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Aussie
Rules
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Centrebet Capers
[Cricket | CRICKET] The VB One Day Triangular Series gets under way in Sydney on Friday, and as far as our Indian punters are concerned, the series is as good as over. The $1.25 for Australia to win the series has been taken with bets of $30,000 and $25,000, both from the Subcontinent, while we've seen less than $200 placed in total on both Sri Lanka and England at $7. It has been a similar scenario in Friday's match. Several small bets have gone on England at $3.85, but big bets of $USD 10,000 ($1.30), $USD 15,000 ($1.28) and $USD12,000 ($1.25) have been placed on Australia. They will probably get the money, but from a bookmakers point of view, you only need one little window of opportunity in one day cricket to bet your way out of a situation, so hopefully the Poms can put up some kind of a showing. Ricky Ponting ($5) and Matthew Hayden ($5) have been backed to the exclusion of all others to top the series (excluding finals) batting aggregates, while Shane Warne ($3.50) and Jason Gillespie ($8) are our two worst results to take the most wickets. The first Test between New Zealand and India starts in Wellington today (Thursday), and there has been an incredible amount of interest. Wellington is a place where the weather can turn ugly very quickly, and our Indian clients always jump into the draw there. The $2.15 was taken with two bets totaling $36,000, but we have also taken a $6,000 bet from New Zealand for the Kiwis at $2.75. The match will be telecast "live" into Australia and that has created interest with most Australians taking the $4.25 for India to win. The fourth Ashes Test is still a couple of weeks away, but we have already taken a $14,000 bet for Australia to win again at $1.28. Pakistan are currently touring South Africa, and with the World Cup looming, both will be out to impress. We are covering the One Day matches, and in tomorrow's (Friday) match, we have already seen $18,000 worth of bets arrive for the home side at $1.50 even though Pakistan beat them easily in the second match. [American Football | AMERICAN FOOTBALL] The results of last weekend's NFL could have gone either way for bookies with eight of the 16 favourites covering the spread, but we had our best week of the year courtesy of the losses by Indianapolis and Pittsburgh. The Steelers were humbled 24-6 at home by Houston. Houston were huge 13 point underdogs, and in amongst the many bets on Pittsburgh conceding the start was a bet of $18,000 ($1.90) from a new client in Mexico. Indianapolis carried a similar amount of support when they were beaten 27-17 by Tennessee. Most of the money for the Colts came from Australians, including two $10,000 bets to win straight up at $1.95. It wasn't all a bed of roses however as Kansas landed a $14,000 winning bet (from Germany) to beat a 4 ½ point handicap against St Louis (they won 49-10), and Oaklands 20 point win over San Diego cost us plenty as there was any amount of money for the Raiders giving up 3 points starts. Things become a bit tricky from here on in as sides are eliminated from the Superbowl Race. This is the time of the year when the "lines" can fluctuate wildly, and we have already seen a couple of early moves on this weeks matches. Jacksonville need to beat Cincinnati to keep alive the faintest glimmer of hope of progressing to the Playoffs, but the early money has been for the Bengals. After opening at $2.35, Cincinnati are now into $2.20 to win, and three bets, all from Australia, and totaling $16,000, have gone on the Bengals with 3 points start. Tampa Bay are away to Detroit, and there is an early wager of $9,000 on them conceding 8 ½ points start, while two bets totaling $17,000 both from Canada, have been placed on Denver to beat a 3½ point handicap against Kansas. The Superbowl betting shuffles around each week, but we currently have Oakland favourites at $6 ahead of Tampa Bay ($6.50) and Green Bay ($7). All three are good winners, but Tennessee, who were backed to win over $100,000 a month ago, have crept back into calculations at $14 following their win over Indianapolis. [Basketball | BASKETBALL] We have displaced the Lakers as favourites to win the NBA title, turning them out to $3.75, but it still isn't a price that is impressing punters. Sacramento are the new fav's at $3.30, with Dallas into $4.50. The Lakers and Dallas played out an incredible game last Friday which saw us come out on the wrong side of the ledger. The Lakers were at home, but were slight outsiders to win the match at $1.95. We have often said that it doesn't matter how the Lakers are playing, they are always a shocking result for us when they win, and this game was no different. When Dallas came out of the last major break 27 points in front, nobody could blame us for thinking we "had the cash". But in an amazing final period, the Lakers scored 44 points to 15, to win 105-103. Closer to home and it was an interesting weekend of NBL Basketball that had a funny side to it when Victoria hosted Perth on Saturday night. Somebody broke in and stole some of the Giants players gear, which resulted in the match being delayed by 30 minutes. The game had to start so we had a comical situation where the Giants bench sat there in their "jocks" while a seamstress quickly assembled some new shorts! Things didn't get much better as they were "hammered" 133-102 by Perth. Punters predicted a bad night for Victoria as we took bets of $8,000, $5,500 and $3,000 for Perth to beat the handicap of 8 points. Adelaide continued