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Aussie
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Centrebet Capers
BASKETBALL We will get an early indicator of life for the Sydney Kings without Jason Smith when they make the short journey south to Wollongong on Saturday night. Knee surgery has again disrupted Smith's career and his rehabilitation will be aimed at a return for the Athens Olympics, which severely harms the Kings' prospects of repeating last season's Championship success. Brad Sheridan will return to the starting five for the Kings, and with the improvement Sheridan has made in the past few seasons, Sydney do not lose a lot there. Where Smith's loss will be most dramatically felt is on their depth. Goorjian will be looking to Graeme Dann to step up and as much promise as the ex AIS scholarship holder has shown there is a huge difference between Sheridan subbing in for Smith and Dann coming in for Sheridan. The wildcard for the Kings in this situation is that they still have an import spot to fill. They have their US scout on alert now looking for a suitable player to fill the void but the task of getting the right player for the right price will not be simple. They hit the jackpot last season in the import lottery when they secured Williams and Franklin but might not be as fortunate this time around. Sydney's depth was a huge factor in them taking the Championship last season and this week they take on the Hawks who have the deepest roster in the NBL this season. In Smith's absence the Hawks opened as a 3 point favourite and if they justify this rating by comfortably getting over the Kings they will be pushing for Championship favouritism. CRICKET The heavens have opened up in Brisbane, which has given the bookies some hope of getting Australia beaten in the first test which begins at the GABBA today (Thurs). As reported last week, all the early money had been for Australia, including bets of $30,000 and $25,000, both from India, at $1.65. At the time we pointed out that there is always the possibility of bad weather this time of the year, but that didn't seem much of a deterrent for punters as the Aussies got as short as $1.55. We took three bets totaling $5500 for India at $11, but tried to keep on the 'safe' side of the draw, but this morning there was money at $2.65, including a bet of $4000. Australia have a history of wrapping up test matches quickly, so there would want to be some huge rain interruptions if we are to get out of this one, but the weather predictions for the next few days look pretty gloomy. A New Zealander thinks that the Aussies will win the series, and with India's 'away' record a dismal six wins from their last 86 tests, he should be proven correct, but he has taken a short price to find out. He has plonked $80,000 on Australia at $1.16, which will win him $12,800. All the talk leading into this series has been centred on Steve Waugh, as it will be his last. We put up a market on how many runs Steve would make during the series, with the magical '515 or more' at $13. That is the number required to surpass Alan Border's total test runs, and while all the facts and figures point towards it being nearly impossible, punters have shown what faith they have in Waugh, and that has easily been the best backed bracket. The 'runs' and 'wickets' total for any series are always extremely popular, and while the Aussie batsmen have been cutting a swathe through cricketing nations around the world, it is India's Sachin Tendulkar who is easily our worst result, with the largest bet being $3000 at $5.25. In the wicket aggregates, punters have got behind the injury prone Jason Gillespie ($4), and Andy Bichel, backed from $11 into $7. The Indian bowlers have been impossible to sell, with only Ajit Agarkar attracting any interest at all. GOLF Last Sunday, Sergio Garcia birdied the first extra hole of a sudden death play-off to defeat local favourite Retief Goosen and capture his second Nedbank Golf Challenge in three years. Garcia rolled in a 20 foot birdie putt for the title after the pair tied at 14 under 274 at the end of 72 holes of regulation play. Only two years ago, Garcia performed a similar feat against local idol Ernie Els, and now has that winning way at Sun City, much to the chagrin of the partisan South African crowd. Punters on the Nedbank Challenge fared little better, as local players Els, Price and Goosen, along with Vijay Singh were backed to the exclusion of all others. Goosen giving his supporters hope as he led by one stroke coming to the 14th, but a bogey at the par five dropped him back to a tie with Garcia, both sharing pars over the next four holes to take the contest to a play-off. Price and Els were never in the hunt and finished at the tail of the field, while Singh, after commencing with a seven under par 65, was always handy without looking the winner. Two further major golfing events take place in the Southern Hemisphere this week with the Australian Mastercard Masters and Hong Kong Open. At Huntingdale, Adam Scott ($8), Geoff Ogilvy ($19) and Peter O’Malley ($19) have all been backed to win $50,000 by a local client, while defending champion Peter Lonard has had his share of admirers with one wager of $1000 each way at $9. Aaron Baddeley ($15), and Nick O’Hern ($26) have also been well supported in what has proven to be a spirited betting event, however Presidents Cup hero Robert Allenby, opening favourite for this event at $7, has been friendless. In Hong Kong, Darren Clarke has been installed favourite at $8, from a string of other internationals including Thomas Bjorn ($10), KJ Choi ($10), Padraig Harrington ($10) and defending champion Fredrick Jacobson at $11. Clarke and Bjorn have been best supported in this event however expect Jacobson, the most improved player on the European Tour this year and Chinese star Zhang Lian-Wei to figure in the finish. Finally in Hawaii, the four major winners of the season do battle at Poipu Golf Club in the PGA Grand Slam of golf. US Open champ Jim Furyk is favourite at $2.50 from Masters winner Mike Weir ($2.90), while first time winners, PGA champion Shaun Micheel and British Open victor Ben Curtis are outsiders at $5.50. This event seldom inspires the imagination of the punting public and this year has proven to be no exception. ENTERTAINMENT Chris de Burgh's daughter is our pick to win Saturday's Miss World beauty pageant in China and punters, it seems, have never had such a feeling, such a