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Aussie
Rules
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Centrebet Capers
RUGBY LEAGUE
Temperatures on the east coast of Australia have been very high and that is expected to continue into the weekend, which will put extra pressure on players. As is usually the case, the first round is a little on the quiet side as many of our bigger players prefer to sit back and analyise the form for a few rounds before getting serious. Many would have read the story early in the week about how the Wests Tigers are the longest priced defending champion since league betting was legalised. The Tigers have blown from an opening 10.00 out to 15.00 with less than $5000 being placed on them to win the title. The Tigers go into Friday night’s season opener as the outsiders at 2.65 and in receipt of 6½ points start. We have taken numerous small bets on both options but nothing substantial. St George-Illawarra is a notorious slow beginner each year so that will surely give the Tigers some comfort. That is also reflected in betting patterns as the biggest bet for the Dragons has only been $3000 at the 1.45. The other talking point over the past couple of weeks has been 'musical coaches', and as it turned out, the NRL have a promoters dream with the matching of Newcastle and Parramatta this weekend. These two sides are doing a swap of coaches at the end of this season, with Michael Hagan going from the Knights to Parramatta and Brian Smith doing the reverse. There was some train of thought doing the rounds that perhaps both sides would be affected by this, yet Newcastle have been one of the big firmers in premiership betting, now at 11.00 after opening at 21.00. Betting opened with Newcastle slight
favourites at 1.80 ahead of Parramatta at 2.00 but as there has hardly
been a bite for the Eels, Newcastle look certain to start shorter. AUSTRALIAN RULES
With the long season ahead it appears as though these sides are 'easing off the gas' when they look certain to win and although there has been any amount of money for favourites conceding the start from the general public, many of our astute footy followers have been happy to stick with the underdogs receiving the start, with good results. Four teams remain left in the knockout competition and the Adelaide Crows have zoomed into 2.20 and favourites to win the title. They host Melbourne this week, where they will again be hot favourites. The Fremantle Dockers will go into their semi-final clash against Geelong as slight outsiders due to the match being played in Melbourne. This is an opportunity for the Dockers to shake the tag of bad travelers and we think they can win. There has been a bit of a re-shuffle at the top of the premiership market. The Crows have joined the West Coast on the second line of betting at 6.50. Adelaide, along with Geelong, are the two best backed sides to date and if they win the NAB Cup, can only shorten further. The wins by Fremantle over the past fortnight have also seen the Dockers firm, now into 21.00 after 34.00 was given. At the other end of the ladder, Carlton
is into 2.10 to win the wooden spoon after suffering a thumping at the
hands of Port Adelaide in a trial match. It was only a trial but the
Blues appear to have not made any ground from last year. CRICKET
We took a battering on this game as we thought Ponting may not have been right and although his knock was on the cautious side, those who took the odds on were rewarded. For the first time this series a couple of our Indian punters surfaced and one struck gold with bets of $25,000 at 1.80 and another $25,000 at 1.77 for an Australian win. There was some support for South Africa when they touched 2.00, including one bet of $12,000 but all in all it was a bad result. The Aussies had blown out to 4.75 to win the series but are now back into 2.60 and while that may seem under the odds, there are no takers for South Africa at 1.45. Betting on the next game has already seen one way action with bets of $5000 and $4000 coming for Australia as soon as they opened at 1.70 so if they were to win Friday's match, then they will go into the decider at a short quote. Australia is favourite to win the Test series at 1.95, ahead of South Africa at 2.70, with a drawn series at 4.50. The first Test begins on March 16 in Cape Town and prices will open at the conclusion of the one-day tournament. A very much under-manned English side provided us with a windfall in the first Test against India. We mentioned last week that every time we took a sizeable bet for India that another player had pulled out of the English side and as a result, India were backed from an opening 2.50 into 1.60 before the test started. That was really the only time that India was favourite as both England and the draw dominated the first two days of play. After that it was all ‘the draw’ which was layable at around the 1.60 mark, so it gave us a good opportunity to balance the books. The second Test gets under way today (Thursday) and once again the Poms are the despised outsiders at 7.00. We have taken a few bets at that quote from patriotic English cricket fans with the largest bet being £500. The money from India has been for the