on the road to recovery when they put paid to Canberra 114-109 in what turned out to be a good betting duel. While there was one losing $10,000 bet on Canberra at $1.40, we lost on the game as several of our regular NBL clients took the 5 point start given to Adelaide. Last night (Wednesday), we had another of those strange situations where somebody in Norway had a different opinion to us on the Adelaide v Melbourne game, and shared his opinion around! We posted Adelaide as -6 point favourites, and the first bet was 15,000 NOK ($AUD 3,750) which was followed up by dozens of bets also from Norway. Then Australian punters joined in, and we soon found ourselves "standing" Adelaide for a very healthy five figure amount. While Adelaide won an exciting match 107-106, it wasn’t enough for our Nordic friends. "Gun" import Kevin Freeman had to withdraw from the Bullets side on Tuesday night and, and they were thumped by 17 points by Townsville. With the status of Freeman still unknown, the Brisbane v Victoria game will not open until Friday. The rumour mill is Freeman wont play, but that is an old ruse we've seen before. West Sydney have a North Queensland double, and go into Friday night's game against Cairns as $1.80 favourites. Early bets of $2,000 and $1,700 for Cairns ($2) indicate punters think West Sydney will struggle. Townsville's match on Saturday will be available on Saturday morning, but even the most ardent Croc's fans must be sick of them by now. [Boxing | BOXING] Chris Byrd and Evander Holyfield will slug it out for the vacant IBF Heavyweight Title in Atlantic City on Saturday night. There is some talk that if Holyfield, a $2.70 chance, loses, then he will call it a day. We have seen money for Holyfield to win, and also a $2,100 bet for him to win by decision at $4.25. Byrd deserves favouritism if not for the fact that Lennox Lewis vacated the IBF Title rather than face him, and in 35 pro bouts, has recorded 20 wins by KO with 2 draws. We have taken two bets of $2,000 at $1.40, but as Byrd is managed by Don King, we have seen the standard amount of bets for a "draw" at $18. Lots of cynical people out there! [Politics | POLITICS] It may be just less than a year away, but we are now taking bets on whether or not Sweden will go to the Euro. That referendum is set down for next September, but we have already taken 10,000 SEK ($AUD 2,000) worth of bets. Those types of "events" are normally close, but with most of Sweden's political parties favouring the Euro, we decided to price the "Yes" vote at $1.40, with "No" at $2.70. The "Yes" has firmed marginally into $1.35 as the major proportion of bets has been for "Yes". [Golf | GOLF] A bit of poetic justice was delivered in Melbourne on Sunday when Peter Lonard came from five shots behind to win the Australian Masters. Lonard was five back the previous week at Coolum before controversially sharing the spoils with Jarrod Moseley on a second playoff hold when bad light stopped play. Lonard's win last weekend has therefore handed him a start in next years U.S. Masters at Augusta, shooting his world ranking from 54 to 44 and providing a a fitting end to an exceptionally good year for Lonard. He was one of the leading contenders in betting at $11, but failed to draw any really large bets before the event apart from $500 each way and $500 to win at $11. A bet of $1,000 was placed on the New South Welshman at $11 after the second round but we only took two bets st $23 prior to the last round. It was a very strange weekend of golf as players climbed, then plunged up and down the leaderboard. This helped the betting, and prior to the last round, $6,000 (in two bets) was placed on leader Adam Scott at $2.40, $4,500 went on Robert Allenby at $3.65, and $2,800 was placed on Craig Parry at $7. Runner-up Gavin Coles would have been a much better result for us, but we still consider ourselves very fortunate that Lonard didn't win outright the previous week, so it all averages out. There isn't too much in the way of excitement coming up this week in golf as the World Cup of Golf will be decided in Mexico. Comparing the World Cup of other sports and this "World Cup" is almost laughable, but it is on, and a few people want to have a bet. The USA pair of Phil Mickelson and David Toms are the favourites at $3, but we have only taken $2,500 worth of bets for them. Argentina and Australia are equal second picks at $8, and the Aussies have a strong pairing of young gun Adam Scott and old head Craig Parry. We have matched these two countries in a Head to Head, and have taken a £2,000 bet for Argentina at $2. Japan (Maruyama/Izawa) have had bets of $6,500 and $4,000 placed on them at $1.80 to beat New Zealand, but all in all, the whole event is very quiet. [Handball | HANDBALL] The European Womens Handball Championships have been extremely busy, and we can report that we hold a lead over punters at the moment as we enter the Finals. The biggest night of betting so far took place on Tuesday of this week, and with two results going our way we came out well ahead. Yugoslavia, a $1.30 chance, were shock 29 - 27 losers to France. Yugoslavia were the best backed side of the day, including a 150,000 NOK ($AUD 30,000) double with Denmark, who did beat Romania. Germany's loss (30- 26) to Slovenia also hit punters hard. Germany were $1.45, and whilst they were also well supported through multiples, we also took four separate bets of EUR2,500, all from Australia, for Germany to win. As for the Title betting, well our worst two results, Norway and Denmark, now head the betting at $2.75 and $3 respectively. Denmark have been backed