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Aussie
Rules
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Centrebet
Capers
Newcastle demonstrated why they are $3.25 title favourites with a decisive 28-14 win over Parramatta last Friday night. After early support for the Eels at $1.67, the late money was all for Newcastle, who eventually went to the barrier at $2.05. This match was televised into England, and an ex-pat over there placed $6000 on the game score being over 42½ points only to come up a half a point short! St George Illawarra and Melbourne played out a high scoring 30-30 draw on Saturday afternoon. There was plenty of money to say Melbourne ($2.75) could win, and after dominating for most of the match, those punters were most unlucky not to collect the full amount. Penrith were backed in late from $1.90 into $1.70, but their backers were extremely fortunate to collect. Early in the week we accepted bets of $6000 and $5000 for the Tigers ($1.90), but a couple of sizeable wagers for Penrith, including $13,000 and $10,000, saw the Panthers claim outright favourtism. The score was 18 apiece with seconds left on the clock, but Penrith charged down a kick to score a try with time up on the clock. All three favourites won on Sunday, with two covering the spreads. All three were easy to sell on Sunday, but the 45-18 win by the Roosters was still a good result. A Sydney client invested $23,000 in three bets on the Northern Eagles at +14½ against the Roosters, and we also took another bet of $10,000. The Roosters were far too good, and are back into $10 to win the title. The Cronulla Sharks made it two wins in a row when they came from behind to beat Canberra 36-26. This was another of those betting games where the money came in two waves. Initially, we saw just under $23,000 for Canberra with the start (+12½), but on Sunday it was hard to keep punters off Cronulla, including bets of $8000 and $7700 conceding the start. This week we are faced with another dangerous round where the State of Origin players are not allowed to play. For that reason alone, the Roosters go in as three point favourites against Parramatta on Friday night, and not too many rate the Eels a winning hope. We opened the Rooster at $1.60 and immediately accepted a $15,000 bet, and currently punters are also willing to "give up" the 3½ points. Scott Hill may be out of the Melbourne side, but punters also think that the Storm will give Souths a hiding. We posted Melbourne at $1.20, or -13½ points, and took a win bet of $18,000 and nearly $8000 worth of bets conceding the start. On paper, there shouldn't be much between North Qld and Cronulla on Saturday night, and not surprisingly the betting has been evenly spread. Cronulla are the favourites a $1.58, with the Cowboys at $2.30. The anomalies in this week's prices is definitely evident in the Wests v Newcastle match. On current form, the Tigers would be huge underdogs against Newcastle, but with Andrew Johns and company out of Newcastle, the Tigers are considerably shorter than they would be at $2.15. Newcastle are $1.70, and the early money has been for Wests to win, and also just under $17,000 also coming for them receiving 3½ points start. As far as the deciding Origin match
goes, we have only seen money for New South Wales. With Queensland
having scored an impressive win in Brisbane, we thought Maroons
supporters would be "all over" the $2.50 for Qld, but that
hasn't been the case. What we have seen is bets of $20,000 and $8000 for
NSW at the $1.55, and with Queensland yet to win in five outings at
Stadium Australia, those punters might be on the right track. We said last week that the four matches played last weekend could go either way, and that's exactly what eventuated with only one favourite winning and a total of 21 points separating the winners from the losers. Even Friday night's win by Essendon wasn't too bad and they got home by seven points from North Melbourne. Both sides were "layable" at the win odds, but Essendon fans were more than willing to take the -7½ points start. After several weeks of us complaining about being beaten in close finished, we have to own up to this one going the right way, but that wasn't the end of the good news for the weekend! Saturday afternoon's match at Optus Oval wasn't an overly big betting affair, but we did come out on the right side of the ledger when the West Coast scored a one point victory. The Sydney Swans, and punters, would have been demoralized on Saturday night when the Swans surrendered a 28 point lead to be beaten two points by Geelong. The Swans started at $1.38 after opening at $1.55, with three separate $20,000 bets taken at $1.55, $1.47 and $1.42. We also saw a stack of money come for Sydney to beat a 16 point handicap, and it really was a poor performance by Sydney after being in a commanding position. Although they probably won't finish on the bottom of the ladder, the Swans are now into $9 third picks to win the wooden spoon. It didn't get any better for favourite backers on Sunday when