Dolphins Said, The Odds Read : WrestleMania XXX Edition

For months, I have been writing about the odds changes for World Wrestling Entertainment pay-per-views (or 'Special Events' as the company want them to be called from now on) and have pointed out time and time again that the Reddit/Twitter user, Dolphins1925 and/or his 'source' are frauds.

My evidence is simple - the betting odds.

The 'spoilers' dished out by Dolphins1925 just before a WWE special event are always in line with the betting prices at the 5Dimes Sportsbook.

When the odds are off, so are the 'spoilers'.

And some of the odds were off this past Sunday. 

To highlight my point, I'm going to copy what was tweeted out by Dolphins and look at what the betting indicated.

'Spoiler' 1 : The Usos will win the fatal 4 way tag team match and retain their belts

The Usos had been favourites to win the match since the odds first opened. They were -3000 (1/30 UK) around the time of the tweet.

'Spoiler' 2 : I have been told there are multiple twists unfolding in the Triple H/Bryan match. Triple H wins and it will be overturned. Daniel Bryan wins

This was his first inaccurate 'spoiler'. If you had been following late betting, you could have drawn the same conclusion. 

At 11pm BST, Bryan was a -20000 favourite to win the match in 'End of Broadcast' betting, where customers are paid winnings at what the result is recorded as being once the show has ended. However, at the same time I recorded the above odds, the 'Initial Ruling' price - which is settled on the first call made by the referee - had Bryan an underdog at +180.  This peculiar difference in roles first came to my attention earlier that evening. I noted it in a post titled 'Interesting Odds Patterns Concerning The WWE World Heavyweight Championship Match'

As we now know, there was no reversal and Bryan went on to the main event.

'Spoiler' 3 : The Shield will defeat Corporate Kane & The New Age Outlaws

Hardly a spoiler. The Shield opened and closed as favourites. Their odds went from -1200 to -2000 in the betting period.

'Spoiler' 4 : Alex Rusev will win the Andre the Giant 30 Man Battle Royal. Sorry Big Show, better luck next time

Alex Rusev was never booked to be in this match. The odds had 'Mystery Wrestler Wins' (ie an unannounced wrestler) as a -900 favourite at the time of the pay-per-view. The actual winner was the unannounced Cesaro. Rusev was a choice to wager on at many other bookmakers. In all of these sportsbooks, he was the favourite in the betting. For instance, at Bovada he was priced at +125 (5/4 UK) for most of the weekend with his price dropping even lower (4/9 UK) before the pay-per-view. The bettors had bought into Rusev winning and that's why Dolphins/his source made the bold assumption that he would win.

Following a few tweets where he threw his alleged source under the bus by calling him a 'f***ing fraud', we were offered:

'Spoiler' 5 : For what it's worth, my source gave me John Cena. But I have no faith in this asshole, win or lose. He has A LOT of explaining to do

I would have liked to have seen Dolphins1925 tweet the winner of this match out just before the pay-per-view started. I believe we would have seen him announce Bray Wyatt as the upcoming winner. I write this because Wyatt had been favourite throughout the entire betting period leading up to the beginning of WrestleMania XXX. As the match was nearing, Wyatt drifted out from the -460 he was at the start of the show and had become a +300 underdog.

'Spoiler' 6 : Still no word from my source. Flat out despicable behavior. Obviously, I was told Undertaker would win and extend his WM streak to 22-0

Another incorrect call. Despite Undertaker being favourite at the time of the tweet, it is apparent that the insiders were betting against him in the hours leading up to the start of the match. I took a look at the betting action on this match in a post titled 'The Undertaker & Brock Lesnar in the Days & Hours Before The End of the Streak'. 

According to some reports, Lesnar was favourite in at least two sportsbooks. This may have been the case. However, in the numerous times I tracked the odds, he was still an underdog albeit with a shorter price than he had earlier in the day indicating the money was landing on him. I speculate that The Undertaker remained favoured at the books (or an underdog for a short time, if the reports are accurate) because non-insiders saw a nice price on Taker and bet that number. This ultimately kept his price in the minus.

At this point, Dolphins1925 appeared to have been having a meltdown and ignored the Vickie Guerrero Invitational match for the WWE Divas Championship. He did go on to announce:

'Spoiler' 7 : For the record, my source gave me Randy Orton as the main event winner. However, I have reason to believe they have been deceptive

This wasn't as peculiar a choice to go with as it appears. The eventual winner, Daniel Bryan, had been the favourite throughout the entire betting period. However, earlier in the evening, there appeared to have been action coming in on Randy Orton as his price had dropped from +4000 into +1500 before the show started. I noted that wagers were being placed on Orton in a post I published at 9:43pm BST on Sunday evening. 

The rest of Dolphins1925's tweets are rants noting how Undertaker should not have wrestled and that his source was not 'trustworthy' amongst other things.

Lost in the rant is the mission statement he revealed when he explained why he gives out special event spoilers.

Back last year, he claimed that his agenda was to stop spoilers from being leaked. He wanted to embarrass the company into keeping match results from getting out. 

Ironically, when the results didn't turn out the way the betting odds indicated, he was the one who came away embarrassed.