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Aussie
Rules
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Centrebet Capers
CRICKET The second Test gets under way at Edgbaston tonight Australian time and this is shaping as the biggest betting Test we have ever had. The money being bet before a ball has been bowled has been staggering and it has been spread across all three options. We made mention last week of the statistics of the ground which prove that unless weather intervenes a draw is unlikely and also that the team batting first is disadvantaged, with only one winning from the last nine games that saw a result. Several of our English clients have gone for a home win led up by two bets of £3000 at 6.00, and £4000 at 5.50. We have also fielded a bet from an Aussie of $15,000 for England at 5.75 but that was before it was announced that Michael Vaughan was in doubt. On top of the $16,000 we took last week for the draw at 3.25 from an Indian client there has also been bets of $8000 (twice) at 3.25 and $60,000 at 3.20 from another Indian. Then there is the money for Australia which has included $30,000 (1.75), $25,000 (1.72) and a bet of £12,000 at 1.77. Hopefully the game will provide a decent contest for at least a couple of days and maybe we might see our first million dollar test match. Betting will be updated at the end of each major break and the usual exotic bet types will be open throughout. AUSTRALIAN RULES The Western Bulldogs were our tip to win last weekend but instead of recording a big win when the Dogs defeated Brisbane we came out of the game with barely enough to buy a carton of beer to celebrate. The Bulldogs were backed from an isolated 2.60 into 2.30 but they were layable at the last quote for big money. We didn't see any decent bets until $10,000 and $20,000 at 2.30 just before the game started. There had been early support for Brisbane with a bet of $10,000 coming the day they opened at 1.50 and another of $25,000 at 1.65 late on Saturday evening but there certainly wasn't the push that we normally see. Geelong are in a slump at the moment and the Cats were one of three favourties who were beaten for the weekend when going down to Essendon on Friday night. As a 'Friday night favourite', Geelong were pretty easy to sell with the biggest bet being $30,000 at 1.50. Geelong, Port and Melbourne were all vying for flag favourtism at different stages this season have all hit the wall and while Geelong might make the finals, the chances of the other two are diminishing each week. At least in the upcoming round, Port Adelaide have a game that they can win against Carlton but injuries will make it nearly impossible for the other two. That is how punters view it as well, as we took two bets of $10,000 for Port at 1.65 when betting opened while less than $100 has been placed on Geelong (4.50) against St Kilda and Melbourne at 5.25 against Adelaide. The AFL may as well gift wrap the Brownlow Medal in Eagles colours and send it west now as far as we are concerned. Ben Cousins is now 1.55 after another best on ground performance and from experience we know that odds on favourites kill Brownlow Medal betting for the once a year punters. As a result of that, we have taken the unprecedented step of opening up a separate market which is 'Cousins out', which is for the player to have the best finish excluding Cousins. It is quite a popular form of betting on golf so we thought we would try it on the Brownlow Medal and it has already proven a success with nearly $3000 already invested. RUGBY LEAGUE St George Illawarra, Brisbane and North Queensland were the only favourites to win in the NRL last weekend with South Sydney once again providing a shock when they defeated the Bulldogs by 13 points. The Dogs were always going to be in a spot of bother when they lost goal kicker Hazem El Masri for eight weeks but amazingly we still saw plenty of money for them, including two $15,000 bets conceding 14 point-start. Warrington supporters would have enjoyed watching Newcastle thrash Melbourne on Saturday. It was the 'Andrew Johns show' as the champion halfback was in everything. The Storm were heavily backed including win bets of $40,000 and $18,000 at 1.60 as well as three bets of $10,000 conceding 3 ½ point-start. Penrith v New Zealand was one of the most popular Saturday night matches we have had this season. In a high scoring affair Penrith won a controversial match 42-34, landing one winning bet of $35,000 at 2.00. The Warriors also met with plenty of support including three $20,000 wagers at 1.80. The upcoming round is one of the most open for the season and to prove that the price for all seven favourites to win is currently sitting on 37.00. A case can be put up for all sides competing and top four and top eight finishers will become a lot clearer on Sunday night. The Dragons are on fire and punters think they can venture north and beat the Cowboys on Friday night. We have posted both sides at 1.90 but of the first $25,000 bet on the game only $3000 went under the Cowboys column. We didn't envisage too many wanting to be on the Bulldogs against Newcastle but the first two decent bets for the week both of $10,000 were for the Bulldogs conceding 7 ½ point-start. RUGBY UNION South African fly-half Andre Pretorius is not the most popular player around these parts. His field goal in the dying minutes of the Tri-Nations opener securing a 22-16 victory for the Springboks against Australia was very expensive for the company. The early action was fairly balanced in that the penciller was writing the same amount of tickets for the visitors as the home side. This trend changed significantly on game day as we started to write the big bets on the Boks. The handicap shifted out to -3 ½ and with some late team changes eventually out to -4 ½. An interesting betting affair faces the punters and bookmakers alike on Saturday evening. Nominally, the best team in the world plays one of the better outfits to come out of South Africa in recent memory. The opening quote had the All Blacks as -6 ½ point favourites. Within minutes we wrote one bet of $20,000 on New Zealand another of $6,000 and some smatterings about $1,000 all on the handicap at 1.90 giving 6 ½ points. Shifting to 7 ½ we saw an about face with genuine support for the South Africa at both the win price and handicap. On an early hold in excess of $50,000 