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Aussie
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Centrebet Capers
AUSTRALIAN RULES The bane of all bookmakers, the AFL's Wizard Cup, gets under way on Friday night. Historically, these games have been a nightmare to price up, and accept bets on, although the tide has turned a little over the past two years as many clubs have shown a firm commitment to the pre-season competition. Who will ever forget the uproar last season when Geelong were backed from $2.50 into $1.60 against Brisbane in Cairns? The Cats came from seven goals down to beat Brisbane, who 'rested' several big name players. That of course is the prerogative of clubs, and in this instance Brisbane coach Leigh Matthews never tried to hide the fact that his side were under prepared. Little has changed in 12 months as Matthews has again given punters a pointer in their clash against Hawthorn in Tasmania on Saturday. Betting on all Wizard Cup games will not be available until the day before each match, but it does look like the Hawks! will now go in as very warm favourites, especially in light of the fact that the winner will probably have to travel to Western Australia the following week, something Brisbane will be loathe to do. On paper, five of the eight games look like the betting will be close together, but that doesn't mean that's how it will end up! Team news is imperative, and if the heat wave that Australia is currently experiencing continues, then changes to sides can be expected. Exotic bet types will be offered on all matches, with betting updated at the breaks. It always pays to follow the money in these matches, and quite often arbitrage opportunities pop up, music to the ears of some punters! As far as the season proper goes, Collingwood were last week coupled up in a massive premiership treble. A New South Wales based punter took Collingwood ($7) into the Auckland Blues to win the Super 12 ($2.25), rounding the bet off with the New Zealand Warriors to win the NRL title. His $5000 outlay is a $500,000 liability should all three salute. On the Brownlow Medal front, Richmond's Mark Coughlin has already been backed to rip in excess of $75,000 from us over the past week, firming from $51 to $34. Others meeting consistent support include Swan Adam Goodes ($26), Peter Bell ($41) and Warren Tredrea ($67), with St Kilda's Lenny Hayes backed to take out over $80,000 at $51 since being awarded the captaincy of the club. I don't know whether that makes you get more of the ball, but punters see it that way anyway. RUGBY LEAGUE The League season kicks off proper on March 12th when defending Premiers Penrith take on the might of Newcastle at Penrith stadium however the first insight as to the fortunes of several clubs may have been uncovered over the weekend. Firstly St George/Illawarra, with Trent Barrett resuming after a nine month rehabilitation period, back at five-eighth, proved far too classy for a slightly undermanned South Sydney in the Charity Shield at Aussie Stadium on Saturday night. The Dragons prevailed 34-8 without stars Jason Ryles, Mark Gasnier and Brett Firman and although star signings Adam MacDougall and Terry Hill were missing through injury for Souths, they showed little to suggest their season will improve much on 2003. Later that evening at Huddersfield in England the Panthers were given a football lesson by the Bradford Bulls who were missing star halves Paul Deacon and Henry Paul. The 22-4 score line was somewhat flattering and is a real indication that they are missing Ryan Girdler and Scott Sattler, the latter gone to the Tigers. While Penrith have been hard to lay the same could not be said about the Bulldogs and Melbourne Storm with one wager of $25,000 on the Bulldogs at $9 and $5000 on the Storm at $26 giving every indication that this will be a great betting season on the NRL. Today (Thurs), a Sydney punter backed the Bulldogs to win $300,000 with an outlay of $37,500. For his sake, we hope there isn’t a repeat of 2002! RUGBY UNION The Six Nations season kicked off last weekend with few surprises result wise but that didn't stop punters from getting involved. The game on Saturday night saw France hold off a determined challenge from Ireland, scoring two late tries to win 35-17. France were well supported firming from $1.14 into $1.12 while the handicap price also firmed from $1.90 into $1.85 on the back of several large wagers, including $10,000 giving 15½ points start. This match was followed by Wales v Scotland at Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, with similar money for the favourites for a similar result, Wales winning 23-10. The final game of the weekend was on Sunday night where a ‘Wilkensonless’ England tackled Italy in Rome. The price for the World Champs was somewhat prohibitive at $1.01 however that did not discourage one client from the UK placing the equivalent of $100,000 for the Lions to be victorious. What was even more curious was the number of new clients from Italy who were keen to open an account to procure the 32½ points start on offer, their luck being out as England proved far too solid for an Italian squad lacking the necessary skill to match it with the big boys of the Six Nations. This week Scotland host England at Murrayfield and receiving 28½ points and are at the palatable odds of $15, however on the strength of their most recent showings its difficult to see them troubling England. The second game sees France hosting Italy in Paris and the French must give 33½ points start. Early money here is