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Aussie
Rules
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Centrebet Capers
RUGBY LEAGUE If the Queenslanders had a wish before each State of Origin match, it would be to go into each game as the underdogs. Following the withdrawal of veteran, Tonie Carroll from the Maroon's side that wish has been granted. In the past, QLD punters have shown apprehension to back their side when favourites and they have often played on the underdog status. This game looks close on paper and is close in the betting but since the weekend, the bigger bets taken have been for NSW. These include $15,000 and $10,000 along with a bet of $10,000 for NSW in the half time/full time double at 2.90. With an injury cloud over Maroons skipper Darren Lockyer the money continues to come for the Blues ahead of tonight’s kick off. We continue to see lots of small bets for QLD but only one of those ($6000) has been above $1000 in the past 24 hours. This will be game 73 in Origin history, with the record showing there’s been 35 wins apiece and two draws. It doesn't get much closer than that. Another interesting stat is that only three points separate the two sides after those 72 games, 1121 for NSW, and 1118 for QLD. Billy Slater, Shaun Berrigan and Mark Gasnier share favouritism to be the first try scorer at 12.00 but Matt Sing (13.00) has been the player most have gone for. Darren Lockyer was our 6.00 favourite early in the week to be voted the Channel 9 man of the match but he’s drifted out to 7.50 on the back of that injury concern. NSW halfback Brett Kimmorley is the new favourite at 7.00. Blues pair Trent Barrett (9.00) and Craig Fitzgibbon (13.00) have been targeted by punters with both backed to win $25,000 in the first 24 hours of betting. Last week’s games were very quiet with the Origin players out and early trading on this week’s round hasn't been much better as punters (and bookies) try and guess who will back up and who won’t. AUSTRALIAN RULES Although four of the eight favourites won last weekend we will probably never see another round of results when no less than three 1.25 pops go over. Which only confirms what we already knew, this is the hardest season ever! St Kilda blew a four goal early lead to go down to Adelaide by a staggering 46 points on Friday night. As the Saints were 1.25, punters saw this as a 'leg up' for the weekend multi's. We also took one monster sized multi of $75,000 at 1.58 for St Kilda, West Coast and Fremantle to win. All looked certainties but all were flogged! There was also a bet of $25,000 for the Saints at 1.27 and a series of smaller bets to either win or cover the 27 point handicap. Richmond, the bookies pin up side did it again on Saturday night when they beat Brisbane by 4 points in a thriller at the Gabba. There was some early money for the Tigers at 2.75 and with 17.5 points start and we were surprised to see that close to $6000 in bets for both options came from England. Those punters collected but a few of our larger clients were left out in the cold, with a couple of bets, $15,000 on Brisbane to win and $17,700 on the Lions conceding the start. This week is similar to the last with four home sides being 1.30 or less in the opening markets. There is the usual amount of early money coupling up the 'good things' but some punters have done an about face and taken the big odds on offer for some of the outsiders. The Kangaroos travel to Brisbane without Glenn Archer and look to have no hope but one Victorian client was first in with a bet of $4000 for the Roos at 4.75. The same person also had $4000 on Collingwood at 2.45 against Hawthorn. The Brownlow Medal is at an interesting stage and with all the publicity surrounding Chris Judd last week, there has been renewed interest in the betting. One very astute Victorian AFL judge placed a very timely bet last Friday. He had $1000 on Adelaide's Mark Riccuito at 51.00 and following a ‘blinder’ on the weekend the Crows skipper is into 13.00. This week we have taken a bet of $250 for Adam Goodes from the Swans at 201.00 which comes four weeks after taking a bet of $1000 for him to win at 81.00. FOOTBALL The Champions League Final will be played tomorrow morning (Thursday) Australian time. Liverpool will be attempting to become only the second team ever to win the Champions League after qualifying from fourth position in their domestic league (the other, ironically being AC Milan) and many think they can do it. We posted Liverpool at 4.00 to win in normal time and a swarm of English fans have helped themselves to that and every price change in between. Liverpool were backed to win more than £50,000 in that betting spree but things slowed down a bit when the price hit 3.50. AC Milan have their share of support as well, including a bet of €8000 at 2.15 from an Italian client. We once again have the draw at 3.10 on our side. Milan