the betting has now settled with New Zealand 1.45 and -6 ½, while the home nation are 2.70 +6 ½. GOLF Vijay Singh made it consecutive Buick Open titles with a four shot victory over world number one Tiger Woods. He took a five shot lead over Zach Johnson and eight over Woods into the final round and although he closed with an average two under par 70 he still had plenty of room for error. Punters were aware of Singh's form at Warwick Hills as he was clearly the best backed in the tournament including one wager to win $150,000 from a Sydney client at 8.00. When you consider that Woods was also well tried at 3.25 including two separate $5,000 wagers, we had little to cheer about from the second round onwards. Also well supported were Jim Furyk at 11.00 and Chris DMarco at 26.00 with both having opportunities to play a hand in the finish. On the European tour Australian Mark Hensby defeated local favourite Henrik Stenson in a play-off to capture his first European title. The win was no surprise for form followers and he was well in commission at 14.00 behind fellow Australian Adam Scott who was defending champion and 7.00 favourite. Others well supported included David Lynn and Stenson at 41.00 and 17.00 respectively, highlighting the great form punters are in at the moment. This week we head to Castle Pines for The International, a modified stableford event. Results from previous years suggest the bigger hitters are beast suited to an event of this kind. The defending champion is Australian Rod Pampling at 67.00 with Phil Mickelson favourite at 9.00 from Retief Goosen (11.00), Sergio Garcia (14.00) and David Toms (19.00). Goosen and Garcia have been backed to win in excess of $100,000 along with Australian Robert Allenby and Geoff Ogilvy both big hitters at 41.00. FORMULA ONE Kimi Raikkonen has kept alive his faint hopes of winning this year’s Formula One Drivers Championship after winning the Hungarian Grand Prix at the weekend. The win, Raikkonen's fourth of the year has got the ‘Flying Finn’ within 26 points of leader Fernando Alonso who failed to get a point. Alonso has drifted to 1.20 to win the title with Raikkonen back into 4.00. Raikkonen started favourite at 2.65 in Hungary and just after we thought that punters would not want to get involved betting on F1's after what happened in the USA each race since has been bigger than the previous. Raikkonen had two bets of €4000 placed on him but he wasn't a bad result thanks to heavy pre qualifying support for Juan Pablo Montoya and demand for Michael Schumacher after he started from pole position. Montoya had bets of $4000 and €1500 to win at 3.50 and a wager of £4000 for a top three finish at 1.55. Unfortunately for that particular punter Montoya retired on lap 41 with a broken driveshaft. Having Schumacher back on pole inspired plenty of betting for the popular German with close to $20,000 in bets coming for him to win at 4.00. The Ferrari however was no match for the McLaren again with Raikkonen going on to win by 35 seconds. MOTOR BIKES Valentino Rossi had punters cheering again when he won an action packed German MotoGP on Sunday. The race was shortened by five laps after John Hopkins crashed but it was only on the last lap that Rossi hit the front when leader Sete Gibernau made an error which allowed Rossi to rail through and go on to his eighth victory of the season. Rossi went into the race as favourite at 1.60 and the normal band of 'Rossi followers' helped themselves to that price. We couldn't find any interest in any of the other riders even though Rossi didn't qualify quickest. That honour went to Nicky Hayden but the 7.50 for Hayden to win wasn't really popular although we did take one bet of $4000 for him to finish on the podium at 1.85. Gibernau (5.00) was going to be a big result for us but once again he turned victory into defeat when all was going well. Rossi has the riders title all wrapped up but there will still be some interest in the remaining races as he likes to win and punters know that. BIG BROTHER As much as Big Brother has tried to level up the playing field it now looks pretty certain that a male, in all likelihood Tim, will win Big Brother. Kate, who was favourite four weeks ago was turfed out last Sunday night after a pretty concerted effort from the gay community to get rid of her. This week Melanie and Vesna are up for eviction along with Greg. He looks safe as we have hardly taken a bet for him at 11.00 while there has been close to $6000 for Melanie at 1.14 and nearly $800 for Vesna at 6.50. The housemates have been keen to get rid of Vesna every week but the public must like her as she is still there. Tim is now into $1.72 to win the major prize and seeing that he is at least already through to the final that may be good odds. This week there has been three bets totalling $4000 for Tim but nearly $2000 has come for Vesna at $2.50. Tim's price touched $34 after the second week of the show and it just goes to prove how much it can change as Vesna also blew out to $151 at one stage. Logan or Greg has always been well in the betting at around the 5.00 mark but surprisingly is at an unwanted 6.00 now even though there are only four left. ELECTIONS Things are beginning to happen on the New Zealand election and the promises that Prime Minister Helen Clark made to the nation last week had an immediate affect on the betting. After taking close to $15,000 when betting opened for the Don Brash led Nationals at 1.90 and 1.85 the money came the other way including three separate $5000 bets for Helen Clark at 1.85 and another $7500 at 1.80. Temporarily, Clark is into 1.65 with another $6000 in bets coming at that price and Don Brash is out to 2.10. Labor hold all State and Territory electorates in Australia but the NSW Labor Party have been under some intense pressure for nearly 12 months as a result of health, road and tax issues. Maybe Bob Carr saw the writing on the wall although we did take close to $3000 for Labor to remain in power. Last time they went to the polls Carr was 1.02 and John Brogden at 10.00 but with some obvious problems internally as a result of Carr's resignation Brogden looks certain to go into the 2007 contest as favourite. Until next week, good punting For
further information contact Gerard Daffy at Centrebet on 02 9206 8715 or
centrebet@centrebet.com
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