Chapter 45

The Olympic Stadium in Athens, as the main venue for the Olympics, is equipped with commercial facilities. Its surroundings are planned with commercial streets and shopping malls, most of which are not newly built but are instead renovated from old buildings. Although the construction speed of the Olympic Stadium in Athens has been criticized, the construction speed of the commercial area was very fast, even completing before the stadium.

At a corner of a commercial street, where there was a dense crowd, Zhang Guan stood in front of a building, looking up at the large "OPAP" sign. He took out a tourist map to check and found that he had not come to the wrong place, so he walked in.

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

The Olympics are undoubtedly a huge gold mine for betting companies, and for speculators, Olympic betting is a feast that cannot be missed. Zhang Guan remembered many Olympic results, and by betting on some upsets, he could quickly become wealthy through speculation.

Therefore, before leaving the country, Zhang Guan raised as much money as possible and exchanged it for euros, even taking out a loan. He also signed up to participate in the rehearsal for the opening ceremony of the Olympics, hoping to arrive in Athens early to join this betting feast.

Zhang Guan first went to the bank to get a debit card. Although the efficiency of the Greeks is not high, it is very easy for foreigners to get a debit card in Greece during the Olympic period. He could get it done in minutes with his passport.

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

If it were a few years later, when online betting in Europe had matured, Zhang Guan could have easily set up online banking and bet through websites. However, at this time, online betting in many European countries did not have legal status, and some countries even had many restrictions. For example, in Finland, the largest online betting country in Europe, the law stipulates that only permanent residents of Finland can participate in online betting. In the UK, the largest betting country in Europe, the 2005 Gambling Act, which legalizes online betting, had not yet been implemented. Other countries like Germany, Italy, and Spain also lacked laws and regulations for online betting.

Therefore, at this time, betting mainly took place through physical betting stations.

OPAP's betting stations are spread throughout Greece, with most small and medium-sized stations selling only OPAP's sports lottery tickets. However, some large stations also act as agents for sports lottery tickets from major European betting companies. In the context of European countries striving to protect their own betting industries, OPAP's situation is relatively rare in Europe.

The betting industry is an industry where making money is easier than robbing a bank. From a national perspective, it is natural to hope that citizens only buy lottery tickets from their own country. From the perspective of large betting companies, it is natural to hope that all countries open their markets.

The EU has been committed to the economic and financial integration of the Eurozone, so it also hopes that EU countries will open up to each other, including in some monopolized industries dominated by state-owned capital. Greece's entry into the Eurozone was actually opposed by many EU countries. To smoothly enter the Eurozone, Greece had to promise to open up some sectors to foreign investment, including the conditional opening of its betting industry.

The Olympics are a big cake for the entire betting industry, and Greece knew it could not monopolize this cake. Moreover, to build the Olympic venues, Greece borrowed a lot of money from the EU. Major betting groups pressured Greece through the EU, so the Greek government allowed foreign betting companies to enter Greece through agency sales, but limited the sole agent to the state-owned company OPAP.

For foreign betting companies entering Greece, Greece conducted strict approval and supervision. For each betting transaction, OPAP would charge a certain fee as an agency fee. Greece also stipulated that to buy products from foreign betting companies through OPAP, one must register an account with OPAP, while buying OPAP's betting products directly does not require account registration.

Despite these restrictions, many people were still willing to go through the extra effort to buy products from foreign betting companies, especially tourists, particularly those from Europe, who tended to buy products from their own countries.

...

Zhang Guan walked into the betting station hall and saw that the walls were lined with LCD TVs broadcasting the odds for various Olympic events in real time. There were also dozens of self-service odds inquiry machines, some of which could query the odds from foreign betting companies.

Zhang Guan, holding his newly opened bank card and passport, registered with OPAP and then went to a self-service inquiry machine. He first checked the odds for the men's 100-meter sprint.

Almost all athletes who qualified for the Olympics with an A standard were listed. As for those who qualified with a B standard, they were not even worth the betting companies listing them, and even if they were listed, no one would bet on them.

The odds for the champion were ranked from low to high, with the top three all being American athletes. The top-ranked was the defending champion and former world record holder, Maurice Greene. Following him were Shawn Crawford and Justin Gatlin. The Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell was only in fourth place, followed by the Portuguese Francis Obikwelu in fifth. After that were Kim Collins from Saint Kitts and Nevis and the British veteran Jason Gardiner. Zhang Guan's name was not on the first page.

