This year’s Caribbean Series marks the 64th edition of the tournament. It’s the sports’ most vying professional competition with six teams from six different countries battling it out for the title in the fields of the Dominican Republic. The reigning champions are not there to defend their crown, and that causes a major upset in the odds offered by the best online bookies.

The league comprises the 9 South American nations that have a professional baseball league. In essence, the only country missing is the United States of America. In this tournament, however, the 3 professional leagues from Cuba (ranked as second right after the Americans) were also absent.  Let’s take a look at what the rest of them did.

The contenders

Mexico was able to grab a spot in the semifinals after a 1 – 0 victory over Panama on Tuesday. Together with the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and Colombia, they form the quartet of the semi-finals. The 2 teams that were eliminated were Puerto Rico and Panama.

The host country, the Dominican Republic, throughout the preliminary round won four out of five matches. Colombia did just as well by winning three of their matches. Thus, the records say in reference to wins and losses:

• Dominican Republic: 4-1
• Colombia: 3-2
• Venezuela: 3-2
• Mexico: 3-2

What we see is three equal teams trying to snatch a title from a very strong home team. Considering that the qualification for the semi-finals was based on aggregates, what we have here is a very tightly contested confrontation, where the winner is really difficult to predict. The hardship is clearly depicted in the odds offered, which translates to a substantial set of money in the pocket for those who make the decision to open a betting account without restrictions now.