U.S. Expected to Capture Softball Gold
Even though the United States softball team completely dominated the opposition at the 2004 Olympic Games, these women have a chip on their shoulder heading into Beijing. Softball will not be an Olympic sport in 2012 and the players aren't too happy about it. The move by the Olympic Committee to exclude softball, and baseball as well, is assumed to be in retaliation to Major League Baseball not halting its season, as other sports do, to allow the best players in the game to represent their country. Since softball is viewed as the female version of baseball, it happened to get caught up in politics, as well.
Looking at the United States, it has won each gold medal since softball became an Olympic sport and they are a -450 favorite at Olympic Sportsbook to do so once again. Bettors who believe the United States will see its streak of gold medals snapped can get +350 and bet that any other team will win will capture the gold.
Naturally, laying -450 on anything is a quick way to the poorhouse, as things can and do happen that lead to sure things going down in defeat. But that shouldn't be the case in China, as the U.S. should simply have too much hitting, fielding, and pitching for anybody else to contend with.
In some ways, betting on the United States to win the softball gold medal is like betting there won't be a safety in the Super Bowl. As I said at the time, betting there would not be a safety was probably the best wager a player could make on the Super Bowl, even though the player was forced to lay -800. Those who said that it wasn't a good wager because of the odds, simply don't know enough about true odds and wagering odds to make an informed decision.
In this case, the true odds on the U.S. softball team winning the gold medal should be -900, meaning they should win the gold medal nine out of 10 times. If you can risk just $450 to win $100, you have a good bet.
Don't be scared off by the relatively high odds. They aren't nearly as high as they should be and expect to see Jennie Finch, Lisa Fernandez, and the crew returning home with another gold medal.