Fremantle continued the Western dominance of the East Coast sides. Collingwood firmed from $1.85 into $1.60 with the largest bet being one of the first $13,000 at $1.85. The second half of the split draw looks a bit more predictable than last week, but how can you follow the form? A resurgent Bulldogs go round as $1.36 shots against St Kilda on Friday night. The Saints have been hard to sell this week with Robert Harvey and Peter Everitt out of the side, and we expect the Bulldogs to win easily. Melbourne haven't done Centrebet too many favours this season, but they get on last chance on Saturday when they play Adelaide. The Crows have always played well at Optus, but Melbourne have to win to try and stay in the race for a finals spot. Adelaide opened at what seems a good price of $1.62, but we have only managed to scrape $16,000 out of them in early action. Brisbane are "red hot" favs at $1.20 to beat the Kangaroos on Saturday night, and while we concede that is likely to happen, we have been more than happy to take two early $5000 bets for Brisbane conceding 31½ points start. Even Richmond must be rated a good hope of getting inside a 31 point handicap against Port on Sunday. Matthew Richardson and Brad Ottens will return for the Tigers, but at this stage there hasn't been a lot of interest shown on this match. Ben Cousins and Shane Crawford are now
the $6 equal favourites for the Brownlow Medal after the weekend's
games. A Victorian client had a timely bet of $3000 on Cousins last week
at $9, and he has been in stellar form this season. This is the most
open Brownlow in years, and after a quiet period, we are beginning to
see the bets roll in again. Centrebet covered four Rugby Internationals last weekend, and what an entertaining weekend of rugby it was! Ireland put up an impressive performance when beaten 15-6 by a disappointing All Blacks. The big money was on the New Zealanders, including a $25,000 win bet at $1.07, and a series of bets around the $10,000 mark for the All Blacks to win by more than 26 points. They never looked like beating that handicap, and could have easily lost the game. The Maori side travelled to Perth to take on Australia, and they were only five points away from an upset when beaten 27-23. Late money came for the Wallabies, most of it from England, to beat the handicap of 14½ points. An interesting betting game late on Saturday saw some very astute South African rugby punters have big wins when they took the 22 points start Wales were getting against the Springboks. Against that, an English client led the way with a $12,000 wager for South Africa to beat the handicap, but the "smart money" was correct when South Africa only won by 11 points, 19-8. We also took several bets for France to beat Argentina. The French on their way to Australia, were $1.55, but went down by one point. The French will be getting 10 points start against Australia at Colonial Stadium on Saturday. We are hoping that the Six Nations Champions will be competitive, but punters disagree as most of the bets have been for the Wallabies. Ireland will again be getting a handy 19 points start against the All Blacks, but like the Wallabies, punters have jumped into the favourites. Two New Zealand clients set the pace with bets of $10,000 and $6000 at -19½ points, and we expect that support to continue. Argentina host England on Saturday
following their victory over France last week. Of the bets taken so far,
most have been for England to win ($1.40) and also at -7½, but there is
no reason at all why the Puma's can't win again. After spending 10 weeks on the couch watching Big Brother trying to "assess" the form, Marty has now emerged as the probably winner of the $250.000 first prize. With the other three housemates up for eviction this week, Marty is assured of being there for the final week, and is into $1.30 to win. This has been the most intriguing week
of betting on an eviction with all three getting plenty of support. Some
of the polls suggest Sahra is sure to go, so we have seen lots of bets
for her at $1.50, but both Jessica ($2.75) and Peter ($3.25) are also
attracting many bets as their "quirky" natures affect the
punting public in different ways. That man Tiger Woods ruined a good weekend for Centrebet with his win in the US Open. Tiger had three separate $20,000 bets placed on him to win his second major of the year, and a host of smaller bets. The course copped plenty of criticism, so we were pretty happy to "risk" Tiger, but for the eighth time, Tiger didn't have too much to worry about as he stormed to another victory. We never really had any hope in our betting book as play entered the last round. Woods was a shocking result, Sergio Garcia was also a loser, and "perennial bridesmaid", Phil Mickelson had been backed to win $160,000 at $16 by a Qld punter, so we were always in trouble. To cap things off, practically every one of our head to head options went the wrong way as well, so it was not a good tournament for us. Tiger is now $4.50 to be the first player to win all four