I agree it's a cool site, and a very interesting data point. however, regarding these 'odds' vs Vegas odds, I think you should balance the 2.
Vegas odds tell us (usually) what the bookies perception of the public is.
ticketreserve.com tells us what the public is actually trading, data which can be skewed by rich individuals or arbitrage players or all kinds of things.
interesting stuff anyways
That's true. You also have the fan effect on ticketreserve. You probably have people willing to pay $400 for a super bowl option on ticket reserve, who would never consider actually betting $400 on sports, even though that's exactly what he's doing. He's betting $400, plus the face value of the ticket, for a chance to win something he could buy on ebay for $2500. But since he only really wants a super bowl ticket if his team makes it, it doesn't seem like gambling.
The reality, though, is that you'd be just as well off betting $400 on the patriots to make the super bowl (if that was actually a bet you could make in vegas, and it might be for all I know), and then simply using your winnings if you win to get a ticket to the game.
So I'm sure it's skewed, but at least for figuring out the relative differences between the teams, it's a neat way to think about it: Patriots are worth $500, Chargers are worth $380, Colts are worth $315, and the Broncos are worth $164. So, one way to look at it would be that according to what people are willing to pay to buy super bowl options, the Patriots have the best chance of getting there, the Chargers have the second best chance at about a 76 percent chance of what the patriots have, the Colts have about a 62 percent as good chance as the Patriots, and the Broncos have less than half the chance (actually about 32.8 percent).
Now that I think about it, I would say that the Broncos are the best value on that site (although I haven't really looked at the NFC teams). If I knew I really really wanted to go to the super bowl, and I was looking for the best value to give myself a chance, the Broncos at $164 seems pretty darned good.
Also, my calculation of the odds in my prior post was not accurate. You have to take the face value of the ticket out of the equation, because you're never at risk of actually losing that money. You're not gambling it. You only have to pay it if you "win."
So, let's say that the market value on ebay and stub hub of a super bowl ticket is $2500. If you risk $500 on a patriots option, you're really betting $500 to win $2000, which is the value of the super bowl ticket minus the face value of $500 or so that you have to pay for it. So you're really "betting" $500 that the patriots will win the super bowl, for a chance of winning $2000 -- or 4 for 1 (which is the equivalent of 3 to 1. In Vegas you get your original bet back plus your winnings; on ticket reserve, you pay the option price no matter what plus the face value of the ticket).
That's way way better odds than vegas. If I was going to bet $500 in Vegas on the patriots to WIN the superbowl, and I'd only get paid $1000 if I was right (plus my $500 bet back), I'd way rather bet $500 for a super bowl ticket so long as they just win the AFC CG.
Anyway, sorry if I hijacked this thread or I'm boring everyone. Maybe I'm the only one who is interested in the detail of this thing.
