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Centrebet Capers [Cricket | CRICKET] Well, it had to happen eventually, England beat Australia in a Test match! While that is good for the game on the whole, talk of England being 'back' as a cricketing force is a bit premature however. Have those people forgotten that both Shane Warne and Glen McGrath were out of the Aussie side, and that the series was already wrapped up? We had a good win on the Test, but there was plenty of money around before the game started to suggest many rated the Poms a winning show. We shortened England from $11 into $8 before the Test started, and they were backed to take out in excess of $100,000. Better odds were available elsewhere early on; a little bit strange given Australia would be without both of their star bowlers. It was one of those Tests where all three options were favourite at some stage; a 'bookies dream'. We hadn't really laid the draw before the match started, but in the latter part of the first day, and early on the second, we accepted two separate bets of $USD 10,000 for the draw at $3.25 and $2.60,and we continued to see solid support for the Aussies, particularly when they touched 'evens'. England didn't win us as much as what they would have in the previous four Tests, but it could quite easily have been a losing result, as several bookmakers reported losing on the match. English opener Michael Vaughan got us out of trouble to grab victory in the Series run totals. All the Aussie batsmen had been backed, but just before the Melbourne Test, a Sydney punter plonked $10,000 on Matthew Hayden at $1.80. Hayden entered the Sydney Test still favourite at $1.60, but while he failed to flatter with the willow, it was Vaughan who single handedly got the Poms over the line, eventually finishing the series on 633 runs, 137 ahead of Hayden. The bowling aggregates saw a tie between Jason Gillespie and Andy Caddick on 20 wickets. With injuries to Warne and McGrath, betting was rarely opened over the past two weeks, and Caddick had to bag 7 second innings wickets to tie, a terrific performance. With the Ashes over, and Steve Waugh disappearing from the sports pages (well temporarily at least), the One Day series resumes today (Thurs) when Australia play Sri Lanka at the SCG. The Aussies are $1.25, already attracting a bet of $USD 25,000 from India, but we have noticed lots of small bets for Sri Lanka at $3.80 coming from Australian punters. That is probably fair enough to, as some of the Aussie bowlers are starting to show signs of 'wear and tear', and the Sri Lankans have shown improvement apart from last Tuesday’s performance. With Matt Hayden and Ricky Ponting both failing to get amongst the runs in the Sydney Test, Adam Gilchrist has been backed to win over $15,000 in the 'Aussie high bat' at $4.50. There is still money for Hayden ($4.50) and Ponting ($5), but nothing like in the previous matches. Saturday’s game in Hobart between Australia and England will be extremely interesting, and betting for that will open early Friday morning. There is an ING Cup match on Friday at the MCG between Victoria and Western Australia. Courtesy of the home ground advantage, we have posted the Vic’s favourites at $1.55, and have taken two bets totaling $6500 at that quote since Shane Warne was named as a surprise starter. [Basketball | BASKETBALL] Cairns may not have won the game, but at least they won all the fights last Saturday night against West Sydney! You can hardly turn the television on now without another derogatory story surfacing about the NBL, but to see a Cairns fan fighting the Club mascot on the court really does take 'first prize' Cairns went into this game a very well backed favourite, including bets of $5000 and $4500 conceding 3½ points start. West Sydney weren't completely ignored in their 86-75 victory, landing one winning bet of $2000 at $2.30, but their winning run came to an abrupt end the next night when a resurgent Townsville beat them by 5 points. The Brisbane v Sydney Kings game also grabbed headlines when Bullets coach Joey Wright was evicted from the court for abusing the referees. The Bullets eventually went down 121-105, but the surprising thing about this game was that the biggest bet for Brisbane, $2500, came for them with 7½ points start from a Norwegian punter! The same person had met with some success earlier in the day following the 1-0 win by the Philadelphia Flyers over Anaheim in an NHL game. His bet, to the value of $16,000, was placed on Philadelphia at $2.70, one of our biggest ever winning bets on an ice hockey game! But back to the baskets, and Canberra made a return to the league last night, temporarily holding the creditors at bay. The Cannons have to play 3 matches in four days as they