Frequently asked questions about composed markets
These are the questions the samples can answer, and every answer here rests on a figure defined elsewhere on the site rather than on a general view about betting. Where the samples cannot answer a question, the answer says so.
- questions
- 12
- samples behind them
- 10
- real operators named
- 0
- illustrative figures
- every one
A composed market is a bet on a set of outcomes the customer names, priced by the operator from the chance of all of them happening together. The price is shorter than the product of the legs because the legs are correlated, it can be refused after it is priced, and one leg failing to happen is repaired by re-pricing rather than by division.
The questions most often asked
What the samples show
| Question | Figure | Sample |
|---|---|---|
| Is the price the product of the legs? | 5.60 against 4.80 | A |
| Is the difference a fee? | 16.6% loss avoided | A |
| How long does a request take? | 3 h 40 m median | B |
| How often is a request accepted? | 218 of 500 | B |
| Will the market be published? | 194 of 218 | B |
| Can two opposing outcomes be combined? | No: 2 of 40 rules | C |
| What does a void leg do to the price? | 4.50 against 4.80 | D |
| How many states does a 12-leg combination have? | 4,096 | E |
| Is the price limit published? | 7 of 40 pages | F |
| What does a month turn over? | 170,400.00 | G |
| What does one request cost to answer? | 41.07 | H |
| Why is a priced request refused? | 4 reasons, 96 cases | I |
| Every answer | 10 samples | Illustrative |
All twelve questions, answered
- Compute the product of the legs yourself before you accept a composed price.
- Ask whether the combination is being priced automatically or by a person, because the timing differs.
- Ask what stake the price applies to before assuming the stake box is the answer.
- Ask for the refusal reason if a request comes back refused, because only two of the four are dead ends.
- Keep your own record of the legs, the price and the time: 24 of 218 accepted markets in sample B are never published.
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The questions, in full
What is a composed market?
One bet on a set of outcomes the customer names. Unlike a published market it has no price until someone asks for one: the legs are chosen, a model decides how likely they are together, and the operator either offers a price or refuses. On the samples 218 of 500 requests in a month produced an offered price.
Why is a composed price not the product of its legs?
Because multiplying legs assumes they do not affect each other, and legs inside one event do. Three sampled legs priced 1.60, 1.75 and 2.00 multiply to 5.60, a 17.86% chance, while the model measures 20.83%, so the composed price is 4.80. The difference is 14.3% of the product.
Is the shorter price a fee charged by the operator?
No. Priced at the product of the legs against a real joint chance of 20.83%, the leg-set returns 116.65 per 100.00 staked, which is a 16.6% loss for whoever offers it. The composed price of 4.80 returns 99.98, so the difference is the price at which the bet is fair rather than a charge added to a fair one.
What is correlation and why does it change the price?
Correlation is the relationship between two legs: how much more or less often they happen together than their separate chances would suggest. Positive correlation means they co-occur more often than chance, which makes the true joint chance higher than the product and therefore the fair price shorter. Inside one match, positive correlation is the normal case.
What happens if one leg of the combination does not happen?
The combination is re-priced from its remaining legs. On the samples a four-leg combination composed at 10.80 with a void leg of 2.40 divides to 4.50, while the real three-leg combination prices at 4.80 - a 6.7% difference, worth 3.00 on a 10.00 stake. Only 9 of 40 terms pages state the re-pricing rule.
How many legs may I combine?
Two at the least and twelve at the most on the samples. Twelve legs means 66 pairwise relationships and 4,096 joint states, which is why the limit exists. A twelve-leg request can still be refused: at 1.70 a leg it multiplies to 582.6, above the 500.0 the operator will accept.
How much can I stake on a composed market?
The stated maximum is 250.00, but the payout ceiling of 25,000.00 binds first on a long combination. Above a composed price of 100.0 the maximum stake is the ceiling divided by the price: 192.75 at a price of 129.7 and 50.00 at 500.0.
How long does a request take to answer?
A median of 3 hours 40 minutes on the samples, with a quarter answered inside 1 hour 10 minutes and a tenth only after 26 hours. 12.0% were answered inside an hour, and 7.4% were never answered at all. The timing matters because the price is a snapshot of the model at the moment the request was worked.
Will my market be published to other customers?
Usually yes: 194 of 218 accepted markets in the sample month were published to every customer at the price the requester was quoted, and 24 stayed private. That means a price nobody else can see, and no public record of it beyond the operator’s own.
Why was my request refused after it was priced?
Four distinct reasons on the samples: 38 of 96 had no model for the combination, 27 fell below the minimum accepted price, 19 rested on a statistic the operator cannot verify and 12 were correlated beyond the accepted limit. 84 of the 96 could have been re-asked in a different form.
Do the terms explain any of this?
Partly. Of 40 invented terms pages, 26 state that a model prices the combination, only 4 state that the price is not the product of the legs, 9 state the void-leg rule, 18 state the leg limits, 7 state that a request may be refused and none states that a combination may be settled in part.
Is this page a recommendation to compose a market?
No. The desk explains how a composed price is produced, refused and repaired. It names no operator, recommends no market, advertises no promotion, and gives no method for evading a limit or a settlement rule. Every figure is illustrative and derives from ten invented samples.