I wanted to know whether the sharp market's chances for football favourites are honest, so I checked them against results.
The price is Pinnacle's last one before kick-off, with the bookmaker margin removed. Every match where the favourite was at 65% or more counts, 890 of 6,573 matches from 11 June to 17 October 2026:
| Chance shown |
Matches |
Average shown |
Won |
| 65–70% |
349 |
67.4% |
67.3% |
| 70–75% |
206 |
72.4% |
72.8% |
| 75–80% |
164 |
77.2% |
82.9% |
| 80% and more |
171 |
85.0% |
87.1% |
That table is a backtest, built after the fact. Since 18 October we log the same list live, before kick-off: 376 of 521 won (72%), shown at 73% on average.
So the market's numbers hold up well. A high win rate is not a profit, though: staking every one of the 890 at Pinnacle's closing price would have returned −0.2 per 100 (95% interval −4.0 to +3.6).
Data and method: https://tipsaudit.com/most-likely-wins/record
Disclosure: I run this free site, no ads, no tips sold, 18+.