have kept their opposition scoreless in nine of the twelve CL games this season and that statistic has seen some decent sized money arrive for the total goal score to be 'under' 2.5 goals at 1.57. Our wish was granted in the FA Cup final when the match ended 0-0 in normal time. Although there was late money for the draw at 3.20, it was still easily our best option as punters could only see victory for either side inside the 90 minutes. The Gods must have been smiling upon us as two late goals to Motherwell in the Scottish League saw us get out of a sticky situation. Celtic only had to win the game against Motherwell to win the title. The 1.18 chances looked certain to win when 1-0 up at the 87 minute mark. Much to our astonishment and joy, Aussie, Scott McDonald scored for Motherwell at the 88 minute mark and then again two minutes later to hand the title to Rangers. RUGBY UNION The Crusaders showed the Rugby public why they have been tournament favourites for the best part of the 2005 Super 12 tournament, when keeping the Hurricanes scoreless for 70 minutes last weekend. The 40 point victory was a genuine result for the majority of our Rugby clients with both the handicap and the win price firming significantly from the opening quote. The Waratahs seem to have broken all their hoodoo’s this season. The beating of the Bulls was another popular result for many of our clients. The “over” option in the total game score saw unprecedented action as it was backed from 45.5 to 47.5 on the back of over $22,000. The Crusaders host the Waratahs at Jade Stadium in the final this weekend and whilst they have lost the past two finals they’ve played in (both on the road) they are unbeaten in any Super 12 finals appearance in Christchurch. With many punters believing the Crusaders are the complete package our opening quote of $1.30 has been snapped up and at the time of writing we’re into $1.27 without a dollar for the Waratahs in the head to head betting. The Handicap of 10 ½ to the home side is deemed fair with action for both sides. We’ve seen a $10,000 bet on the Crusaders followed by an $8,000 bet for the Waratahs both at $1.90. Meantime, the All Blacks have been backed solidly to win the series against the British and Irish Lions in June and July. After the Lions recorded a disappointing a 25-all draw against a secondary Argentinean side in Cardiff, the money has poured in for the host nation. The Kiwis have been backed in from $1.57 to $1.47 with well over $20,000 in wagers being accepted. GOLF The ‘Golfing Gods’ have finally turned our way as Kenny Perry, won his second Bank of America Colonial Classic. Perry won in 2001 and was runner-up in 2003 so his win was not unexpected in our camp and was last week’s tip at 26.00 Phil Mickelson was the pre-tournament favourite at 6.00 but failed to make the cut while another well fancied player, Jim Furyk (13.00) could do no better than a tie for 26th We head to Tennessee this week for the FedEx St Jude Classic which sees defending champion David Toms favourite at 8.00. Last week’s winner, Kenny Perry, is on the next line at 9.00 while stalwarts Davis Love, 16.00 and Tom Lehman 21.00 are also in the mix. The event has been very quiet so far. Steve Stricker is well supported at 151.00 after he finished in a tie for 13th last week while Arjun Atwal has also had admirers at $101. Support for outsiders such as these indicates a result is in the wind. When you take into account that favourite David Toms has missed the cut in three of the five previous tournaments prior to the Colonial then it is little wonder punters have kept clear of this event. On the European tour, Englishman David Howell lost his second play-off in as many weeks when he was defeated on the first extra hole by Welshman Stephen Dodd. The win was Dodd's second of the season which is even more remarkable when you consider it took him 11 seasons to win his first. We head to the Wentworth Club in England for this week’s BMW Championship. Ernie Els heads the betting at 5.50 from Retief Goosen at 10.00. This event has produced the odd result in recent times with Scott Drummond the defending champion and Spaniard Ignacio Garrido the winner the previous year. Throw Bjorn, Harrington, Jimenez and Australian Peter Lonard into the mix and some fireworks are assured. FORMULA ONE As we pointed out last week, whoever drew pole position in the Monaco Grand Prix was going to be the likely winner and that is how the race panned out with Kimi Raikonnen claiming victory. Raikonnen impressed in Barcelona and it looks like McLaren have the Mercedes engines firing on all cylinders. They came to Monaco as the 3.00 favourites and after qualifying quickest we slashed the price to 1.85. There was plenty of money (mainly from Finland) for Raikonnen to win but in the end he was a much better result than second pick Fernando Alonso who carried two bets of €2000 placed