. This is an example of such a set of problems.

Here’s one along the same lines which is more clear cut, since it involves intentional self harm:

Despite there being nothing physically wrong with her, 58 year old Chloe Jennings-White wants to have an operation to render her permanently disabled. Although no sane doctor in the UK, where she was born, or the USA, where she now lives with her wife, would perform such an operation, she claims to have found a foreign doctor who will sever her sciatic and femoral nerves.

Firstly, any doctor who would perform such an operation on a clearly mentally ill person should not only be permanently deregistered, but charged and jailed.

Chloe Jennings-White’s mental illness has been described as part of the wider class of body integrity identity disorders, in which sufferers feel for example, that they are in the wrong type of body, or that they do not need the use of their legs, or they should have a limb amputated. Some people proceed to self harm, some do not.

How should a Liberal state respond to assertions by Chloe Jennings-White that she has “tried to have accidents so she could lose the use of her legs” or that she intends to travel overseas to have the disabling operation?

Should she be scheduled on clear evidence of attempts to self harm and the intent to do so again?

Yes, she should.

In practice, that does not necessarily mean forcibly institutionalising her. It could mean appointing a court ordered guardian, who has the power to admit her into psychiatric care. This is typically what happens in cases of anorexia.

In Chloe Jennings-White’s case, she should also have her passport cancelled and be placed on a border watchlist.

Some readers are probably thinking that if she succeeds in rendering herself disabled, she should not receive disability support. But she’s probably already on it, on the grounds of mental illness.

Suppose someone ignores a sign and dives into shallow water, making themselves para or quadriplegic. It’s their own fault and recklessness is usually treated the same as a deliberate action in judging culpability. But they still get disability support services. Chloe Jennings-White is less culpable than the reckless diver, because her actions result from mental problems. So, it's difficult to say she does not deserve disability support.

Frankly, her wife is partly to blame for enabling this behaviour. How to manage this mental illness clearly requires specialist knowledge, however I suggest that behavioural therapy along the lines of: “I know you can walk, so get up, do your own shopping and cooking, or you’ll starve” might be an experiment worth trying.

How To Use Free Bets On Internet Betting

Almost all internet gambling sites will offer a free bet when you sign up. It’s usually in the form of a deposit match, up to a set amount. For example, if you deposit $200, the bookmaker will give you an additional $200 in free bets. The upper limit to the deposit match can be as much as $500. You can find a good list of offers here (see right hand frame).

Almost all sites offer extra free bets for referring friends who end up joining. If you haven’t bet with them for a while, you’ll receive an email or text offer of more matching bonus bets if you make another deposit and bet with them again. All pretty lucrative once you know how to use them properly.

Sometimes you are required to bet the initial deposit through before receiving the free or “bonus” bets. Some sites give you the bonus straight away. That does not alter the strategy.

How do you get the most out of your free bet?

Not by just betting on a 50 / 50 outcome and hoping for the best. Nor by betting on a short priced favourite. Even if the bookmaker let you use your free bet on short odds (which they usually don’t), this is a terrible strategy, as you only receive the profit as a payout. That means you’ll convert your free bet into 10, 20 or 30% of its face value (and possibly lose). It’s possible to do much better, with certainty.

I’m going to explain how to arbitrage a free bet. That means you lay off the other side on another site in such a way that the payout is the same, regardless of the result ie. a risk free position. Because one of the two legs uses the free bet, you will be able to lock in a certain, riskless profit. It’s usually in the range 65 – 70% of the free bet amount if you’re prepared to join several sites and look for the most favourable odds.

First, I'll explain how to arbitrage by backing both outcomes on two different bookmakers. Then I'll discuss laying the free bet outcome at Betfair, which in theory is better, but in practice gives about the same result.

The basic principle is to bet your free bet on a high paying result of a two outcome event, such as a tennis, basketball or football match (not soccer – it has too many draws). In general, you want a game in which a draw is either impossible, such as tennis or highly unlikely, such as basketball, AFL, rugby league or American football. In the latter, a draw is still possible, but so unlikely that the cost of covering it is negligible.

Method 1: Backing both sides on two different bookmakers.

First we have to know the mechanics of betting payouts.

A free bet will not pay the stake if it wins. For example, if you bet $100 on a team to win at 4.00, an ordinary bet will pay $400 ie. you’ll win $300. But the bonus / free bet will pay $300, since you never put up the stake. This is important in our calculation.