majors in a calendar year. Originally that Grand Slam option opened at $67, but with Tiger quoted at $2.35 to win the upcoming British Open, and should he win that he will be a short quote to win the PGA, then its little surprise that people are taking the $4.50. We put up $2.75 that Tiger wouldn't win either of the last two, and that has been backed into $2.25, with all that money coming from England, while to win "exactly three" is $2. This week, Phil Mickelson is the $8 favourite to defend the Greater Hartford Open title he won last year. It's hard to know how another placing behind Tiger Woods in a major has affected his mental attitude, but punters think it won't matter. We have laid Mickelson to take out close to $25,000, but he isn't the only one who has been backed. Sergio Garcia ($10), has been supported to take out $20,000, Shigeki Maryama a similar amount at $34, and too outsiders in Billy Andrade ($67) and John Daly ($81) have each been backed to win $16,000 by a Sydney punter. Peter Lonard, one of only three players to break par on the last round of the Open with 67, is the shortest Aussie at $34, and we have seen a handful of bets for him as well. In Europe, Nick O'Hern and Raphael Jaquelin share favourtism at $16 for the Great North Open. A lot of small money has been bet on this event, which is devoid of the big names, and the popular players have been Andrew Coltart (last year's winner) at $21, Nick Dougherty ($26) and David Carter at $34. In New York, Se Ri Pak and Karrie Webb
share favourtism at $5.50 to win the Wegmans Rochester, with Pak
attracting a $2000 bet at that price. Maria Hjorth ($26) and Meg Mallon,
a $41 chance, have been the only others, outside the two favourites,
that we have seen any money for. With Juan Pablo Montoya qualifying quickest two weeks ago, it looks as though a bit of interest has been injected into this week's European Formula One event. Michael Schumacher is the favourite at $1.65 and we have already taken a $6000 wager (from Austria) at that quote, but in a rarity, every single driver, including Alex Yoong at $2501, has drawn support. Punters rate Montoya a strong hope to
grab pole again, with two bets of $2000 placed on him at $3.75, with a
$1500 bet coming for Schumacher at $1.70. Ralf Schumacher has had two
$5000 bets (one at $1.80, the other at $1.75) to beat home David
Coulthard in a head to head, while German client has put $4000 down to
say that the erratic Montoya will beat home Rubens Barrichello at $1.85. The upsets continue in the World Cup with an out-of-luck Italy failing to make it through to the final eight, so now we have all three opening favourites from three years ago out of the World Cup. The plucky South Koreans scoring an equalizer against Italy was one of the best results we have had so far. With a string of upsets, there had been money for the home side, including two $10,000 bets at $4.75, but bigger punters put recent upsets behind them and throw on Italy. A Norwegian client had the dubious honour of the biggest losing bet on the Italians, which was 300,000 NOK ($AUD 60,000), but we also took a bet of €10,000 for Italy while the game was in progress at $1.20 when Italy led by one goal. At the 70 minute mark, one Danish client confidently predicted a Korean fight back by placing a bet to the value of $2500 on the draw at $5, but we were more than happy to pay! It wouldn't be a great surprise to many that the series is really warming up as far as the betting turnover is concerned. Punters have launched into Germany to beat the USA on Friday, including two $30,000 bets at $1.65, while we have also taken a $25,000 wager for Spain at $2 to defeat the Koreans on Saturday at $2. The volume of business on the Brazil v England is going to be staggering. Punters both big and small have an opinion on this one, so we will leave it up to them. We have already taken a $20,000, and two $10,000 bets for England at $3.40 and $3.30, and most of the Aussies betting on the match are prepared to stick with "The Mother Country". An English client has paved the way for some heavy betting on the draw at $3.10 with a $16,000 wager, while most of our Scandinavian clients have stuck solid with Brazil at $2.10. The other final has seen early action for Senegal at $2.55 to beat Turkey. Senegal might have been the outsiders coming into the World Cup, but small punters love them, and while a win here would be costly, the Africans win us a "heap" in the title betting, so we hope they can go all the way. Given some of the controversial decisions during the tournament, several which have been poor, one wonders how long it will be before soccer's world cup takes advantage of a "video referee". Finally, a lot of people are interested
in what teams are to win the final now, and what their best quote was
(and when), so here is the list. This time next week we will know who
the finalist will be, hopefully USA and Senegal! Until next week, good punting. For
further information contact Gerard Daffy at
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