Thats all part of the GAMBLE.
What about the "idiots" who put £££ on Button to win the WDC before the Brawn had even turned a wheel? They're not such idiots now are they?

As for idiots betting on kimi I'm sure William Hill would gladly take their money if they wanted to bet on him being 2010 F1 champion.
Hell, I reckon they would take a bet on ME being champion if I asked them to.

You'll forgive me if I don't place money on you

That's the point, when Will Hill opens betting on Kimi, then we can talk about those idiots putting money on him. Right now the only idiots are those betting on MS before they even know whether he would drive or not.

do you people actually understand what it is to gamble?

you don't place a bet on a certainty.

the odds on those confirmed are also very short, and require quite a large downpayment for a decent return. so they don't pique my interest so much. i'd rather bet on individual races for them.

in 2007 i had a feeling about honda and thus button for 2008 and did nothing about it. i quite fancy a flutter this year. i'd hoped ms odds would be longer, but their shortness are another indication that there is a good feeling about a comeback and of being a contender. there is no denial and no reason not to have one.

but thanks for telling us your thoughts on what makes an idiot. you have been really insightful and educational. oh hang on...

either way, placing money or not, from what you write you're betting ms won't return. apparently that must make you an idiot... because it is not confirmed.

Sorry but if the bet was whether MS would race in F1 or not, then 8:1 seems decent. Here we are, not knowing whether he would even race(!!!) and we are betting on whether he would get the WDC no less If the odds for that were 100:1, thus implicitly covering the uncertainty of whether he would even be in F1 next year, then I can understand the gamble. But as such poor odds... Then again, I bet there were some gambling ones that placed bets on MS winning a race last year after it was announced that he is back so if you or anyone else wants to bet on 2010 WDC, feel free.

that's a nice reimagining of your statements, but the idiot comments came directly from asking if anyone knew the odds, if it was possible to place the bet. the odds then came later.

and anyway, you can quite clearly see from the second post i made afterward that such a bet can be placed on MS for a return of just under £650 with almost absolutely no risk of losing money - with a small outlay. its possible to bring in massa and button and rosberg if you think they stand a chance too, but just with a smaller return.

frankly, if you have the money available to place a bet, when you can secure it with bets on the other wdc candidates, you'd be an idiot not to - whether you include MS or not in your bet

IMO F1 odds are much shorter than they were last year because this year proved anything can happen and the bookies consider themselves wiser for it.

they are shorter it would seem, but that's more because the teams are so close nowadays i think. if the bookies could offer longer odds to bring in bets they would. its their business after all and short odds don't attract punters. but due to the closeness even they find it impossible to call. button's odds fell dramatically after the initial test.

in some ways its only since 2007 that you could attract bets on victories as before then it was always schumi and always very short. 8/1 is in many ways bloody good. tho nowhere near last year. last time schumi would have been on 8/1 would be 1993 i guess.

The reimagining is in your imagination, my initial comments were aimed primarily at the guy who tried to bring Kimi in, never mind that he was not even offered as a potential bet. So yes, betting on a guy who is not currently confirmed as an F1 driver for 2010 is idiotic at this point unless the odds were spectacular and one wanted to throw away a little money essentially buying a dream.

but you don't need to throw money anywhere, the money can be secured with bets on the other candidates. that's the beauty of f1. the longer you leave it, the shorter the odds become, the lower the return on a win. i don't know how else to explain it, the image posted should really be self explanatory.

the guy who brought kimi in did so to say betting on him would be idiotic as there is no chance of him winning, while there is with schumi. clearly you didn't understand that either tho.

No, the guy who brought Kimi in actually overlooked that Kimi is not even listed and it's not possible to bet on him, idiot or not. In order for Schumi to have a chance of winning, he first needs to be entered in the championship as a driver. Until that happens, only idiots would bet on him - winning the WDC is hard enough but to win it without entering is pretty much impossible.

Someone betting on Michael Schumacher to win the WDC at 8/1 is an idiot because he might not even race, and if he does there is no guarantee that Mercedes will be competitive. That team were only contenders because they had focused on that car with the new rules for a whole year whilst everyone else were playing catchup.

If it was 80/1 then maybe I could understand. But not 8/1 when he probably won't race again full time in the most competitive series of motorsport.

that was dale's point fgs. kimi can't win, as he's confirmed not to be in it. schumi could win because he could enter and win. it's not confirmed he won't. it is with kimi.

whether kimi is on william hill's list or not makes no difference to that statement. i could place a bet with you he'd win, and you'd win the bet and i'd be an idiot.

now the fact you can bet on schumi without losing any money, really stops any idiocy from occurring and is quite clever. if you wait for confirmation his odds will shorten and you won't be able to win as much while securing you money with other bets.

i can do no more to explain this to you.

another one that doesn't realise you can't lose. YOU CAN'T LOSE! What more do you want?

I'll put a small bet on Schumi, Christmas is the time of miracles, Merry Christmas and Mercedes announces Michael Schumacher, and forums around the world of motorsport get busy by 100%

that's some clever bidding

So I place 10 pounds on Schumacher and that's my only bet. What if he doesn't race in 2010, do I get my 10 pounds back? If he races and doesn't win the WDC, do I get my 10 pounds back? How come I cannot lose on that bet? I just highlighted two scenarios under which I will lose

Nope. If he doesn't race in 2010, he doesn't win the WDC. Therefore, you lose your 10 pounds.