try and catch up for the time they were in 'limbo', and punters have already displayed their intentions, that is they will be prepared to bet against them. In last nights match against Victoria, all the big money, including $5000, was for Victoria at $1.90, and that money proved spot on when the Giants won 114-100. Canberra now have to face up to Sydney on Friday, and Adelaide on Saturday night. Against Sydney, they will go in as huge $8 underdogs, or getting 14½ points start, and all indications are that punters think Sydney will not have too many worries covering that spread. The 'local derby' between Victoria and the Tigers will see the Tigers go in as 7 point favourites, and they should win, but when these two sides meet, we always have a competitive match. Perth are the new title favourites at $2.75, a price which was taken this week by a Victorian client with $1200. Sydney are second picks at $3, with Wollongong the only other side in the betting at $4. As for the NBA, we finally cracked it for a few more bets on the Lakers winning the title early this week following two wins in a row. The $5 was taken by three separate punters, each with $1000, while a Norwegian also joined in with a bet of 4500 NOK ($AUD 900). We still have Sacramento favourites at $3.25, ahead of Dallas at $3.75. [Golf | GOLF] With Tiger Woods recuperating from knee surgery, some of the other big names of the PGA Tour get a chance to start the season with a confidence booster in this week’s Mercedes Championship in Hawaii. Tiger has won this event on two prior occasions, as well as being runner-up in 1997, so his absence, while a big blow to the event, should ensure at least a good betting contest. We have posted Ernie Els favourite at $6.50, but he has been hard to lay at that price. Defending champion, Sergio Garcia, has been backed to win $15,000 by a Queensland client, now into $10 after opening at $12. We have also taken a bet of $1000 each way for KJ Choi at $26, while a Victorian client backed Justin Leonard to win $8000 each way as soon as we opened him up at $26. We consider Jim Furyk ($11) as one of the hardest to beat. Furyk won this event in 2001, and was a close up fourth last year after shooting 65 on the last round. The Australian tour resumes next week with the New Zealand Open, and betting for that event will be available Monday afternoon when the field is finalised. [Handball | HANDBALL] We are gearing up for the men’s World Handball Championships which begin in Portugal later in the month. As a prelude, we bet on last weeks Men’s Nations Cup, which saw a surprise winner when Denmark defeated Yugoslavia in the final. Although these were 'friendlies', there was big interest, and punters came out well ahead. The game where we had our worst result was Yugoslavia's win over Sweden. It was rumoured that Yugoslavia would field a poor side, so we took them on at $2.25. Bets of €4000, 15,000 SEK and 12,000 NOK saw the price cut to $1.90. Sweden's Lovgren was a late withdrawal, and when Yugoslavia took to the court with Scribic, Perunicic, Lapcevic and Licicic, we knew we were in big trouble, and that is exactly what happened! That win in the final by Denmark has seen them firm dramatically to win the World title. After opening at $8, the Danes are now into $5, and have been backed to win 500,000 DKK. We have Germany favourites at $4.75, narrowly ahead of Russia at $4.85. Twenty four teams will be vying for world supremacy, including Australia, Greenland and Kuwait! Whilst none of those are any chance to win the final (all are $750), we will be offering different odds for some of the 'minows' in match ups against each other. [Tennis | TENNIS] Lleyton Hewitt's indifferent form in last week's Hopman Cup has seen him ease slightly to win the Australian Open, but he still maintains favourtism at $3.50. Prior to the Hopman Cup, we had taken plenty of bets for Hewitt, including two of $5000, at $3.25, and while there are still some takers now, there is some interest being created in a few others. Marat Safin is second elect at $8, ahead of Andre Agassi at $9, but the popular American isn't so popular with punters this time around. Carlos Moya has had his odds halved, now into $11 from $21, but that hasn't been weight of money, just good form. Thailand's Paradorn Srichaphan was 'tipped' on a Norwegian chat forum, and Norwegian punters took our $26 to win 300,000 NOK ($75,000), and he is now into $17. The Hopman Cup win by American James Blake also saw money come for him to win the Open, including $800 and $600 at $41. An Austrian client has backed Nicholas Escude to win $60,000 at $61, while Stefan Koubek ($51), has been backed to win a similar amount. Serena and Venus Williams dominate the women’s market, as expected. Serena is $1.80, with Venus at $3, with a big gap to Kim Clijsters at $6.50. Betting will be available on all matches for the tournament, and as always, there will be 'special' bet options on how many games will be conceded by the some of the women players who will be at prohibitive odds to win their matches. [American Football | AMERICAN FOOTBALL] The 'wild card' games, the first week of the NFL playoffs, went the way of the bookies when only one of the four favourites 'covered' the spread, but having said that, there were a couple of big bets landed when the New York Giants were narrowly defeated 39-38 by San Francisco. The Giants were receiving 3.5 points start, and we took two bets of $20,000 at that handicap, as well as a bet of $12,000 at a flat 3. The Giants had control of the game, but conceded 17 unanswered points in the last quarter to go down, but the one point loss was just enough for those who took the start. Atlanta's 27-7 win over Green Bay was a terrific result even though the Falcons drew a win bet of $4400 at $3.25. Green Bay were coupled up in most parlays, and for the few that were 'alive' through Atlanta, most 'bombed out' when Pittsburgh failed to cover an 8 point spread against Cleveland. This week, all the home sides are favourites, but there has been an early push for The Jets who travel to Oakland. Our opening $3.25 was take by a series of bets from Europe, and there has also been two early bets totaling just under $11,000 with 6 points start. We have also taken two $4000 bets for Pittsburgh with 4 points start against Tennessee, and a $6000 wager for Atlanta (+7) against Philadelphia. We are pretty keen to take all the favourites on in these matches, so it looks like they will definately all get to a better quote. Oakland remain Superbowl favourites at $3.50 ahead of Philadelphia at $4. [Entertainment | ENTERTAINMENT] Grammy Award nominee Kylie Minogue is our new favourite to fend off Daniel Bedingfield, Dirty Vegas, Groove Armada and No Doubt and collect the Best Dance Recording gong at New York City’s Madison Square Garden next month. Minogue, nominated for Love At First Sight from her best-selling Fever album that is wowing a previously sceptical American audience, is now $2.50 (after opening at $3.50) to poll more votes than her four rivals in the category. Bedingfield is second favourite at $3, with Groove Armada ($5), No Doubt ($4.50) and Dirty Vegas ($5) completing its betting list. Love At First Sight topped America’s dance chart last July and Kylie’s profile in the United States is at an all-time high. To win, however, she must beat Daniel Bedingfield, a New Zealand-born artist who produced his critically acclaimed song in his bedroom. Get set for the Bledisloe Cup of music! Eminem and Bruce Springsteen are the favourites to win Record of the Year and Album of the Year respectively. The Slim Shady is $1.50 to pick up the former prize for his Without Me track, while The Boss is $1.30 to receive the latter award for The Rising, his September 11-influenced collection of songs that music critics love. [Football | FOOTBALL] Most of the European football comps resume this weekend following the Christmas break, so things will be back to normal after two weeks of massive betting on English football. Last weekends round of FA Cup games went the way of punters, although there were a few upsets, including Shrewsbury's 2-1 win over Everton ($1.55), and the 3-2 win by Wolverhampton over the heavily backed Newcastle ($2.20). West Ham landed winning bets of $20,000 (from Singapore) and €12,500 at $1.72 when they defeated Nottingham Forest 3-2. It was hard for us to begrudge West Ham supporters a win as the 'Hammers' again did us a huge favour when held to a 1-1 draw by Fulham on Boxing Day, a match which saw bets of $30,000, $20,000 and $16,000, all from Asia, come for West Ham. This week, apart from the obvious choices, Blackburn have met with solid support in their away match against Sunderland. The $2.55 is still available, and while the largest bet has only been $1600, Blackburn have had the most bets placed on them for the round so far. An Aussie punter has coupled up Liverpool and Man United in an $18,000 double, and there has also been two early $6000 bets for both Liverpool ($1.60) to beat Aston Villa, and for Arsenal ($1.62) to beat Birmingham. Asian money has arrived early in the upcoming round of Spanish football. Bets of $30,000 and $12,000 were taken for Real Madrid at $2.10 in their 'away' match against Celta de Vigo, and we continue to see money even though that price has disappeared. Bets of $10,000 and $5000 have also arrived for Valencia ($1.90) who will be hosting Sociedad. 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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