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Aussie
Rules
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Centrebet Capers [Cricket | CRICKET] There were a lot of queries following Sri Lanka's upset win over Australia last Thursday as to whether or not there had been any big money won on Sri Lanka at the big odds ($3.85), but in fact the it was a massive result for Centrebet as most didn't rate Sri Lanka at all, even at half time. The biggest bet on the Aussies before the game started was $USD 25,000 at $1.25, but there was also several bets of $5000 and $4000. Lots of small bets went on Sri Lanka at $3.85, probably due to the weakened bowling ranks of Australia. Even at half time, after Sri Lanka had posted an amazing total of 343 runs, they were still available at what seemed a juicy quote of $1.33 as we continued to see money for Australia at $3.25. Once again, it proved too big of an ask to 'chase' a total, and Sri Lanka won easily. Monday's match in Sydney saw punters stick with Sri Lanka, and some pretty ordinary bowling and fielding, along with some more controversial umpiring decisions, saw Sri Lanka beat the Poms by 31 runs. This wasn't a big betting game, probably because it was played on a Monday (by the way, what happened to cricket on a Sunday?), but what action we did see was mostly for Sri Lanka, who started favourites. The largest pre game bet was $11,000 at $1.85 from a Sydney client, while England only attracted a handful of bets at $1.90. At half time, after Sri Lanka had amassed 284 runs, we took two $9000 bets for the Lankans at $1.33, and although the English got off to a good start, it was another middle order collapse that let the down. Yesterday (Wed), the Gabba was the venue for the clash between Australia and England. The Aussies have looked vulnerable without McGrath, Gillespie and Warne, and looked 'underpriced' at $1.50. Our Indian punters disagreed, with bets of $USD 20,000, and $18,000 coming at that quote, but we did notice a good amount of interest in the Poms at $2.70 from Aussie punters who thought that that represented good value. Although only chasing a modest total of 212 runs, those that took the $1.16 Australia at half time would’ve had several worrying moments before eventually collecting with seven balls to spare. England play Sri Lanka in a day/night match in Adelaide tomorrow (Fri), and similarly to last Mondays clash, most of the early money has been for Sri Lanka. After opening at $1.85, bets of $14,000 and $12,000 forced that quote into $1.80, and we continue to see support at that quote. The $1.90 for England has been a little hard to sell, but we have taken one bet of $7000 from a Victorian client at that price. This is a crucial match as the victor is likely to put the other out of contention in the race for the finals. There will be two ING Cup matches on Sunday between New South Wales and Western Australia, and Tasmania and Victoria. NSW have moved this match to Coffs Harbour, but remain favourites at $1.50 thanks to their batting line up. Already, a bet of $5000 has been placed on NSW, and there has also been two bets totaling $5500 for Tasmania at $2.25 to win at home against the Vic’s. [Tennis | TENNIS] A respected Sydney sports journalist had strips torn off him last week when he wrote an article questioning the fitness level of Jennifer Capriati, but his article proved spot on when Capriati was bundled out of the Australian Open in the first round, suffering defeat by German Marlene Weingartner. Capriati hadn't really been backed to defend her title, but went into this game as red hot favourite at $1.06. With practically every favourite having already won for the day, there was a huge amount of money 'alive' into Capriati in multiple bets, as well as bets of $16,000 and $6500 taken at the short quote. To say Weingartner's win was well received by Centrebet would be an understatement, and it turned what would have been a very bad opening day, into a winning day, a vast change from years gone by. Spare a thought for the Queensland punter who had to endure a nerve racking 124 minute wait to collect $160 on Tuesday. He outlayed $16,000 on Serena Williams at $1.01 to “pick up” $160. It was only late in the third and final set that the tournament favourite shook off France’s Emilie Loit to win. A very tough way to “earn” wages for the day! There have been a lot more drastic fluctuations on the first round of betting this year than in years gone by, all due to injury related rumours. Probably the biggest 'go' for the opening round was the win by Renzo Furlan over Andrei Pavel. With Pavel under an injury cloud from last week, Furlan firmed from an isolated $4.50 with some outlets, into $2.40 at game time. Pavel was playing like his betting drift suggested, and withdrew when trailing 4-2 in the first set. Some big money was won around the country on this match, and one of our regular tennis clients wanted $20,000 on Furlan at $3. Knowing that much better had been given, and sensing something was seriously amiss with Pavel, we limited his bet to $1000. While that plunge came off, there have been several others that went the other way, including Wayne Arthurs who was also under an injury cloud, but still managed to beat the well supported Marcos Daniel. With Capriati out of the women’s draw, Venus Williams tightened up marginally into $2.90, but there