Chapter 751 The First Game
In August, early autumn, the two-month polo competition officially began in the Free Trade Zone.
In order to ensure fairness and justice in the competition, the three parties jointly made the following regulations:
Each team can select fifteen players, and the starting lineup cannot be changed.
Only the top three teams have the right to re-select teammates.
Subsequently, nine polo teams made their debut one after another.
It is unknown how Dali and Xianbei organized and assigned their teams. Anyway, on the Pingzhou side, there was a third team composed of the Jintai Army Team, the Sun Family Army Team, and the military kings of other military regions in Pingzhou.
Everyone could see that nearly all the young generals and officers from the Dali, Xianbei, and Pingzhou armies were on the polo teams. Furthermore, the players on the polo teams were all tall and strong, and all were considered elite soldiers.
Before the polo match started, the Qingyanxu Sanzhou Free Trade Zone was already crowded with people and very lively.
People from the Royal Business Group also came. Liao Xuewang, Qiao Xitong, Hu Jiangyi and others came with their capable subordinates.
In fact, it’s not just them who have come.
The lives of the common people and herdsmen in Dali and Xianbei were much harder than those of the people in Pingzhou. Hearing that it was easy to find work in the Three States Free Trade Zone, many young and strong men and women came here.
This is quite normal, as almost all the hot money is flowing into the Tri-State Free Trade Area. If you want to make money, you have to go there.
The Three-State Free Trade Zone was intentionally or unintentionally built into a siphon point, and countless people flocked here.
Where there is a polo match, there are naturally people who gamble. In the free trade zone, after the nine polo teams made their debut, various odds appeared.
It is crucial which two teams start the first game in a polo match.
After negotiations among the three parties, Dali, Pingzhou and Xianbei each sent a team, and the results of the draw determined which two teams would open the game.
The result of the draw was that the Jintai army of Pingzhou would fight against the army led by Xianbei Tuoba Yu.
The first game was packed with seats, and the ticket sales alone made the Tri-State Free Trade Area a lucrative business.
Guo Wanli spent a lot of money to buy a seat with the best view.
As soon as he sat down, his friends asked him, "Have you placed your bets?"
"I placed a bet. This was only the first game after all, so I didn't dare to buy too much."
"If you don't buy it, someone else will. As far as I know, someone has made a large bet that Tuoba Yu's Xianbei team will win."
Upon hearing this, Guo Wanli nodded.
"By the way, which team are you betting on to win?"
Guo Wanli didn't reply, but an acquaintance beside him interrupted, "Isn't this nonsense? We must buy a team of Xianbei!"
"The Xianbei Tatars all grew up on horseback and are skilled in horsemanship, so their chances of winning are indeed high."
"But Pingzhou's cavalry is not weak either. Otherwise, how could they have defeated the Xianbei army time and time again?"
"Haha. I admit that Pingzhou's weapons are powerful, but if you insist that Pingzhou's cavalry is more powerful than the Xianbei army, that's a bit far-fetched."
The odds reflect the probability of the two teams winning or losing. The odds for betting on the Xianbei team are low because everyone is betting on it to win. The odds for betting on the Jintai Army team are high because everyone thinks it will lose.
"As a Han Chinese, I really hope the Jintai military team wins, but we also have to be realistic, right? After all, we're betting real money."
"But I'm a little worried. Is there someone cheating here? For example, someone who could win would deliberately lose the game just to bet on the handicap?"
Guo Wanli subconsciously retorted, "Impossible! There are many stakes in every game. The whole team will definitely give their all in the game. There is no chance of showing weakness." Whether it is Dali, Xianbei or Pingzhou, the relationship between the three parties is not close, so there is no need to play a friendly match.
Outside the polo field, the team led by Wu Ren, Ji Wuyin and Gu Huaisheng were arranging people to place bets continuously after making calculations.
Soon, the first polo match began.
At the same time, this game also refreshed the audience's understanding of polo matches.
The audience went from being furious at first to being stunned and expressionless at the end.
This polo match was very different from any they had seen before. The idea of friendship first and competition second, or of the enemy and the enemy playing mediocrely, didn't exist.
In today's competition, everyone is just about to draw their knives like on a battlefield.
In fact, it is not the fault of the Jintai military team. It was the Xianbei who first lacked martial ethics.
The Xianbei team was the first to use despicable means, sometimes even resorting to the principle of Tian Ji's horse racing, making both their own team and the enemy team commit fouls at the same time to eliminate the opponent.
In the first half, Chen Jinlong, who was weaker in skills, was eliminated by the opponent, and the Xianbei team led by Tuoba Jin took the lead.
At the beginning of the second half, Qin Sheng organized the serve. With just one look from him, the tacit understanding cultivated over the years in the army made all the players excited.
When they came on in the second half, the Xianbei players looked at them with provocative eyes.
The players of Jintai Army looked at them mercilessly. Okay, okay, this is how you want to play, right?
So in the second half, both sides went back and forth.
These players are all skilled in martial arts and will not commit fouls unless necessary. Apart from not fighting on the spot, the polo match was as intense as a battlefield.
The audience felt as if they were watching a close-up fight, and found it exciting and thrilling. Everyone watched intently, feeling that their tickets were worth it.
People can't go to the battlefield, but they can come to watch polo matches, same thing.
The result of the game was unexpected. In the end, the Jintai Army team won the first game with one more point than the Xianbei team and took away the corresponding reward.
In the Xianbei team, several people were carried or supported off the field.
Some people are very cruel.
Because the first game was so exciting, the tickets for the following games were sold out immediately.
Meanwhile, in the main city of Qingzhou District, the team led by Wu Ren, Ji Wuyin, and Gu Huaisheng were also calculating their profits. In fact, it wasn't just them. The Huangshang Group, Wang Yun, and others—it could be said that countless people were claiming their prizes.
Wu Ren smiled and said, "These odds were initially set when the nine teams debuted. I believe the odds will definitely change later."
"That's right."
I believe that after a few games like this, different payout ratios will emerge between teams and between different games.
The odds for today's first game are as follows:
First Game:
If you bet on the Xianbei team to win, and you guess right, you will get three times the payout.
If you bet on the Jintai Army team to win, you will get 5 to 1.
If the two teams tie, the odds are still 3 to 1.
They had bought all the handicap options beforehand, so that even if the Xianbei team really won or the two teams tied, they would only break even.
But if the Jintai Army team is really a dark horse and beats the Xianbei, then they will make money.
Of course, there's no such thing as a guaranteed win in the current market. So, faced with a variety of odds, they followed the governor's instructions and arranged their positions accordingly, based on the payout ratios offered by different audiences for different matches. This was to achieve a worst-case scenario where they wouldn't lose too much.
Unlike other teams that seek maximum profit.
In the words of the governor, their strategy of sacrificing maximum profit and multiplying the amount by hundreds of thousands, millions, or even tens of millions on the basis of steady progress is called hedging.
The safety of the principal is very important. Only after ensuring the safety of the principal can you make money.
This is the governor's request and also the purpose they uphold in participating in this event.
Qingzhou District has the best infrastructure and can accommodate the largest number of people.
The two-month polo tournament was enough to make Pingzhou rich in terms of food, clothing, housing, transportation, and entertainment, so they didn't have to rack their brains to gamble on the game.
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