How Kambi Settled Its G1 Climax 29 Observer Head-to-Head Markets

In the weeks leading up to this year's NJPW G1 Climax tournament, the oddsmakers from Kambi created three head-to-head markets in which customers could place bets on how opposing matches would fare in Dave Meltzer's reviews inside the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

The first head-to-head had two of Will Ospreay's matches competing against each other. One was for the night seven match against Kazuchika Okada and the other was for night 11's bout with Zack Sabre Junior.

The bookies had the ZSJ match as a 17/20 favourite when the market opened on June 26th. The Okada match was 11/10 and the selection to bet on both matches receiving the 'Same Star Rating' was 43/20.

The night seven match with Okada - as we now know - was the match of the tournament. It was awarded five-and-three-quarters in Meltzer's review, so it should really go without saying that it won against the four-and-a-half stars the Sabre match received.

This market was settled when the August 5th issue of the Observer was published online on August 1st.

The two remaining head-to-head markets contained bouts that were set to run right to the end of the block matches.

The second was specific to two more of Kazuchika Okada's tournament. The first was for his night one main event win over Hiroshi Tanahashi while the second was for the A Block finale against Kota Ibushi.

When the market was published, the bookies had the Ibushi match as a 9/10 favourite, the Tanahashi bout was 11/10 and the 'Same Star Rating' option was 2/1.

The winning selection turned out to be the contest with Ibushi from night seventeen. It was given five stars and beat the night one match with Tanahashi by half a star.

Even though I blindly backed the 'Same Star Rating' in the above two markets, I was even more keen to see how the third market would end up being settled.

It was focused on bouts within B Block and had the Tetsuya Naito .vs. Jay White match, which was the main event of B Block's final night, going up against 'Any Other B Block Match'.

I felt that it was worth a gamble backing all of the B Block matches against Naito and White, so sided with the option when it was EVS.  As you'll see - by clicking on the table below - the 'Naito .vs. White' selection was also EVS when it was first installed on June 26th. 

Other customers evidently thought the 'Any Other B Block Match' selection was worth a gamble as its odds plummeted from day one and was moved to 1/6 by the end of July. 

As the tournament was in progress, I kept my eye on the star ratings results of B Block to see what Naito and White needed to beat when it came time for them to wrestle each other on August 11th.

Before any matches had been fought, I felt Tomohiro Ishii .vs. Tetsuya Naito had the best chance of doing better than Naito .vs. White. And I was right.

Sort of.

Ishii .vs. Naito was awarded four-and-a-half stars in the issue that covered the night eight main event. This was a quarter of a star better than Naito's outing with White on night eighteen.

The real winner, however, was Ishii's meeting with Shingo Takagi from night sixteen. It was the best match from B Block with a score of five-and-a-half stars.

There are still many more G1 Climax 29 posts in the pipeline. Keep checking back for more.

View Kambi's Pro Wrestling Markets