on him at 3.00. It was a great day for Mark Webber who grabbed third spot and his first podium finish. Webber was 13.00 to win and 2.75 to finish in the placings but for the first time this season, punters kept away from backing Webber to place. There is a quick backup as the F1’s go around again this weekend in the European Grand Prix in Germany. Michael Schumacher's Ferrari was a victim of circumstances last week but he is running out of chances with punters. We have listed him as a 5.50 chance this week but keep in mind he did win the race from pole position last year. Kimi Raikonnen is the 2.50 favourite after winning the last two races but as yet we haven't taken any big bets for him. From this week onwards qualifying will be determined by one flying lap on Saturday with drivers going out in reverse order to the finishing positions in the previous race. This gives a huge advantage to those who will be last out so Raikonnen will be terribly hard to beat again. EUROVISION SONG CONTEST Helen Paparizou atoned for a third in 2001 when she scored a runaway win in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. The win by Paparizou, representing Greece was a wipeout for bookmakers around the world, (including us) as she was backed from 7.00 to start at 2.50. We saw money for her all the way down with one of our Greek clients recording the biggest win of €28,000 after backing Paparizou several times at around 3.50. There were also several big 'top four' bets including €5000 at 2.00 and another of £10,000 coming Saturday at 1.33. Norway was also a big late move but thankfully they missed a place. Late money saw Norway shorten from 4.50 to start at 3.25. There was also a bet of 60,000 NOK ($12,000) for a top four finish at 1.65. Thankfully for us they eventually finished in the middle of the field. Malta's Chiarra finished second while Romania finished third, much to the delight of a new account holder from that country who placed €400 for Romania to place at 5.50. BIG BROTHER Angela was evicted from the Big Brother household on Sunday and while she was the hot favourite to be shown the door, there was a late rally for both Dean and Geneva that saw us eventually win on the eviction. This series of BB has seen more betting than in previous years and there was nearly $12,000 bet on Sunday's eviction. In keeping with the way these shows run the females are under intense pressure to stay in the house and this week’s eviction is no different with Gianna and Geneva dominating the market. Gianna is the favourite at 1.25 and has the right resume to get booted off. She’s good looking, flirts, and voices her opinion. The voting audience which is mostly young females hate that, so Gianna appears most likely to go. We have taken nearly $2500 for her and there has been nearly $1000 in early trading for Geneva at 4.00 but very little interest in either Hotdogs (15.00) or Michael (21.00). Glenn, the 'shearer' is now into 2.00 to win BB and is liked by all the housemates. Over the past week, there has been nearly $5000 placed on Glenn to win but having said that there has been genuine interest in Kate (13.00 into 5.50) who has been backed to win nearly $12,000. ENTERTAINMENT It’s down to the final two of MRR and as we have said before this series has created plenty of betting interest. The only city which was never at the top of the betting market was Perth and they were the first to go. Adelaide restaurant ‘The Greedy Goose’ have been favourites for the past week, due to the fact that they were already in the final but now that has changed with Sydney’s Pink Salt a warm $1.60 favourite. Sydney was only beaten by one point by Adelaide to get to the final two weeks ago and have come across extremely well on the TV over the past two shows. The general comment around the Centrebet office this week is that Justine from Adelaide may have done their chances some damage with continuously acting like a little child. The betting public hasn't been too impressed as of the first $3000 taken for MRR this week only $500 was for Adelaide. The New Zealand version of Dancing with the Stars has been going for a few weeks now and this first series has some parallels to the first series in Australia with punters starting to warm to it now that they have worked out what is going on. Glamour queen Nicky Watson was the first to go, followed by Ewen Gilmour. Transsexual MP, Georgina Beyer went at the weekend but former All Black hooker Norm Hewitt stole the show when he received the perfect score of 40 points. Last week, Shortland Street star Shane Cortese was backed from 4.00 into 2.50 but has been replaced at the top of the betting by Hewitt at 2.10. Cortese has eased out to second pick at 3.00 with another ex Shortland Street star, Theresa Healey third favourite at 3.50. 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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