feeling of complete and utter love as when they first set eyes on the Irish pop star's favourite lady in red, Rosanna Davidson. Miss Ireland leapfrogged such stunners as Miss Norway, Miss Peru and Miss Venezuela in our betting market when competition officials issued her with an automatic berth in the top 20 following her winning performance in last week's Miss World Beach Beauty contest. Davidson had been solidly backed at $15 in early betting, but now heads the list at $6, and will definitely go in as a well backed favourite. Even though Miss Ireland is just one of five known semi-finalists, she is the one with which punters are infatuated and her price has halved in the past week. Other delegates attracting the attention of punters are Miss Norway, Miss South Africa and Miss Venezuela, while Miss Italy is one of the best backed outsiders. The Norwegians have got right behind their girl, who has come into $10 after being $15 early in the week. The other significant movers have been semi finalists Bolivia ($41-$15) and Georgia, now $21 after being available at $51 last week. ELECTIONS It would seem that we got it wrong with the Federal Election betting after Mark Latham won the Labor leadership battle on Tuesday. We were of the opinion that Latham, who has had a history of upsetting people, wasn't the type of person that would attract support, but all the news polls, and the betting, since Tuesday has Latham a realistic chance of finding himself in 'The Lodge '. One thing worth remembering is that phone in polls are not structured the way electorates are, as in a 'one vote, one value' situation, Labor would always win, so polls that had Latham and John Howard running neck and neck might be distorted. One thing that can’t be argued however is that there has been over $15,000 placed on Labor since Tuesday, forcing us to cut the price from $4 into $3. The next election is still more than likely 12 months away, so it will be interesting to see if Mr. Latham can keep his promise to change his ways for that long. HARNESS RACING Victorian Sokyola won last Friday's Miracle Mile, and in doing so won one Victorian punter $18,000 after he outlayed $1500 on Sokyola early in the week at $13. In complete contrast to the previous week at Harold Park when the track was wet, racing last week was dominated by leaders, and when Sokyola won the early battle for the lead, half the battle had been won. Favourite, The Falcon Strike, was heavily backed, including one bet of $8000 at $2.40, but was never really a winning chance. Baltic Eagle, one of the unlucky runners last week, is our $2.30 favourite to win the Treuer Memorial at Bankstown on Saturday night. There has been a sprinkling of support at that quote, but there is a line of thought that Smooth Satin might get the lead from the three gate, which is why we have seen some support there at $5.50. The Falcon Strike ($5) had a very hard run last week, and it is hard to work out where he will be positioned from barrier ten, but nobody wants to be on him anyway. We have taken close to $1000 each way for Loyal Deputy at $18, with those punters thinking he will get a nice trail behind the leader, but after last weeks Miracle Mile, it is obvious that when the stakes are high, plans don’t always go the way they should. Double Identity was a good run last week, and at $5 is our tip for the race. FOOTBALL Latvia coach Aleksandrs Starkovs had a bad week - UEFA officials drew his European Championship debutants alongside the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Germany in Euro 2004's group of death - but Centrebet punters who bet on the latest batch of Champions League, UEFA Cup and domestic competition fixtures fared much, much worse than the Baltic boss. While it was a Champions League round for Premier League clubs - England is favourite to provide the tournament winners after Chelsea and Manchester United booked their quarter-final berths and Arsenal moved within one step of completing the greatest comeback since Lazarus - our clients burned their fingers on Lazio ($1.55), Monaco ($1.60) and Olympiakos ($2.30). An extraordinary UEFA Cup gamble on Levski ($1.80) went wrong when they did not defeat Czech club Slavia on Bulgarian soil. Not that it mattered to Levski manager Georgi Vassilev, who expressed his delight at his side's qualification for the competition's third round. Other UEFA Cup teams that let down our punters terribly were Crvena Zvedza ($1.90), Manchester City ($2.40) and Wisla ($1.25), with such clubs as Bordeaux ($2.20), Brondby ($2.30) and Liverpool ($1.40) doing their best to replenish their betting accounts but falling a very long way short. Our clients set out on a weekend rescue mission but everything went the shape of one of the world's most common fruits as shock scoreline after shock scoreline filtered through from Europe's top domestic leagues. Chelsea are Premier League title market leaders for the first time in the competition's 11-year history but, even though the Blues are Champions League fourth favourites, punters thought that United ($3) would be more than a match for Claudio Ranieri's side. Frank Lampard's first-half strike lifted Chelsea to the Premier League summit and put the finishing touch to a miserable few days for gamblers on the world's most popular football tournament. Arsenal ($1.36), Everton ($3.10) and Newcastle ($1.83) could not pick up three points against Fulham, Bolton and Wolverhampton. Somewhat surprisingly, though, a large percentage of the betting community predicted that Leeds ($5) would beat Charlton. The misery of our punters was not confined to England. Bayern ($1.18), Bremen ($2.40) and Leverkusen ($1.40) flopped in Germany. Juventus ($1.67), Lazio ($2.35) and Perugia ($1.95) were below par in Italy. And three of Spanish soccer's biggest names - Barcelona ($1.55), Deportivo ($1.45) and Real ($2) - did not set alight the Primera Division. But gamblers should not be too despondent. Next week they have an opportunity to bet on the Premier League banker treble for the 11th time this term. Arsenal travel to Leicester, Chelsea visit Leeds and United host Aston Villa on December 6. And why would you not? The strategy detailed in last week's edition is 24 points in profit. Nothing could be simpler than betting on England's top three. Until next week, good punting. For further information contact Gerard Daffy at Centrebet on 08 89555800 or centrebet@centrebet.com.
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