for the home team with our first wager being $5,000 at the start but don't be surprised to see Italy make a game of this for a half before the French finally prevail. The final game is the game of the week, with Ireland hosting a pumped up Wales fresh from a solid victory over the Scots. Ireland, with Brian O'Driscoll returning, must give 9½ points start and are $1.30 to win the game, while Wales are some value at $3.35. Super 12s also commences this week with the Blues dominating all ante post betting at $2.25 and that is similar in this weeks match as they travel to Canberra Stadium to take on a less than impressive ACT Brumbies. Money has come for the Blues, firming from $1.33 into $1.30 and $1.88 from $1.90 giving the Brumbies 8½ points start. Best backed in other games have been the Stormers giving 2½ points start to the Cats at home, (first wager being $10,000 at the $1.90) and also The Hurricanes, ($10,000 at $1.62) to defeat the Chiefs in Waikato, with the line firming from 2½ points to 4 points start. In other games the Highlanders must give the Reds 7½ points at $1.90, the Crusaders must give 8½ points to the Waratahs in Christchurch while in the final game a Bulls unit missing Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha must concede 7½ points start to the Sharks in Pretoria. These should be interesting games to kick off the Super 12s season, and while on paper it appears unlikely there will be few surprises history of the Super12s suggest there will be an upset or two. GOLF Just when you thought everything that happens in sport is either predictable or just lacks excitement you get a fairy tale ending as was the case in last weeks Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines. Nine years and 189 PGA Tour events without a win for John Daly culminated in a drama packed three-man play-off against Chris Riley and maiden tour winner Luke Donald, on the par five eighteenth hole. Daly, with his length favoured to get home in two, hit his three wood approach into the back bunker some 100 feet from the hole, then watched as Donald, and then Riley hit their approaches to six and five feet respectively. With pressure on him as he had not experienced in some time, Daly hit a sublime bunker shot to inside a foot for birdie then watched as both Donald and Riley missed what could only be described as makeable putts, Rileys' rimming out. The victory for Daly may be his sweetest yet as it is the product of a couple of seasons of hard work after several ups and downs. And similar ups and downs were experienced by punters, following a week where favourites Ernie Els and Vijay Singh were successful they had to endure an upset that was John Daly, unwanted at $126. The Tour heads to California and the Riviera Country Club this week, where Tiger Woods will lock horns with world number two Vijay Singh. Woods had a victory over Singh last week when he finished two shots behind John Daly while Singh failed to make the cut, but on a course that Woods has been winless at five attempts expect this tussle to be a close one. Woods is favourite at $4.25 over Singh at $7, followed by defending champion Mike Weir at $17. Singh has been backed to win over $100,000 at the $8 in two separate bets, one from a regular South African client, the other from a client from Sydney, while also well tried have been Thomas Bjorn and Jesper Parnevik both at $41. This field drops away a little after the top three with Sergio Garcia and Chris DiMarco next at $29, however neither has any real form to recommend them in recent times so if an upset is to occur it could come from any number of players. On the European/Australasian combined tour, Brian Davis withstood a powerful charge from defending champion, Paul Casey, to win the ANZ Championship after he accumulated seventeen points on the final day, one better than his compatriot. It was Davis' second victory on the tour the last coming four years ago at the Spanish Open. Davis was friendless in the betting and after good support for the likes of Michael Campbell, Paul Casey, Nick O'Hern, Scott Gardiner and Peter O'Malley prior to tee off, all the attention turned to Steve Webster at $2 coming into the final day as he held a five point lead. After several bets at that price, including one of $5000, his price plummeted into $1.85 ,however it did not take long for him to squander his lead and he eventually finished over par leaving a great tussle between fellow countryman Davis and Casey. This week we head to Adelaide for the Jacobs Creek Open, a combined Challenge tour and Australasian tour event where Gavin Coles will attempt to defend his title he won last year. This event is difficult to line up as many of the Challenge tour players are either unknown or struggle with Australian conditions so it is tried and proven performers, Peter O'Malley and Nick O'Hern both at $11 who head the betting. Add to this mix Scott Gardiner ($21), Richard Green ($34) who both performed well last week and up and coming US players Jimmy Walker ($26) and Scott Gutschewski ($34) and we have an extremely interesting event and that does not take into account the likes of Jeff Klauk ($51), Charles Warren ($67), Tom Scherrer ($51) and Brett Wetterich ($67), all backed to win more than $50,000. One thing I am prepared to bet on and that's there will appear to be several different winners of this event before the weekend completes and one golfer finishes on top of the field for what is sure to be deserved victory. BASKETBALL The WNBL season finale on Saturday will showcase most of the best