You really can bet on anything. If you walked into your local bookies, you could place 10 pounds on me winning the 2010 WDC. They would give you really good odds too. You would probably get about a billion pounds if I won the WDC. Of course, in actual fact, you would just lose 10 pounds.

A billion pounds?? Screw schumacher, i'm putting my money on JarnoA....i'll be rich, rich I tell you.
It does seem apparent some people dont understand the principle of placing a bet. Anybody can bet on anything, if i remember rightly one of the bookies was taking bets on Obama getting shot FFS so I'm positive they'll have no issues with taking money off idiots who want to bet on kimi. Whether he is racing or not it wont matter to them.
8-1 on schumacher winning the championship isn't very good, especially when he isn't even racing but no bookie wants to lose his shirt on sentimental betting.

If you ever sat in a car with me racing on a track, you would know that your 10 pounds would be better spent on Donald Duck.

(I have done a track day, and I am shit).

LOL
Anybody know the odds for Donald Duck winning the WDC?
Back on topic... Bookies rarely get it wrong so they must think there is something in the whole schumacher to mercedes rumour.
I think all will be revealed after renault make their forthcoming announcement and what the impact will be for kubica as him and heidfeld seem to be the only realistic options and sauber may already have an option on heidfeld.

I think they're just hedging their bets. If he does come back and people have put vast sums on him at 1000-1 then they'll lose too much. It's much better for them to put a contingency in place to cover that scenario.

Bookies adjust their odds depending on how many people make a bet. If a massive number of people made bets on me winning the WDC, (or Donald Duck for that matter), they would drop massively.

A lot of people are thinking "if he decides to race, I could make a killing", and make a bet, so the odds drop.

If far more bets were made on, say Jacques Villenueve, winning the 2010 WDC than anyone else, the odds for JV would make him favourite.

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2009/12/schu...ays-ecclestone/

Bernie says that Schumacher's comeback is maybe getting stronger than a rumour?

To me it seems Bernie is just speculating like everybody else.

I think MS would only come back if he knows that HE can go for the championship.

That means assessing the strength of the new Mercedes car for next year, which under the leadership of RB must be reasonably well. But it would also include minimizing the risk of having Rosberg taking points away from him occasionally.

If he comes back on equal terms as his team mate that would be refreshing.
If he comes back with secret agreements on No. 1 status etc... in my opinion he can stay away from F1

you mean like alonso requested @mclaren ?

Yup. Eddie Jordan is probably enjoying being the cause of so much chaos.

The 40-year-old seven time world champion’s father Rolf told the Cologne newspaper Express: “Michael is training every day like crazy. He’s not doing that for nothing.”

Hmmmmmmm....

No. He's doing it to stay fit.

all these news in the last few days are pointing into one direction....

It could be for his bike racing.

He'll have been 'growing' out of his rhinestone and studwork threads, I wouldn't be surprised if this effort isn't directed more towards saving his wardrobe.

yeah exactly.... only mclaren didnt give it to alonso... that caused mclaren lots of pain, but the racing was great.

i'd love to see MS back, but i want to see him face a team mate on equal footing...

I don't really care about that. I just want him in the car so that 2010 will be even better. We have then 7 drivers who can fight for the WDC. Maybe 8 if Nico proofs to be good

MS is not returning to race in F1. It's a lovely idea, but its not going to happen.

You know what they say: "The bigger they are, the HARDER they'll fall...."

Hahahaha, bring it on ...... (but it's rather unrealistic) .....

Just saw Schumacher in Tesco buying F1 2009 on Nintendo Wii.. guys I think it's happening.

He's quite clearly considering a comeback, so I don't know how some of you are so sure he won't.

He's not doing his current employer Ferrari any favours by being in the news with Mercedes all the time. And if he wasn't considering it, its very easy to say so. He has many reasons to dispel the rumours. He isn't. Nor are Ferrari. It IS under consideration.

Maybe no one from the press has actually asked him?

you are kidding right ?

He's quite clearly considering it is he? Presumably, you know this, because the media told you.

Sh1t... There goes my online rankings.

Isn't this being handled in the same way that Alonso/Ferrari was? Meaning nobody was outright denying it and it was being carried on forever?

You think if a denial was so easy to put out Ferrari and FIAT would be happy to have their ambassador linked to Mercedes?

He used to always deny.

Then Massa.

Then third car talk.

Now this.

Its a reasoned argument. Where's your knowledge that he definitely isn't coming from? Plucked from...?

Well the biggest danger will be that Formula One will lose this legend sooner than what we have thought about.

Kimi is gone and still no contract for Heidfeld.

The race to get Schumi at Mercedes is still on!

Norbert Haug.

The 'can't rule anyone out' line was essentailly one of sarcasm, treating a predictable media question with worthless answer, imo. Basically, they've not ruled you out either, that's all that answer is saying. Why not deny it then? Well, it suits Mercedes PR to be associated with the rumour. Why hasn't MS ruled in out? Well, he's not been quoted to be thinking about it so why should he rule it out publically.

There's no contract yet for Jarno Trulli so clearly Lotus are trying to sign Schumacher!

I would imagine that Ferrari aren't so thrilled about their boy being linked to a rival. Perhaps if he cares for the company, he could do it for them. It would be SO easy for Ferrari or Scumacher to stop these damaging rumours, but they aren't. Hell, if my favourite champion is consantly linked with another team, giving them publicity the likes of which the world has never seen, I'd be sure as hell to put an end to it asap.

I wasn't a believer either. But I'm starting to think that, at the very least, he's considering it. Doesn't mean he'll take it though.