Italy beat Turkey 3–1, the third favourite in a row holds, and the book is back to level. Today we lay Spain in Split at 1.31: €310 at risk to win €980, break-even 24.0%.

Italy did what the price said they would. Gianluca Scamacca scored after twenty-six minutes, Aral Şimşir equalised for Turkey just past the hour, and for three minutes the position was paid. Riccardo Calafiori restored the lead on sixty-four and Francesco Pio Esposito added a third with three minutes left. Italy 3, Turkey 1: the lay lost €440. Five positions: two wins, three losses, minus €20 on €2,970 of risk. Three favourites have held in a row — England, Portugal, Italy — and the book has given back the whole of its opening cushion. That is the honest state of it, and it is roughly where a book with no measured edge should expect to sit after five matches.

Today the position is a lay of Spain at 1.31: €310 at risk to win €980. This is the shortest price the book has taken and the most lopsided shape — a win pays more than three times what a loss costs — so break-even falls to 24.0%. Spain have won all three: 3–2 in England, 4–1 against Croatia, 3–1 against the Czech Republic with nine changes. Croatia beat the Czechs, then conceded eleven goals in two matches against Spain and England. Strip the margin off the back column — 11 Croatia, 6.4 the draw, 1.3 Spain, an overround of 101.6% — and the fair line reads 8.9% / 15.4% / 75.7%. The two results that pay us add to 24.3%. We need 24.0%. Three tenths of a point in our favour, about €4 of positive expectation on the position — the first time in this book the number has come out the right side of zero.

It is a thin margin and it should be read as one. Three tenths of a point is inside the noise of any estimate, and Spain have earned their price: unbeaten in sixteen Nations League matches, a rotated side still winning by two. Croatia have no fresh injuries but five players one booking from suspension, and they arrive from a 7–0. What the position offers is the shape — €310 at risk against €980 — and a market that, for once, is asking slightly too much of the favourite rather than slightly too little. Three losses in a row do not change the stake. The ledger takes tonight as it comes.