Australian based talent the sport can offer. The exception of course is Lauren Jackson who was unable to lead her side to a 6th consecutive Grand Final appearance but with the Coach of the Year (Gary Fox), Defensive Player of the Year (Emily McInerney) and three members of the All Star Five (Belinda Snell, Shelley Hammonds and Jacinta Hamilton) taking part, there will be no shortage of talent on display. Dandenong certainly appear to have the upper hand with home court advantage and four victories over the Sydney Flames already this season. Punters have warmed to them with a stream of small bets at $1.90 giving up a 6.5 point start. Early indications are that they will start at minus 7.5 or even shorter. The case for Sydney revolves around both All-Stars, Snell and Hammonds getting 20+ points in addition to Musselwhite and at least one other player getting into double figures. Dandenong's greater depth and defensive capabilities have them a deserved favourite but the edge in experience, both coaching and playing staff, rests with Sydney. Whilst Opals Olympic selection will be the furthest thing from players' minds you could make strong cases for five or six of these players to be included in the team for Athens. Stand-out performances from any of the All-Stars or Dandenong's Wilson, McInerney or Richards would do no harm to their chances of inclusion. Hamilton in particular, after her break-out season, will surely be a strong contender for national selection. Snell is the only player from these sides who has been with the Opals in either the 2002 World Championship or 2003 European Tour teams but there is likely to be quite a turnover in players from those squads. For those that are interested a comprehensive preview of the game with plenty of historical facts and relevant statistics from this season can be found at: http://www.abc.net.au/wnbl/default.htm. ELECTIONS Newly appointed Labor leader Mark Latham continues to say the 'right things' to the Australian public, and the public support that he is gathering has been reflected in the betting ring. Labor are now into $2.50 following on from another $6000 worth of bets that have been placed on them winning the next Australian Federal Election, with the Coalition now out to a best priced $1.45. Latham has certainly left his mark since taking over the reigns at the helm of the! Labor Party. The big question is whether or not he is revealing far too much too early? The more ammunition he fires now, the less he will have when it is most needed, that being the weeks leading into the election when he may not have any dry gunpowder left. Fortunately we get the occasional bet for the Coalition at the short odds, but there is little doubt that betting on this election will far outweigh the last Federal Election which saw in excess of $1 million dollars wagered with Centrebet. We are also covering the US Presidential election, and there have been many twists to this one over the past few weeks. George Bush has always been the favourite, but is now a $1.60 shot after being as short as $1.30 at one stage. One Australian client is convinced that Bush will be back for another term as he has invested over $20,000 at various odds, following him as his price has drifted out. Who Bushs' opponent will be is open to much conjecture at the moment. Howard Dean was $3.50 to win the Presidential race when he was freely tipped to win the Democrats vote, but John Kerry, available at $34 at one stage, is now the forerunner to win the Democratic nomination, and a solid $2.20 chance to be president. That was until early this week when rumours got out that Mr Kerry has a few 'skeletons' in the closet, so we are closely monitoring that situation. ENTERTAINMENT The Oscars are only two weeks away, and betting is starting to warm up and will no doubt increase following the Screen Actors Guild Awards which will be handed out this weekend. The SGA awards are always a good barometer as to who will win the Oscars, so betting will close while they are on and will re-open shortly after. So far, there has not been a terrible lot of action on the six categories that we are betting on, but what interest there has been has been focused on the best actor, and best supporting actor. In the best actor category, the three that head the betting, Sean Penn ($1.60), Bill Murray ($2.20), and Johnny Depp ($13) have all met with solid backing, particularly the latter two. As has been pointed out before, we deliberately keep away from big bets on these types of 'novelty' events, but we have taken a bet of $1500 for Penn at $1.50 before his price eased out. Over the past week, Bill Murray has attracted dozens of small bets which has seen his price slashed from $2.75 to its current mark, while our Scandinavian clients must have been taken by Depp's performance in Pirates of the Caribbean as he has attracted the highest number of bets. Tim Robbins is a warm favourite at $1.50 to win the best supporting actor's award, with the biggest bet so far being 10,000 NOK ($2000) coming from a regular Norwegian client. Another from the same country has backed Alec Baldwin to win $4500 at $6.50 and $5.50, and we continue to see bets roll in at the new price of $5. Benicio Del Toro is currently our worst result, having been backed to win close to $25,000 when betting first opened at around the $7.50 mark, but that big wave of money has dried up. The final part in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, 'The Return of the King', is tipped to dominate proceedings, and we aren't taking any risks, assessing the