is absolutely no interest at all in the women’s title. The men’s is a different story, and while Lleyton Hewitt remains favourite, plenty of players have been backed to beat him. Andre Agassi was backed to win $50,000 in a single bet at $9 prior to the first round beginning, and then drew another $3000 bet from Victoria after his first round win at $6.50. A Queensland client placed $5000 on Juan Carlos Ferrero at $13, also having $2000 worth of Kuerten at $34, and $2000 worth of Nalbandian at $67. The heat has taken its toll on some of the Europeans in the early rounds, but with the weather expected to cool down a little later this week, the trend of betting against some of the Nationalities should change. It all makes perfect sense when you think about it, betting against players who have been having Christmas in sub-zero conditions, and then try and launch themselves straight into an event where the temperatures are at least 35 degrees. Just another factor we have to build in when assessing the prices! [Golf | GOLF] Although Ernie Els was our $6.50 favourite to win last weeks Mercedes Championship, the season PGA opener, the record breaking win by the big South African was a really good result for Centrebet, and he is $5.50 to repeat the dose again this week. Defending champion Sergio Garcia was backed to win over $100,000 in last weeks event, but it was Els who jumped straight to the front and the others never really looked any hope of catching him, although K.J. Choi fleetingly looked a remote hope during the third round. The field for this week’s Sony Open in Hawaii is nearly identical to last weeks, apart from the inclusion of a few Australians. As yet we haven't taken a decent sized bet for Els to win two on the trot, but the form he displayed last week entitles him to be the price he is this week. A $1500 each way bet has gone on Jim Furyk ($13), and Garcia ($15) has been backed to take out $37,000 by a Queensland golf enthusiast. Defending champion, Jerry Kelly, is in the betting at $34, but we have only taken a handful of small bets at that price. Robert Allenby is the shortest of the Aussie contingent at $31, but all we have seen so far is a bet of $200 each way from a fellow Victorian. The field for the New Zealand Open is disappointing, to say the least. If you remember, this was the event last year where there was much conjecture as to whether or not they should have 'paid' to have Tiger Woods appear, but the organisers have done a complete 'about face', and look to have opted out of paying appearance money, including defending champion Craig Parry. Parry has declined to play, preferring Hawaii, and what we are left with is a very ordinary field. Michael Campbell is our $4.50 favourite, and we have seen money from New Zealand, about $6000 in total, for Campbell to win, but we have also seen win bets of $2000 and $1000 come from that region for Phil Tataurangi at $10. Also on the $10 line of betting is another previous winner in David Smail, but he has been friendless. Two 'veterans', Grant Waite ($17) and Frank Nobilo ($34) have attracted a fair share of the bets, but they have all been small, and each way. Trying to find the winner outside of the favourites is no easy task, but we are happy to stick with the Aussie duo of Brett Rumford and Marcus Cain. In South Africa, Justin Rose is $7.50 to repeat last year’s performance, his first tour win, in the Alfred Dunhill Championship. This is also a field that lacks a lot of depth, with Trevor Immelman second elect at $8. Our worst result at the moment is Lee Westwood, a $41 chance, who had completely lost form in 2002. [Boxing | BOXING] Kostya Tszyu remains a raging $1.05 favourite to dispose of Jesse James Leija in Sunday’s Super Lightweight World Title fight which will be staged in Melbourne. Tszyu has had an arduous training regime preparing for Leija, and while the Tszyu camp see it as a danger fight, punters disagree completely. We have taken two big bets of $14,000 and $10,000 for Tszyu to win at the $1.07, as well as close to $20,000 in bets, all from Australia, for Kostya to end the fight by KO at $1.33. Surprisingly though, while most think that it will be a KO win to Tszyu, the 'round by round' betting by punters points towards a later, rather than early, finish. Rounds 5, 6, 7 and 8 have all been backed to take out just under $20,000, and there has also been four bets totaling $12,000 to say that the fight will go beyond seven rounds. The betting on this World Title fight won’t reach the heights of some of the previous big bouts we have bet on, but it won’t fall far short. [American Football | AMERICAN FOOTBALL] We are down to the serious part of the NFL season, and with that comes a new wave of business as punters on this side of the world start to follow the form a little more closely as Superbowl Day draws closer. Last week, three of the four favourites 'covered' the spread, but as it turned out we had a pretty good weekend as there was a solid push for all underdogs, and we also saw favourite money. Things got off to a good start when Tennessee scored a 3 point win over Pittsburgh in overtime. Early bets of $6600 and $4000 arrived for Pittsburgh with four points start, but when we forced Tennessee in, bets of $16,000 and $10,000 arrived from two separate Australians. A German client backed both Tampa Bay and Philadelphia to cover their