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Aussie
Rules
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Centrebet
Capers
Among the mess that has surrounded the Canterbury Bulldogs' scandal it's good to see some punters didn't miss the opportunity to try and make some easy money. When news first broke of the Bulldogs seriously breached the NRL salary cap, all the talk was of the strong possibility that they would be "stripped" of their points. That was all the info some punters needed as we took dozens of telephone calls from people trying to get a price for the Bulldogs to win the wooden spoon. You have got to hand it to some people, they still think we don't get any news here in Alice Springs! It's looking worse and worse for the Bulldogs as ever day passes and fresh reports that they attempted to cover up even more rorting by falsifying documents given to the NRL has surely cost them any public sympathy. This week, we quite obviously can't talk about the movers and betting activity on the premiership, final 8 or wooden spoon, and who knows when betting will resume. At the moment, we won't be covering this week's match between the Bulldogs and Canberra until there is something definite in place regarding the status of the Bulldogs. It will be ironic if they are stripped of their points for winning matches this year as we have done a small fortune on Bulldogs' matches this season, including last weeks 28-10 win over Parramatta. All the big money was on the Bulldogs, including bets of $30,000 ($1.90) and $18,000, both conceding 7½ points start. That match got the weekend under way on a positive note for favourite backers, and when the dust had settled at the end of the round, punters had us down for the count when all seven favourites won, and covered the handicap start. A big bet was landed on Sunday when a Sydney punter placed $50,000 on Cronulla to beat Wests Tigers by more than 12½ points at $1.90. We took an early $10,000 bet for the Tigers, but that was the extent of any decent interest in the Tigers. On the day of the match, we also took bets of $7500 and $4000 for Cronulla when the "line" had moved to -14½, and while we got a sight early when the Tigers led 12-6, Cronulla proved too strong, winning 34-18. The Roosters landed a $25,000 winning bet ($1.90) when impressive 38-12 winners over Canberra on Saturday night. We thought the Raiders could win at home, but it was clear early that the Roosters had "come to play". The game of the round was New Zealand at home to Brisbane, and while the Warriors went into this one as slight favourites at $1.80, we did win on the game as the bulk of support was for Brisbane at $2. The final score of 18-4 in favour of New Zealand wasn't really indicative of how dominant they were, and now the experts are beginning to talk of them as serious title hopes. Bets of $16,000 and $10,000 were placed on Brisbane at $2, with the latter bet coming from a Kiwi. The same guy may have missed out there, but he was spot on with a $10,000 bet at $1.85 to say the total game score would be under 48½ points. English Super League matches have started to generate lots of interest as well with Centrebet punters. The two we were heavily involved with last week both went our way. Friday night's game between Bradford and St Helens saw three bets totaling in excess of $17,000 placed on Bradford conceding 4½ points start, only to see St Helens come out and thrash the Bulls 50-22. Another punter from England also placed £4000 on Wigan conceding a massive 18 points start to the London Broncos, but they never even come close in a 19-12 victory. Unfortunately, the events of the past week have detracted from a terrific round coming up in NRL, but life goes on! Newcastle host Brisbane in the match of the round on Friday night. Newcastle are the $2.00 point favourites, which was taken with a $20,000 bet by one of the league's biggest punters. That said though, there has been a stack of interest in Brisbane at $2.10 to win, including a bet of $7000 and three bets of $5000. The Friday night games are normally lower scoring and that is probably why we have taken two $5000 bets ($1.85) for the total score to be under 44½ points. Melbourne get a good chance to try and cement a place in the final 8 when they travel to Leichhardt on Saturday to play the Tigers. The Tigers weren't completely hopeless against Cronulla, and we have seen money for them with the 6½ points start, but one punter has placed $50,000 on Melbourne Conceding the start. Souths have let in over 160 points in their last three matches, but somer think that the Rabbitohs can turn that around this week. Plenty of bets have come for Souths to beat Penrith at $3.25, and a Victorian man has bet $8000 that they will stay with eight points of the Panthers. The Roosters are back in favour with punters following two impressive wins. They opened at $1.90 to beat New Zealand this week, and immediately we took bets totaling in excess of $18,000 to win. The