to take out one million DKK ($AUD 200,000) by Danish punters, and in their current form look very hard to beat, but there do appear to be four realistic chances. [Horse Racing | HORSE RACING] Centrebet will cover the four major races from Hong Kong on Sunday and naturally the focus from an Australian point of view is whether or not Queensland sprinter Falvelon can win the 1000 metre sprint for the third year in a row. Falvelon, $4 equal favourite with Japanese horse Believe, showed he was at his best during the Melbourne Cup campaign, but this is a "hot" field. "All Too Thrills" ($5.50) was very unlucky in last years race and looks the one to beat, but the other Australian horse, Mistegic, is available at big odds ($13) with some bookies around the world, which appears well over the odds as there is not a lot between he and Falvelon. The Cup, run over 2,000 metres, also will hold a lot of interest for Australian punters as the favourite, Grandera ($1.80), was a close up third in the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley. His main danger appears to be Sarafan ($4.50), but Grandera does loom as the likely winner. [Squash | SQUASH] Belgium are currently betting on the World Squash Championships, and as far as we know, we are the only organisation in the world covering the title. There haven't been too many surprises, and it looks as though the two that we had at the head of proceedings when betting opened, will play off in the Final. Defending champion, and world number one, Englishman Peter Nicol was our opening equal favourite at $2.75 with Canadian Jonathon Power, but we did see good support for Power, including two bets of $1,000 from Canada. Power has had the better of Nicol recently, having won three of their five encounters this year, but it seems as though there is little between them. [Yachting | YACHTING] The Semi Finals of the Louis Vuitton Cup are currently in progress, with the eventual winner earning the right to challenge New Zealand for the America's Cup. We have bet on these events before, so we know how popular they are, but the betting this time has gone to a new level thanks to some short-sightedness. We have been inundated with bets from New Zealand, and this is only going to get bigger when the final is decided, and while of course that is good for our business, Kiwi punters have been forced to bet offshore as the New Zealand sports betting agency aren't allowed to bet on an event unless is it ratified by the sport, and all relevant parties. Apparently this didn't happen, so while the whole country is embroiled in America's Cup fever, if they want to have a bet, they have to contact Centrebet. Beauacracy at its best!! Anyway, the Swiss entrant Alinghi is now a $1.40 to meet New Zealand in the final, with Oracle at $3, and Alinghi has been backed to win bundles from Scandinavian clients to win the America's Cup. Alinghi is now $2.75, with the last significant bet being EUR2,500 at $3.25 from Sweeden. New Zealand remain favourites at $1.50, and we are expecting a deluge of money for them when the final begins. [Soccer | SOCCER] Its only a month ago that many critics, including some bookmakers, wrote off Manchester United's chances of winning the English Premier League, but lo and behold now they are right back in calculations at $2.65 behind Arsenal ($1.85), and following their 2-0 win over Arsenal last Saturday, there is no reason why they can't win again. Everybody was looking forward to this match, and it turned out to be the biggest betting game of the season so far. Such was the level of interest that we took a bet of EUR15,000 at $2.85 for Arsenal, but we went $2.90 looking for more money. There was also a bet of $15,000 from Singapore that the goal total would be over 2 ½ goals, as well as a $14,000 bet for a Draw at $3.40, and the final result, 2-0 in favour of Man United, would normally have been a poor result, but on this occasion we managed to record a slight victory over punters! A few of our Asian clients joined in late on other matches and paid the penalty. A $30,000 bet was placed on Liverpool ($1.90) who were beaten 2-0 by Charlton, and a $21,000 bet was placed on Middlesbrough ($1.67) who were held to a 2-2 draw by West Ham. While they may have missed out in England, the Asian money was right on target in Italy. Bets of $20,000 and $12,000 were placed on AC Milan ($1.90) who had a 1-0 victory over Roma, and Udinese, 2-1 winners over Empoli, landed winning bets of $20,000 ($2) and $17,500 at $1.90. AC Milan have been the first side backed in Italy this week. An Italian has placed $7,800 at $1.70 for AC Milan to beat Como, and we have also taken $10,000 bets for both Inter and Roma to win. Inter are $1.36 to beat Atalanta, and Roma are $1.40 to beat Reggina. Both have been "anchored" in multiples, as well as in a $6,000 double for both to win, which came from Finnish client. In England, Arsenal face a test "away" to Tottenham, and are the side we are prepared to risk for this round. We have already taken some large bets for Arsenal at $2.10, including a EUR10,000 wager from Germany. Most other favourites have been very easy to sell, but one English client has steered away from the shorties placing £1,000 bet on Draws in four games, Everton v Blackburn ($3.30), Fulham v Birmingham ($3.35), Southampton v Newcastle ($3.30) and Bolton v Leeds ($3.30). Finally, some good news for British clients. Centrebet now has the facilities to accept Switch and Delta cards, so that is a big leap forward for us. 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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