respective spreads, outlaying 12,000 Euro on each, but we were fortunate enough to be able to keep laying the outsiders in both games, so the results weren't too bad. In the last game of the round, we couldn't keep punters off the New York Jets, and Oakland's 30-10 win was one of our best NFL wins for the season. A relatively new NFL client from Sydney invested $20,000 on the Jets with 5½ points start, and that was after nearly $40,000 had already gone on them with 6 points start. The money continued to come in, but we did manage to extract two late bets of $12,000 and $9000, both from Canada, when we went chasing Oakland money. That win has seen the Raiders zoom into clear $2.20 Superbowl favourites. They are 7½ point favourites at home to Tennessee this week, but the way NFL fav's have fared this year, nothing would surprise. As far as the Superbowl betting goes, Tennessee are our only loser, but this week they have been backed to win another $40,000 at $8. With that in mind, we are pretty keen to 'take on' Oakland conceding 7 points start, but so far have only taken two significant bets, one for $9000 (from New Zealand), and the other of $7500 from Canada. In the first playoff, it has been all one way traffic for the fav's, Philadelphia. After opening at $1.55 or -3½, the Eagles are into $1.50, with the line at a flat 4. Several large bets have been taken, with the biggest of those being $16,000 conceding the start, that one coming from Melbourne. [Ice Hockey | ICE HOCKEY] An interesting story from Finland last weekend when Hayley Wickenheiser became the first woman to play in a men's professional ice hockey match. Hayley was named in the Salamat side to play against Kettera in the Finnish Metsis League, and we priced up a few betting options on her performance which created a big deal of interest in Finland. Punters could bet on how many goals she scored, goals and assists, or whether or not she would receive a penalty. It was a mixture of results, and betting trends. For Hayley to score NO goals was backed from $1.55 into $1.35, with the largest bet of 12,000 SEK coming from a Swedish punter, but the option of 2 or more goals was backed to win €5000 by curious Finnish punters at $17 before it finished at $8. Unfortunately, Wickenheiser wasn't able to score a goal, but did get an assist which saw one Finnish client win €1700 from a €1000 outlay. Being a member of the 'gentler' sex, we thought that Hayley would be a lady and wouldn't concede a penalty, and she did the right thing by Centrebet in failing to do so. We opened up 'no penalty' at $1.25, but the 'one or more' option was backed from $3 into $2.75. It looks like Hayley impressed enough to stay on as a member of the team, which no doubt will help in lifting the profile of Finnish ice hockey. [Football | FOOTBALL] Once again it was a poor round of football for English Premier League punters when only five favourites saluted, with most hit hard by Liverpool's 1-1 draw with Aston Villa Liverpool were a $1.62 shot, coupled up in some very big doubles and trebles, but also attracted a series of large 'singles' bets including €18,000 (Germany) and $12,000 from an Aussie client. When Michael Owen found the net in the first half, it looked like perhaps their poor run of form had come to an end, but a Villa penalty just after half time equalised the score, and that was how it finished. Man City's 2-1 win over Leeds came at a cost when two bets totaling $14,000 came from a Norwegian client for City at $2.25. The same client did hand some back however after placing $10,000 on Bolton ($2.20), who were held to a 0-0 draw by Fulham. A German client confidently predicted a draw in the Middlesbrough/Southampton game, placing €5500 at $3.30, and after trailing 2-0, Middlesbrough scored twice in the last 20 minutes to draw the match. This week, all of the favourites are at home, and most are odds on. Apart from the normal run of bets on Man United ($1.70), Arsenal ($1.40) and Newcastle ($1.72), we have seen bets of €8,000 for Blackurn to beat a poor Birmingham at $1.65 (from Austria), and $8,000 for Liverpool to win away against Southampton at $2.55. The Asian money was on the mark when Ronaldo scored for Real Madrid last weekend in Madrid’s 1-0 win over Celta de Vigo. We got absolutely 'hammered' on this match, with some of the bigger bets being $30,000 and $12,000 taken at $2.10, which was followed up by another $20,000 in two bets at $2. We fought back when Valencia were held to a 2-2 draw by Sociedad, and Malaga also did us a favour when their match with Barcelona ended in a scoreless draw. Two separate clients from Singapore each placed $10,000 on Barcelona at $2.60, and one of those has already called in this week with a wager of the same amount on Barcelona at $2.25 when they host Valencia. The other games were there has been early action are two favourites in Alaves and Villareal. Identical bets of €7000 have gone on each at $2.20 and $2.05 respectively, with Alaves also attracting a bet of £4000 from and English client. In Italy, a Malaysian client was on the telephone early in the week placing $10,000 on Torino at $1.90 to beat Como, while we have also seen early bets of $8000 for both Juventus ($2.40 against Chievo) and Parma at $1.80 against Empoli. 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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