Warriors have delivered us a few favours recently, maybe they will do it again. [Australian Rules | AUSTRALIAN RULES] Carlton gave us a terrific sight before going down by 19 points to the Kangaroos on Saturday. For one fleeting moment the Blues looked likely to score a big upset, and while the Roos had a winning bet of $30,000 placed on them at $1.28, we also took a bet of $20,000, from Sydney, for the Kangaroos at -26½ points, so at least we salvaged something. Brisbane's Jason Akermanis is not the most popular personality around the country, and he certainly wouldn't be too popular with one Victorian punter after kicking a late goal against the West Coast on Saturday night. This particular punter had placed $10,000 on the Eagles at +44½ points start, and for the entire last quarter looked likely to collect until Akermanis slammed one through to take the margin to 47 points. Talk of the "Colliwobbles" is growing week by week, and a 55 point drubbing by Essendon didn't do too much to inspire confidence in the Magpies. Collingwood along with Port Adelaide were the best backed sides of the round, and while punters got it right with Port who defeated Adelaide, it was obvious by the amount of money placed on Collingwood to beat Essendon that anything bar a win would be a big shock. Two bets of $10,000 were placed on Collingwood, and several bets in excess of $5000, and now that Essendon have posted an impressive win, they are back into $9 to win the flag, and again are being mooted as a good chance. Mark Riccuito and Simon Goodwins' confirmed non-appearance for Adelaide ruined what would have been a terrific betting game in the "showdown" against Port on Sunday. Before that happened, it was $1.90 each side, with just on $20,000 already on Port. The naming of the sides saw Ports price cut to $1.65, but even $1.60 was being taken on the day of the game. Adelaide's goal to get the final margin back to 8 points saved us something as it got inside the handicap of 10 points. Sydney were another favourite to win who couldn't cover the spread when they defeated St Kilda by 7 points. The Swans drew one bet of $20,000 to win at $1.45, and when the weather turned nasty in the Harbour City, we decided to take them "on", moving the "line" into -17½ points. One major player on Aussie Rules placed $20,000 on the handicap, and we also managed to get another $11,000 in three bets from Sydney based punters. Actually, with a little bit of luck St Kilda could have won this game, and will definitely be a team we will be keeping on our side when 2003 markets are issued. Geelong, the enigma of the AFL, are rated a $3.60 to spring an upset on Brisbane this week, and we have found several bigger punters prepared to take the $1.28 for Brisbane. Some of the early bets included $15,000, $7000 and $5500, and also nearly $13,000 for the Lions at -25½ points. Geelong have a habit of performing well when they shouldn't, so this would be a good time for the Cats to do that again! Hawthorn were abysmal against Richmond last week, but punters are easy when it comes to forgiveness and the Hawks go in as heavily backed $1.60 favourites against the Kangaroos this week. Much better than that was available at some outlets early in the week, but we even took a bet of $8000 at $1.60 only 24 hours after betting opened, so they will go on record as a big shortener. We rate Port Adelaide as good things against the West Coast, but punters firmly disagree. One of our very good AFL punters with an eye for value placed $8000 on the Eagles at $2.25, and as soon as the handicap of 9½ points was posted, we also laid that to lose $11,000. Port are the only "away" favourite this week, and while the traveling sides haven't fared too well in Perth this year, Melbourne were able to win there two weeks ago. Still nobody wants to take the $3 Port Adelaide to win the flag, quite strange if you rate them to win this week and against Brisbane next week. Brisbane remain $2 favourites with another $2000 double of the Lions and Brisbane Broncos ($6.40) coming in last week. As stated earlier, Essendon are back into $9, with the other mover being Melbourne, now an $18 chance. The Brownlow Medal is becoming so hard that punters are finding it impossible to bet on! Luke Darcy remains favourite at $5, but Port's Josh Francou is now the $6 equal second elect with Ben Cousins. Paul Williams (Sydney) and David Neitz ($31) are also movers in the past fortnight. Both were $101 chances then, but continue to play well. [Rugby Union | RUGBY UNION] The boot was well and truly on the other foot this time when it was the Wallabies who were beaten by the Springboks in the last minute of play. The South Africans showed what they are capable of when they held a commanding 26-9 lead, but Australia snatched a 5 point lead before the South Africans, courtesy of a spectacular try to Werner Greeff, drew level before converting to win 33-31 on fulltime. As indicated last week, we couldn't see any reason why South