Secondly, if you choose to bet on binary outcomes in games in which a draw is possible, you need to understand the dead heat rule for payouts: the payout is halved. Suppose you bet $100 on Manly (1.20) v Parramatta (5.00) on a straight win bet. Choose Manly and the win payout is $120. But if you choose Manly and the game is drawn, you would only receive $60 ie. you’d make a $40 loss. If you choose Parramatta and the game is drawn, you would only receive $250 ie. you’d make a $150 profit instead of $400 in the case of a win.

How does that work with a free bet? Remember they don’t pay you the initial stake. If you bet a $100 free bet on Parramatta at 5.00 and the game is drawn, you’ll only receive the profit ie. $150.

So, let’s use the Manly (1.20) v Parramatta (5.00) example to see the entire free bet arbitrage. We’ll suppose we’re using a $100 free bet. I’ll discuss the general formula at the end of the post.

First, bet the $100 free bet on the high paying outcome: Parramatta at 5.00. If they win, the payout will be $400. If they lose, the payout will be 0.

Now you need to bet the right amount on Manly with another site to get a payout of $400 if they win. Remember this is not a free bet, so your payout includes the initial stake. The correct amount is $400 / 1.20 = $333.33.

Now all you need to do is cover the draw. In this event, the free bet will pay out $150 and the hedge bet on Manly will pay $200. That’s $350 in total, so you’ll be $50 short if you don’t cover this option. In the actual game example I’ve used, the draw paid $34, so betting $1.50 on a draw in the margin betting will cover it.

Thus, for a total wager of $333.33 + $1.50 (call it $335), we have a guaranteed $400, whatever the outcome. That’s a riskless profit of $65.

Now I said above that you should be able to get 65 – 70% of the free bet amount. That’s true if you’re prepared to look around for the right high odds on a game where another site is paying slightly more for the favourite. For example, maybe another bookmaker has Manly at 1.21 or 1.22. The latter would give a 70% overall profit.

Betting on tennis matches can be better because you don’t need to cover the draw. However, bookmakers’ spreads on these are usually larger than football or basketball, so if you find a match paying 5.00 on the site with your free bet, it may be harder to find the opponent paying more than 1.20 somewhere else. Then again, some of my highest percentage free bet returns have been on tennis matches.

In general, suppose we find a straight win / loss bet with A wins paying p and B wins paying q, with      p < q. If we bet a $1 free bet on q, we want to know the amount x to lay off on p.

Victory for A pays p*x. Victory for B pays q – 1 for the free bet (no stake return). These have to be equal if the bet is risk free. Thus, p*x = q – 1, so x = (q – 1) / p.

In our Manly v Parramatta example above, p = 1.20, q = 5.00, so x = (5 – 1) / 1.2 = 3.3333.

Exactly the same formula works in the slight variation where the bookmaker offers a refund if your bet loses. This is essentially a free bet. Betfair does this.

Mathematically inclined readers will see that in a fair wager, the probabilities implied by the odds add to 1. That is, 1 / p + 1 / q = 1, so that the percentage riskless return = (q – 1) / q, which increases toward 100% as q gets larger. Thus, in a fair wager, you should bet your free bet on the highest payout possible.

However, in a real bet, 1 / p + 1 / q = some K > 1. That’s how the bookmaker makes a profit. The percentage riskless return = (q – 1) (1 – (K – 1) q) / q, which has a maximum value at q = 1 / √ (K – 1) and a maximum return of K – 2 √ (K – 1). 

In most win / loss wagers, you should be able to find games with K < 1.05. You can even sometimes get as low as K = 1.02. If K = 1.04, we get q = 5.00 and a maximum return of 64% of the free bet. In the Manly v Parramatta example above, K = 1.033, with a maximum possible return of 66.8% of the free bet. Note that other bookmakers paying 1.21 or 1.22 on Manly would reduce the K for our wager to about 1.02. Each bookmaker's individual K would be about 1.04 or 1.05, because someone paying 1.22 on Manly would only be paying about 4.60 on Parramatta. It's the ability to shop around for better odds on the favourite for the other side of the hedge which reduces our K. That’s why we could get a payout of 70%.

If you’re lucky enough to find a game with a 10.00 payout on one team and a = 1.01 due to odds mismatching between bookmakers, you can get a return as high as 81% of your free bet. In practice, such wagers are very hard to find, due to the way bookmakers adjust the payouts of lop-sided contests. You also need a lot of money for the hedge bet on the favourite.

Method 2: Laying the other side.

Now I'll discuss the alternative option: laying the free bet outcome at Betfair (the only site which offers this).