The athletes listed on the first page only had odds for winning the championship, indicating that they were expected to make it to the final. The odds for the other athletes gradually included the odds for making it to the final and the semi-finals.

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

"Only one company has given me odds for making it to the semi-finals, and the odds are very low, only 1.2 to 1. It seems the betting company is confident I will make it to the semi-finals. My odds for making it to the final are 2 to 1 with Ladbrokes, 2.5 to 1 with Bet365, 2.1 to 1 with William Hill, and 2.5 to 1 with Betway. Oh, this Spanish company has given me the highest odds, 3.3 to 1."

Based on these data, Zhang Guan knew that the major European betting companies were relatively optimistic about his chances of making it to the final.

"Let's see what my odds for winning the championship are... Uh, 80 to 1 with Ladbrokes, 100 to 1 with Bet365, 80 to 1 with William Hill, 100 to 1 with Betway, and 120 to 1 with this Spanish betting company. Even 150 to 1 with this Italian company! OPAP has given me odds of 180 to 1 for winning the championship. The Greeks are asking for trouble! I'm about to get rich!"

Zhang Guan was secretly pleased, but upon further inspection, he saw that from the fourth page onward, all athletes had similar odds for winning the championship, ranging from 80 to 1 to 150 to 1.

"It seems these are the highest odds the betting companies have given me," Zhang Guan thought to himself.

Large betting companies set upper limits for their odds. British betting companies generally set an upper limit of 100 to 1, and since the UK is the most developed country in European betting, Western and Central European betting companies generally follow this standard.

The main business of betting companies is football betting. Spain, located in Southern Europe, has the La Liga, and Italy has the Serie A, both of which compete with the Premier League. Therefore, Spain and Italy do not align with the UK in setting odds, especially since many Italian betting companies have ties to the mafia, and they can manipulate matches, leading to more daring odds, such as 150 to 1 or higher. Occasionally, companies like OPAP in Greece offer suicidal odds of 200 to 1.

As for Northern and Eastern Europe, they have smaller betting companies that can only operate within their own countries and have little influence overseas.

The larger the company, the more conservative the odds they offer. For example, in the 2014 World Cup, major betting companies gave North Korea odds of 100 to 1 for winning the championship, while smaller companies offered odds as high as 700 to 1.

Zhang Guan then began to check the odds for other events. For individual events, the odds for the favorites were very low, and the odds for those with no chance of winning were around 100 to 1.

For team events, the biggest favorite for the basketball championship was the US team, followed by the Greek team, then the Spanish team, the Argentine team, and the Italian team. After that were Germany, Russia, and Serbia. The odds for the Chinese team winning the championship were 80 to 1 with Ladbrokes. Of course, the Chinese team was not the worst; the Japanese and Nigerian teams had the highest odds at 100 to 1.

"The national men's basketball team performed quite well in this Olympics, even making it to the quarter-finals, although they had no chance of winning the championship. But why is the Greek team ranked second? The Greek team has been losing a lot recently. Could it be because of the home-field advantage, with so many people betting on them, that the odds have been lowered?" Zhang Guan thought to himself.

The odds given by betting companies are not fixed. They change based on the performance of the teams and the amount of money bet. Theoretically, even odds of 100 to 1 could drop to 1.1 to 1 if enough money is bet.

"Remember, the basketball champion of this Olympics is Argentina. However, Argentina has performed very well in recent years, so it's not an upset, and the odds are low, making it unprofitable to bet. Let's check the football odds!"

Zhang Guan began to check the football odds.

The football atmosphere in Europe is the strongest, with annual betting sales in the top European leagues reaching billions of euros. Therefore, the Olympic football events are not only the most watched but also the most heavily bet on.

However, the Olympic football events have an age limit, with athletes not exceeding 23 years old. This means that many famous football players cannot participate, and it also increases the uncertainty of the Olympic football events. If not a seasoned football fan, one would not have much knowledge about athletes under 23, so the odds given by betting companies become the most direct way for fans to understand the strength of the teams.

From the 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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Chapter 1 delivered. This week, there are no recommendations, so I'm trying to push for the new author list. I need your support and votes. Thank you.

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