film at $1.10 to be the best picture, while director Peter Jackson is $1.05 to walk away with the best director's award. We are also currently covering the first of what seems an endless stream of 'reality' shows hitting our television screens this year. The 'Hot House' hasn't rated well in the three weeks it has been on, and that has been reflected in the lack of betting interest. Calvin and Heather are our $4 favourites to scoop the big prize, but it does appear as though the life span of some of these newer reality shows might be quite limited. MOTOR RACING Can Michael Schumacher win his seventh world drivers championship? Schumacher is $2 with Centrebet to achieve that, but there is interest in several others to depose the German. Schumacher showed his class last season winning two of the last three races when the pressure was! applied, and that was after encountering problems with the Bridgestone tyre. This season, they have a new car which has been 'on fire' in recent trialling, so until proven otherwise, the German deserves to be that short. Williams also have a new car, and after a slow start to last season, were the big improvers late in the season. This will be Montoya's last season before joining McLaren, so the big question is whether or not team-mate Ralf Schumacher will get preferred treatment? Punters are thinking that way as there has been more money for Ralf at $6 than Montoya ($5), but Ralf was very disappointing at the end of last season, failing to get a podium finish in any of the last six races. Runner-up last year and second fav for this season is Finland's Kimi Raikkonen at $4.50. He has already been one of the best backed by his loyal band of supporters, and showed when he finished only 2 points behind Schumacher last season that he is capable of mixing it at the top level. His team-mate David Coulthard has been friendless at $15, and he was one driver who never really came to terms with the 'flying lap' qualifying system. Coulthard is also the one who will be replaced by Montoya, and that is sure to have some bearing on his performances. Fernando Alonso ($21) has been the best supported of the 'outsiders' in the betting. Renault have spent a small fortune on their cars recently, and this new edition does appear to be quicker. Alonso was the 'find' of the last season, gaining four podium finishes, including his maiden win, and while he may not win the title, more wins are expected this year. SOCCER For football fans of a certain age Liverpool and Roma bring back memories of Reds goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar's spaghetti legs comedy routine that put off three Wolves penalty takers in the 1984 European Cup final in the Eternal City. For our punters who bet on the latest round of English FA Cup and Italian Serie A games, however, there is nothing humorous about which to reminisce when talk turns to these two clubs. One of our Danish clients wagered 320,000 kroner at $1.45 on Liverpool breezing into the FA Cup sixth round courtesy of an Anfield win over a Portsmouth team which, to use one of Pompey boss Harry Redknapp's favourite clichés, were down to the bare bones. Another of our high-rolling customers invested 75,000 Norwegian kroner at $1.44 on Liverpool sending Portsmouth crashing to their sixth successive away defeat against top-flight opponents. The gamble on Liverpool was going according to plan when Michael Owen netted his 150th career goal for the Reds in the match's second minute but Portsmouth equalised through Matthew Taylor late in the game and frustrated our punters who had participated in one of the season's biggest plunges. Roma were even more disappointing than Liverpool. At least Liverpool came unstuck versus a Portsmouth side with 10 victories to their credit this term. Roma drew a blank against an Ancona team that, believe or not, has failed to win any of their 22 matches so far this season. Thousands of our punters could not see anything other than a Roma victory at $1.36, particularly as the Wolves had mauled Juventus in their previous outing and torn apart Ancona in the reverse fixture. But, in a week of odds-on upsets, Roma missed a catalogue of chances and wasted a superb opportunity to close the gap on Italian league leaders Milan. Other European clubs who let down our punters included German giants Bayern München and Stuttgart. Their failures allowed Bremen to extend their German Bundesliga advantage to nine points, which marks the second biggest lead after 20 rounds in the competition's 40-year history. No side with a Bundesliga buffer in excess of six points at this stage of the campaign has lost the championship. That is food for thought for soccer supporters contemplating backing Bayern at what may, on first inspection, appear attractive title odds. The English Premier League resumes on Saturday and there is no doubt about the game of the round - Chelsea against Arsenal. One would think that three points for Chelsea are essential if the Blues are going to maintain their challenge, whereas avoiding defeat would satisfy Gunners fans now that their team are five points clear of Manchester United. Arsenal lost to Middlesbrough in the English Carling Cup semi-finals but the Gunners love the Teessiders for beating Manchester United at Old Trafford for the third time in the Premier League's brief history. Boro were huge underdogs at $11.00. Until next week, good punting. For further information contact Gerard Daffy at Centrebet on 08 89555800 or centrebet@centrebet.com.
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