Answers
What is a 70% probability worth in football?
A 70% probability means that, in 100 comparable situations, the outcome happens about 70 times and fails about 30. It says nothing certain about a specific match.
Read it over a series, not a single match
If a 70% bet loses, the figure was not necessarily wrong: 3 failures out of 10 are expected. Over 10 independent bets at 70%, there is about a 97% chance of losing at least one, and three losses in a row happen roughly once in 37.
A single result therefore proves nothing, in either direction.
Compare the probability with the odds
Odds convert to a probability: 1 divided by the odds. Odds of 1.50 correspond to about 67%, odds of 1.30 to about 77%. A 70% probability corresponds to fair odds of about 1.43 (1 divided by 0.70).
If your estimate is 70% and the odds are 1.30, the bookmaker is more optimistic than you and the price is low. This is a theoretical example: it does not say the estimate is good, and the odds also contain the bookmaker's margin. To go further: grade A or high odds.
How to check that a 70% is really worth 70%
You need to group many predictions announced around 70% and see how many succeeded. If it is close to 7 out of 10, the figure is honest. Over a few dozen matches, the gap can still come from luck.
At SportPredix
A grade A means a probability of 70% or more according to the model, and the method details each tier. The public track record gives the results grade by grade, so you can compare what was announced with what happened. You can also look at today's matches with their grade and probability.
Frequently asked questions
What is a 70% probability worth in football?
About 7 successes out of 10 comparable situations, so about 3 failures. It says nothing certain about a specific match.
Is a 70% bet a sure thing?
No. Over 10 independent bets at 70%, there is about a 97% chance of losing at least one.
What odds correspond to 70%?
About 1.43, that is 1 divided by 0.70, before the bookmaker's margin.