draw led up by bets of $USD 15,000 and $USD 12,000 at 2.15 and another
bet of $10,000 at 2.10. FORMULA ONE
This is the third time that the Grand Prix has been staged in Bahrain and the two previous winners are expected to be at the head of proceedings again. In 2005, Fernando Alonso won here and of course also won the World Championship. Although betting on the first race has been relatively quiet, Alonso is the favourite at 3.50 and has had two separate bets of €1000 placed on him. Michael Schumacher won in Bahrain in 2004, when he won his fifth consecutive world title. Many experts are tipping that this will be his final season and more importantly, his Ferrari team think that they can regain the ground they lost last year. We have posted the German at 5.00 to win this week and he has been responsible for attracting most of the bets so far. Alonso is joint favourite at 3.50 with Kimi Raikkonen to win the Driver’s Championship and he has been backed to win nearly $50,000 at that quote. As yet, Raikkonen followers have been absent, but Michael Schumacher has been supported to take out close to $20,000 at 4.00. With the future of Raikkonen also under
a cloud, there has been some money for his McLaren team-mate Juan Pablo
Montaya (8.00) and Honda's Jenson Button, who has been backed from 15.00
into 8.00. BOXING
'The Man' has been slight favourite since the fight was scheduled but it looks like he will start a warm favourite even though there is solid support for Danny Green. In the past two weeks, nearly $8000 has been placed on Green to win at 2.10 as well as a bet of $1200 for Green to win by KO but those bets have been overshadowed by some larger ones for Mundine. Bets of $10,000 and $4500 have been placed on him to win at 1.70, as well as two separate $5000 wagers for a KO win at 4.00 and 3.90 respectively. Given Mundine's record against quality opposition, we think that is unlikely but you have to respect money. We have also taken bets of $1000 for Mundine to win in rounds 7 and 8 at 28.00. Not everybody thinks that a clear cut
decision will be reached in this much awaited bout as we have also taken
$1500 (a bet of $1000, and another of $500) for the draw at 21.00 and
that has been cut to 18.00. POLITICS
He was asked on 'The 7.30 Report' about the heavy backing for 2006 to be the year that he would walk away and the PM virtually fobbed that off, so we have wound the price back out. To date, nearly $2500 has been placed on 2006 being the year, which was backed from an opening quote of 7.00 into 4.00 at one stage but has now eased back out to 5.00 following heavy betting for a couple of other options. While two of the people who bet on 2006 have a fine record of winning on political betting, there is another with a similar record who has single-handedly backed '2009 and beyond' from 6.50 into 3.75. To add further to the intrigue
surrounding this market, we have also taken bets of $5000 and $4000 for
2007 to be the year, which in all probability will be the election year.
So after all of that, Mr Howard can do us a favour if he decides to stay
at the Lodge until 2008, providing of course he wins the election. DANCING WITH THE STARS
Alicia Molik (3.50 into 2.50) and Simone Warne (3.50 into 2.75) where the two whom punters plonked money on but they clearly are popular personalities out there in SMS land. The girls now seriously outnumber the boys who have lost two members in the opening two weeks. The irony of it is that once again four of the girls head the betting for the next eviction, with Kate Langbroek favourite at 2.50 ahead of Noelene Brown (3.25), Alicia (4.00) and Simone (5.00). Toby Allen continues to head up the
betting as overall winner (2.40) but Grant Denyer is going along quite
nicely, now a 3.60 shot behind Toby and Jennifer Hawkins (3.25). Until next week, good punting For further information contact Gerard Daffy at Centrebet on 02 9206 8715 or centrebet@centrebet.com
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