OPAP Company

Athens Olympic Sports Complex, as the main venue of the Olympics, has its own commercial facilities. There are planned commercial streets and shopping malls nearby, mostly renovated from old buildings rather than newly constructed. Although the construction speed of the Athens Olympic Stadium has been criticized, the construction speed of the commercial area is quite fast, even earlier than the completion of the stadium.

At the corner of a commercial street, the crowd was dense. Zhang Guan stood in front of a building, looking up at the large signboard with the "OPAP" logo. He took out a tourist map, checked it, confirmed he was in the right place, and then walked in.

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

The Olympics is undoubtedly a huge gold mine for betting companies, and for speculators, Olympic betting is an irresistible feast. Zhang Guan remembered many Olympic results, and making a fortune quickly through betting on underdogs seemed like a good way.

So, before going abroad, Zhang Guan tried to raise funds and convert them into euros as much as possible, even borrowing money if necessary. At the same time, Zhang Guan signed up for the rehearsal of the Olympic opening ceremony, hoping to arrive in Athens early and participate in this betting feast.

Zhang Guan first went to the bank to get a debit card. Although the efficiency of the Greeks is not high, during the Olympics, it is very easy for foreigners to get a debit card in Greece. With a passport, it can be done in minutes.

Then Zhang Guan went to the largest betting station near the Olympic Sports Complex.

A few years later, online betting in Europe gradually matured. Zhang Guan could have handled online banking transactions and bet online through websites. However, at this time, internet betting did not have legal status in many European countries. Some countries even had many restrictions. For example, Finland, the largest online betting country in Europe, stipulated that only Finnish permanent residents could participate in online betting; and the UK, the largest betting country in Europe, had not yet implemented the legalization of online betting under the "2005 Betting Act." Other countries such as Germany, Italy, and Spain also did not have laws and regulations for online betting.

So, betting during this time was mainly done through on-site betting at betting stations.

OPAP's betting stations are spread all over Greece. Most of the small and medium-sized betting stations only sell sports lottery tickets of OPAP itself, while some large betting stations, in addition to selling OPAP's own sports lottery tickets, also act as agents for sports lottery tickets of major European betting companies. In the situation where various countries in Europe are trying to protect their own betting industries, this situation of OPAP is not common in Europe.

The betting industry is an industry where making money is easier than robbing. From the national level, it is natural to hope that nationals only buy national lottery tickets; from the perspective of large betting companies, it is natural to hope that all countries can open up the market.

The European Union has always been committed to the economic and financial integration of the euro area, so it also hopes that EU countries can open up to each other, including some industries dominated by state-owned capital. At that time, Greece's entry into the euro zone was actually opposed by many EU countries. In order to enter the euro zone smoothly, Greece had to promise to open up some areas to allow foreign capital to enter. One of them was the conditional opening of Greece's betting industry.

The Olympics is a big cake for the entire betting industry. Greece also knows that it is impossible to monopolize this big cake alone. Moreover, in order to build Olympic venues, Greece borrowed a lot of money from the EU. Large betting groups pressured Greece through the EU, so the Greek government allowed foreign betting companies to enter Greece through the model of agency sales, but it limited the only agent to be the state-owned company OPAP.

For foreign betting companies entering Greece, Greece has strict approval and supervision. For each betting transaction reached, OPAP will extract a certain fee as an agency fee. At the same time, Greece also stipulates that purchasing products of foreign betting companies through OPAP must register an account with OPAP, while directly purchasing OPAP's betting products does not require account registration.

Although there are many restrictions, there are still many people willing to spend more effort to buy products of foreign betting companies. Many of them are tourists, especially local European tourists, who are more inclined to buy products of their own country.

...

Zhang Guan entered the lobby of the betting station and saw the wall full of LCD TVs, broadcasting the real-time odds of various Olympic events, and there were also dozens of self-service odds inquiry machines. Some of these self-service inquiry machines can inquire about the odds of foreign betting companies.

Holding the newly opened bank card and passport, Zhang Guan registered at the OPAP company and then came to a self-service inquiry machine. He first checked the odds of the men's 100-meter sprint.

Almost all the athletes who entered the Olympics with the A standard were listed. As for the B standard athletes, they were not worth the betting companies putting them on the list. Even if they were put on the list, no one would buy them.