Africa couldn't win, and put them up at $2.40. It was such a good betting game that even though the Boks landed winning bets of $15,000 and $6000, ($2.40) and two bets from South Africa worth $28,000 on the handicap of +4½ points, we still came out well ahead. The late money was mostly for Australia, with several $10,000 bets going on the Wallabies to win, but the largest losing bet was from an English client, and that was for £10,000 conceding 4½ points start at $1.95. What we have been able to gleam from the Tri-Nations is that next year's World Cup is far from being a "two horse race". Australia are favourites at $2.70 ahead of New Zealand ($2.90) and England ($5), but in the last two weeks we have laid both South Africa and France at $8 to take out close to $40,000. Even Argentina, a $121 chance, have been backed recently to win close to $50,000, so not everybody agrees that the home ground advantage makes the Wallabies unbeatable. [Golf | GOLF] Rich Beem continued the run of first time major winners providing a fairytale finish to this year's US PGA giving bookies around the world a very healthy result. Centrebet had Beem at $161 in our market before the tournament started, and we had only taken one "place" bet of $20 at $41. A South Australian was the only significant winner on Beem when he placed $600 on Rich at $26 after the second round. Beem was lying three shots in arrears of Justin Leonard coming into the last round, but even then we only took a few small bets at $9. Leonard was long odds on at $1.50, but the punters were very wary about taking the short quote, with the only significant bet coming in being a $4000 wager from a Canadian client. Tiger Woods was a different story through, and we posted him at what we deemed a very conservative $3.25 because he was already a shocking result for Centrebet. Plenty thought he could still win however, and we took a host of bets totalling just on $7000, and Tiger nearly pulled off a remarkable effort, going down by just on shot after reeling off four successive birdies after Beem had led him by six shots at one stage. Tigers' fans can have another "go" this week when he defends his NEC Invitational title as a $2.35 favourite. The Invitational field is as good as any major field, and while we have already taken bets of $4000 and $3200, there is plenty of money to suggest somebody else can win. Retief Goosen ($26), Jim Furyk ($34), Justin Leonard ($41) and Nick Price ($41) have all been backed to take out in the vicinity of $25,000, while Rich Beem ($51) has been backed to win just over that amount. Beem intimated he would be partying hard after his PGA win, so we wish those who want to back him this week all the best! We also wonder how much Justin Leonard's confidence would have been shattered by his last round capitulation in the PGA, but a few English punters think that he will defeat David Toms in one of our head to heads this week. We posted both at $1.85, and while we haven't taken a single bet for Toms, nearly $13,000 has been placed on Leonard. Chris Riley's third placing last week was enough to post him at $13 favourite to win this week's Reno-Tahoe Open. Naturally there isn't a lot of interest in this one, but Charles Howell ($15), Cameron Beckman ($51) and Rory Sabbatini ($81) have each been backed to win $10,000 each way by a Queensland client. Aussie Adam Scott is our $12 favourite to win the Scottish PGA Championship, but it is second favourite Gary Evans, who is easily our worst result. Evans opened at $31, but is now into $18 after several Englishmen took the big odds, followed up by an Australian who backed Evans to win $12,500 at $20. Andrew Coltart ($31), Richard Green ($31) and Jean Francis Remesy ($61) have also been supported to win close to $15,000 in individual bets, and we have also found a real parochial Australian punter who took the $126 for veteran Peter Fowler. While on Australians, Karrie Webb is $4.75 to win the "Betsy King" this week, but punters have kept right away from Webb and second pick Se Ri Pak ($6.50), showing a distinct preference for Michele Redman ($31 - $21) and Lorie Kane ($41 - $28). [Boxing | BOXING] Sven Ottke is well known to Australians as having been the only man to beat Anthony Mundine. For that reason alone he is a bit of a hero to some Australians, which is the only explanation why a couple have had a bet on Ottkes IBF SuperMiddleweight title bout against Canadian Joe Gatti in Germany this weekend. The undefeated Ottke has defended his title 15 times against some "dubious" competition, and on face value the same applies to Gatti, who has suffered 7 losses to combatants far less credentialed than Ottke. We haven't posted a win price for Ottke as it would be too prohibitive, but we have been amazed at the level of interest in betting on how the fight will end. An Australian client has placed $4000, and another $1600, that Ottke will win by KO at $1.60, but several German clients have taken $2.25 that Ottke will win by