A lay bet is where you bet on an outcome not to happen. In our case, that would be for the side we have backed with our free bet not to win. Note that this means more than losing: a draw pays out on our lay as well, so the draw option is automatically covered.

Suppose in our example, we had used our free bet of $100 on Parramatta at 5.00. We could try and lay Parramatta on Betfair. In practice, the odds would be more like 5.50. This is because Betfair is an exchange, which makes its money matching up bids and lays and taking a commission on winnings. The value of K = 1 / p + 1 / q for games on Betfair is usually more like 1.01 than the 1.05 on other sites. The catch is that Betfair take about 5% of any profit you make, so we need to factor this into our calculation.

So, suppose you make a lay bet of $100 on Parramatta at 5.50. There is no initial outlay, but you must have the funds in your account to cover any payout you might have to make if Parramatta win. If Manly wins or the game is a draw, you get the $100. If Parramatta wins, you pay out like a bookie: $100 * (5.50 - 1) = $450.

Suppose we bet $1 of free bet on team B to win with odds q. How much should we lay on this outcome, where the odds will be Q > q?

If we lay an amount x, a win on the free bet will pay q - 1 - (Q - 1) x. A loss for team B would pay 0 for the free bet and you would keep the lay amount x, less the commission percentage, which I'll call C.

We want the win and loss amounts to be equal, so that q - 1 - (Q - 1) x = (1 - C) x, giving x = (q - 1) / (Q - C). The proportion of your free bet which can be earned risk free by using the lay bet method is then (q - 1) (1 - C) / (Q - C).

In our example, where q = 5.00, Q = 5.50 and C = 0.05, x = 0.734, so you would need to lay $73.40 for each $100 of free bet. The percentage riskless return would be 69.7%.

That looks pretty good: it's at the upper end of what's usually possible by Method 1. Note that although no initial outlay was required, you still need to deposit sufficient funds in your account to cover a payout on the lay bet, so the practical impost is about the same.

I also haven't covered the case of a drawn game. That's because it's actually in your favour if you use a lay bet. The free bet will pay out half minus the stake ($150 in the case of $100 on Parramatta at 5.00). But you'll also win with the lay bet, since you're betting on the outsider not to win. Thus, the lay bet method gives a small chance of a substantial profit from the draw. It also lets you bet on sports like soccer, since the draw is now not a problem, but a benefit. In particular, the English Premier League becomes a good option due to its liquidity, as Betfair is housed in the UK.

The formulae above imply that if using the lay bet method, we should look for games with as high a value of q as possible and this is sort of true. Generally, the longer the odds for one team, the tighter the difference in the payouts between ordinary bookmakers and Betfair's exchange. That means the difference in odds for the outsider will increase, so that the ratio of q / Q will decrease. There is a practical limit to the return of about 80%, which is about the same as in Method 1. You'll also need significantly more money in your account to cover the possible payout on the lay.

The other difference between theory and practice is that lay bets of any reasonable size on outsiders  (say, those paying 10.00 or more) are generally not available because there aren't enough takers on the other side. Laying off $75 on a $100 free bet should be feasible though. Laying off a free bet of $250 or $500 where the bookmaker requires you to use it all in one go is much less likely. So, in reality, you're probably not going to do much better that 70% using the lay method. Having said that, when available, it's usually slightly superior to Method 1.

I am reminded of a quote by that great philosopher, baseballer and commentator Yogi Berra:

      "In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not."

What does it all mean?

In summary, the above discussion implies that in practice, you’re typically looking for games with one team paying around 4.00 to 6.00. That means for each $100 free bet you use, you’ll need as much as $500 to bet on the favourite on another site, or alternatively, to cover the lay payout on Betfair.

Method 1 is more likely to give you an actual match up of bets. If you use it, find the lowest value of K = 1 / p + 1 / q  that you can, use the formula x = (q – 1) / p for the amount of your hedge bet on the favourite and you should be able to secure a return of 65 – 70% of your free bet - don't forget to cover a draw.

Method 2, the lay bet, usually gives a slightly better return, if you can get the lay on. Try to find a game where one side is paying about 7.00 to 8.00 and there is sufficient depth in the market. This may not always be possible. If not, look for games where one side is paying around 5.00 to 6.00. Use the formula x = (q – 1) / (Q - C) for the amount of your lay bet and you should be able to secure a return of at least 70% of your free bet.The additional advantage of using a lay bet is the small chance of making a large return from a drawn game, instead of the small, additional hedging cost in Method 1.