Odds
In an article today I read the following:
The defence of the Liberal Democrat leader came as bookmaker Ladbrokes put him as the clear favourite at 1/7 to be the first party chief to leave his post. David Cameron was placed at 6/1 and Gordon Brown 8/1.
“Young Turk” Nick Clegg was the 4/5 favourite to replace Sir Menzies while a rush of money over the weekend trimmed the odds of another possible contender, Chris Huhne, from 7/2 out to 3/1.
I know (thanks to my beloved Phyllis) that “x/y” means “if you bet y, you get x+y back”, but why this arcane system?!?
Why don’t they just do something decimal, such as stating the above odds as 1.14, 7.00, 9.00, 1.80, 4.50 and 4.00 (each number being what you’d get back from betting 1)? Is it just for historical reasons, or does it really work better if you bet a lot?