points decision. There has been a sprinkling of money to say that Gatti will win by decision at $21, but on exposed form, that looks unlikely to happen. [Rally | RALLY] World Rally Championship leader Marcus Gronholm is our $2.50 favourite to win this week's Rally of Germany, but punters are betting against the Finn in spite of an impressive victory in Finland early in the month. Sebastien Loeb is the one punters have gone for even though the Citroen driver is yet to win a World Rally Championship event. Currently tenth in the rankings, Loeb is now into $5 after opening at $10. Last year's winner, Frenchman Philippe Bugalski is second favourite at $4 ahead of Richard Burns at $4.50. We have pretty much conceded that Gronholm is going to win the overall championship title, with one Swedish punter likely to win €30,000 after backing Gronholm early in the season. [Politics | POLITICS] The Swedish press have given extensive coverage this week on Centrebet's market on how Goran Persson's Social Democratic Party will perform in next month's Swedish election. We have devised a market on how many seats the SDP will win, with the favourite way being 140-145 seats at $3.25. As yet, nobody has taken the $34 on offer for the SDP to get 175 seats or more, which would allow them to govern with an overall majority. In 1998, Perssons' party won 36.4% of the vote and 131 seats, and the option between 130-134 seats has had backing at $7.50. [Soccer | SOCCER] Things were quiet early in the week before the opening round of English Premier League, and we now wish they had stayed that way after seven favourites won! The payout was bad enough at the end of the round, and we were thanking our "lucky stars" that Blackburn were held to a 0-0 draw by Sunderland. The only money we saw from Asia for the round was a bet of $25,000 for Blackburn at $1.85, and when they firmed into $1.80, another $20,000 bet arrived from Malaysia. Man United were far from impressive in a 1-0 victory over West Bromwich, but the one goal was enough for a Norwegian client who placed NOK 280,000 ($AUD 65,000) on United at $1.22. Liverpool also had some big bets placed on them including £10,000 (England) and €8000 at $2.25 before they also won 1-0 over Aston Villa. With all the main title hopes winning, there has been a good deal of action this week to win the title. A Sydney client has placed $20,000 on Arsenal at $3, we have taken two €500 bets for Leeds at $15, and both Newcastle and Chelsea have been easy to sell at $18. It's unusual to have a Friday fixture in Premier League, but there is one this week, and it should be a beauty. Two of the "pin up" sides of punters, Chelsea and Man United, go into battle, and we have had no trouble laying all three options for big money, although not surprisingly Man United are going to be our worst result. It's quite staggering to see all the bets come through for Man United each week, and while the biggest bet so far in this game is only the equivalent of $7000 at $2.25, they are still a big liability in our book. The value probably lies in the other two options, and a few English clients have had some decent bets on the draw at $3.25, with one also placing €4000 on Chelsea at $2.80. Money has also come from England for Fulham to beat Middlesbrough. Fulham opened at $3.75, and we took dozens of small bets from English clients, and seeing as to how we had such a bad result risking all the favourites last week, there wasn't much point in changing that strategy so Fulham are into $3.60 and Middlesbrough are out to $1.95. Two favourites that we haven't had trouble getting money out of are Leeds and Arsenal. Both are playing away, and both are odds on, and while it's still early in the season, we have to take these sides "on". A client from Austria was one of the first who took the $1.90 we opened with for Leeds to beat West Bromwich. His bet of €9000 was one of several big bets taken before the price was cut to $1.80. As far as Arsenal is concerned, it's just been an avalanche of money that has seen their price trimmed from $1.80 into $1.75, and that seems likely to disappear as well. In Denmark, the battle for supremacy between FCK and Brondby will be decided on Saturday. This is the only Danish Superliga game for the day, so punters have been focusing heavily on this one. FCK, although held to a draw last week, are the favourites at $2.35, with the draw at $3.40 and Brondby at $2.70. In early trading 75% of the bets have been for FCK, so they are likely to firm in the betting as well. As for the rest of the round, Silkeborg have been best backed at $2 to beat Farum. Silkeborg beat Koge 4-0 last week, and although the largest bet has only been 20,000 DKK ($AUD 4000), Silkeborg look as though they will be our worst result in Denmark this week should they win. Until next week, good punting. For further information contact Gerard
Daffy at Centrebet on 08 89555800 or on centrebet@centrebet.com
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