The odds of the champion were ranked from low to high. The top three were all American athletes. The defending champion and former world record-breaking sprint star Morris Green ranked first, followed by Shawn Crawford and Justin Gatlin. Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell ranked only fourth, followed by Portuguese Francis Obikwilu, and then athletes from the Caribbean island nation of Saint Kitts and Nevis, Kim Chris, and British veteran Jason Gardener. Looking further down, Zhang Guan's name obviously did not appear on the first page.

Athletes listed on the front page only had odds for winning the championship, indicating that they were considered certain to enter the finals. The odds for entering the finals and semifinals gradually appeared for other athletes.

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

"Only one company gave me odds for entering the semifinals, and the odds are very low, only 1 to 1.2. Obviously, the betting company believes that I will definitely enter the semifinals. As for the odds of me winning the championship, Betfair is 1 to 2, Bet365 is 1 to 2.5, William Hill is 1 to 2.1, and Betfair is also 1 to 2.5. Oh, this Spanish company has given me the highest odds, which is 1 to 3.3."

According to this data, Zhang Guan knew that major European betting companies were relatively optimistic about his chances of entering the finals.

"Let's see what my odds for winning the championship are... um, Betfair is 1 to 80, Bet365 is 1 to 100, William Hill is 1 to 80, Betfair is 1 to 100, this Spanish betting company has opened 1 to 120, and this Italian company has opened 1 to 150! OPAP has given me odds of winning the championship of 1 to 180, Greeks are really going all out! This is my chance to get rich!"

Zhang Guan felt secretly happy, but looking at it again, starting from the fourth page, the odds for winning the championship for all athletes were the same as his, ranging from 1 to 80 to 1 to 150.

"It seems that these are the highest odds given by various betting companies." Zhang Guan secretly thought.

When setting odds, larger companies tend to be more conservative. For example, during the Brazil World Cup, the maximum odds given by large betting companies to North Korea for winning the championship was 1 to 100, while some small companies gave odds as high as 1 to 700.

Zhang Guan began to check the odds of other events. Individual projects were similar, with low odds for top contenders for the championship and odds of around 1 to 100 for those with no chance of winning.

In team events, the biggest favorite for winning the basketball championship was undoubtedly the US team, followed by the Greek men's basketball team, the Spanish men's basketball team ranked third, followed by the Argentine men's basketball team and the Italian men's basketball team, and then Germany, Russia, and Serbia. As for the Chinese men's basketball team, the odds given by Betfair for winning the championship were 1:80. Of course, the Chinese team was not the worst, with the highest odds for Japan and Nigeria winning the championship being 1:100.

"The men's national basketball team has performed quite well in this Olympic Games, although there is no hope of winning the championship, but they have entered the quarterfinals. It's just that why is the Greek men's basketball team ranked second? The Greek men's basketball team has been losing games for the past two years. Is it because of being the host country, attracting too many bets, and forcing the odds to come down?" Zhang Guan secretly speculated.

The odds given by betting companies are not fixed. According to different performance in the matches, the odds will change continuously. Also, if the amount of betting is too high, the odds will also decrease. Theoretically, even if the odds are 1 to 100, as long as enough bets are placed, it is possible to decrease to 1 to 1.1.

"I remember that the basketball champion of this Olympic Games was Argentina, but Argentina has performed very well in the past two years, it is not considered a dark horse, and the odds are also very low, so buying them won't make any profit. Let's take a look at football!"

Zhang Guan began to check the odds of football events.

The football atmosphere in Europe is the most intense. The betting turnover of top European leagues reaches hundreds of billions of euros every year, so the Olympic football event is not only the most watched but also the most participated in by betting.

However, there is an age limit for football events at the Olympics, which cannot exceed 23 years old. This means that many well-known star football players cannot participate in the Olympics, and it also increases the uncertainty of the Olympic football event. If it were not for senior fans, they would probably not have much understanding of players under 23 years old, so the odds given by betting companies have become the most direct way for fans to understand the strength of various teams.

In terms of odds, Portugal, Italy, Argentina, and Paraguay are the favorites for winning the championship in the football event. However, Zhang Guan did not pay attention to the odds of these strong teams, but directly found an Asian team—Iraq.