shurlock

I see - well-spotted. Teach me to post so late.

Yep but why use specialist acronyms for a general audience -indeed a football forum of all places:)

It's from April 17 - see bottom of the page. The original Chinese is clearer than Google Translate's formatting. The chronology seems roughly to be: -Lander announce they're stopping the deal, citing regulatory uncertainty etc. -The press reports this and it interprets it as meaning the deal is stone-cold dead. -Lander put out this statement clarifying they still want to complete the deal, notwithstanding the earlier announcement. The China Daily article on the other page is a decent summary.

Out of interest, how many of those proposals do you agree with?

The sour grapes and bitterness are strong with this one.

Some of the previous reporting by Reuters is ambiguous, giving the impression that the regulatory clampdown is just football related. For context, the Chinese government is very worried about the build-up of debt in Chinese companies, a mountain of unpaid loans and bonds that could ultimately pose a challenge to the stability of the economy. This concern has spread to foreign mergers and acquisitions. Much of this funding, to date, has come from the state or local government. Since many of these companies doing M&A are already highly indebted, it's hard to see how they would secure this financing on a purely commercial basis. There are some real eyebrow-raisers: it finally looks like ChemChina will purchase Sygenta, the Swiss agricultural giant, even though it's debt is 9.5x annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. A further symptom is that many deals have gone wrong: nearly one quarter of all outward Chinese deals has hit problems -whether due to lengthy delays, cost overruns or failure. The Chinese government isn't saying no to foreign acquisitions - indeed in principle it's very supportive of them as a means to create global champions and access valuable know-how and technology (of course this says nothing about the subsequent ability of Chinese companies to manage large, innovative and specialised assets like a football club). However it is saying no to Lander-type deals: note Lander proposed to fund our acquisition with 70% debt, it is closely associated with the Zhejiang provincial government and it attempted to do so through a shell company -rather than the parent company which is closer to revenues and so can provide guarantees for any loans. This begs the question why Lander structured the deal in this way -and whether it has the commercial clout to structure it in a way that doesn't set off as many regulatory alarm bells. So yes it does invite healthy scepticism.

So what's your interpretation of events?

Can imagine our Les getting very excited about all that.

Still hasn't won anything, has he pal.

Exactly. Imagine converting the bet into an accy -and doing it twice in a row. The payout ratio would be even more of a stitch-up.

The point isnt about the inherent difficulty of predicting multiple events - in theory you could be adequately rewarded for that additional risk. The point is that by compounding the house edge, the payout ratio of an accy comes nowhere near reflecting that difficulty. A single with odds 50/1 will always give you much better value than an accy with odds of 50/1, unless there's phenomenal mispricing going on.

The problem with accumulators isn't the fact they're riskier -in principle you're rewarded for that risk. It's that they compound the house edge -or the theoretical profit bookies will make at your expense. Take a coin toss: the probability you'll guess correctly is 0.5. A bookie should give you even odds (£2 for £1 wagered including initial stake). In reality they'll offer odds closer to 4/5 to ensure their profit. That is £1 wagered will return only £1.80 which is a payout ratio of 90% (1.8/2). This is for a single bet - imagine you enter an accy and attempt to guess five coin tosses in a row. The basic multiplication rule that accompanies the independence of events in probability theory compounds the punters disadvantage, eroding the payout percentage. Assuming the same odds of 4/5, for a five-fold accy, the bookies will pay out only 59% (0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9) of what they'd pay out if they were giving you the underlying probability of the events happening. In other words, it's much better to bet big on a single event or find a single event with large odds and minimise the house edge. The house edge pervades everything: for instance, the probability of a football match finishing as a home win, draw or away win is always 1 or 100%; yet the odds are always set to pay out a lot less. For instance, Skybet's payout ratio for the Chelsea-Spurs prematch odds was 96%. As I say it's bad enough for singles; it's much worse for accys - don't let Chris Kamara in Lycra fool you.

Danny Murphy blaming that on Lloris. If that's a GK error, Forster's in the league cup final definitely was. Indeed Forster's was much worse.

You realise the bookies are taking you for a ride. A mathematical piece of advice: do singles, never do accys.

For the womens team?

Only idiots do accys - talk about naive. Biggest scam in the betting industry.

Do you think Koeman would have played Stephens in the league cup semi-final second leg and final?

What's with his latest look (the one shown before the City game) - blacking out his eyes. I had my suspicions before that he's a wrong'un but that confirms it.

£4m wouldn't even get you health insurance.

Shocking news. Used to go my local, a really warm, down-to-earth guy.

Think it underestimates the likely uncertainty that the summer will bring but on the whole a v.decent summary.

Which is consistent with MLG's trashing of the player over the years on here.

Their CBs are pretty handy.

Wonder whether KL is thinking the same thing.