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Aussie
Rules
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Centrebet Capers
[Rugby League | RUGBY LEAGUE] It took Australia an eternity to "click" against the resolute Kiwis but once they did, they raced away with the Test 32-24 in Wellington last Saturday night. The Kiwis though, held a 24-16 lead at half time, only to fail to post a point in the second half. In what was quite a good betting game, we came out slightly behind, but it could have been a whole lot worse. A Sydney punter placed $3000 on the first scoring play being a NZ try, while another from NSW placed $3000 on NZ to lead at half time, and Australia at full time at the odds of $6.50. Most of the money for New Zealand to win came from Aussie punters, including bets of $9500 and $7000 at $3. We also took two $10,000 bets for NZ with 7½ points start, and another $9500 bet (from Brisbane) when that start got to eight points. We also noticed a good deal of business from England, led up by a $12,000 wager on Australia at -7½ points. With a lot of talk still circulating following the win by the Roosters in the Telstra Cup, and what might have been regarding the Bulldogs, we have opened up betting to win next year's Cup, and those two sides share favoritism at $4.50. We have already taken nearly $2500 in bets for the Bulldogs, and also a $1500 bet for Brisbane ($6), but the Broncos will struggle without the magic of Alfie Langer, assuming he calls it a day. Newcastle showed how vulnerable they are if Andrew Johns gets injured, and we don't expect to be stampeded at the $8 on offer, and its difficult to know what to do with the New Zealand Warriors, who are an $11 chance. Nathan Brown's appointment as the new Dragons coach is seen by us as a positive move, and we rate the Dragons a good chance at $15. There have been a few small bets placed on Souths ($51) and North Qld ($67), and on paper it looks like being a very competitive competition. Within hours of Centrebet opening next years Telstra Cup market, one of our rivals also opened up betting, and strangely assessed all sides in the same order, apart from going “overs” most of the outsiders. CAN you believe that? The English Super League final will be played on Saturday between Bradford and St Helens. Bradford went in as 6 point outsiders two weeks ago, but defeated St Helens by two points after leading 24-6 at one stage. St Helens then came out and scored an impressive 24-8 win over Wigan. This was a terrific betting match, with the bulk of the betting coming from England. Early in the week, two bets of £2000 were placed on Wigan at $3, but late, it was all St Helens, including a $10,000 bet at $1.40, and £3000 conceding 6½ points start. Bradford have had a week off, but go in as slight underdogs in the big final. They were posted at $1.95, a price which was taken by an English client with a $US5000 bet, but St Helens have been an easy side to "lay" all year, so we are staying put with them at $1.85. [Australian Rules | AUSTRALIAN RULES] In a spiteful match, Australia did a massive job to come from 19 points down at half time to defeat Ireland 65-58 in the first International Rules Test on Sunday. There appeared to be some apprehension by bookmakers to bet on this game, which saw a very healthy amount wagered. Unfortunately for us, the Aussie money overshadowed what we took for Ireland, but there wasn't a lot in it. The Irish bookies had Australia as favourites, and we did open a few new accounts from Ireland who took our $1.90 Australia, the largest of those bets being £2000. We though that Australia were a big risk, and it was interesting to see that most of the money for the Irish came from Australia, so it would seem we weren't alone in that assessment. The second Test is open for betting, and the Aussies are $1.60 with the Irish at $2.20. [Rugby Union | RUGBY UNION] Centrebet covered three of the final round of NPC matches last weekend, and all three results went our way! On Friday night, Auckland gave Wellington a start, and then a beating, when they won 47-22. Most of Auckland's points were scored in the second half, which put paid to a bet of $10,000 placed on Wellington ($1.85) from a New Zealander. Saturday's Ranfurly Shield game was a beauty, with Canterbury taking an eternity to "put away" Otago, but they eventually did, winning 16-13 after trailing 7-6 at half time. We posted the Canterbury "line" at -14½, and took several big bets including $8000 from New Zealand, and a $4000 bet from a Sydney punter. On Sunday, we covered the Southland v Northland game, where Southland went in as $1.45 favourites. Many Kiwi's bet on this match, all for Southland, including a $7000 bet conceding 5½ points start, but Northland scored an upset, winning 27-20. The two semi finals are on this week, with the highlight being Friday night's clash between Canterbury and Auckland. Canterbury really struggled last week, but are so hard to toss at home, must be favourites at $1.20. As soon as betting opened, a client from NSW took that price with a bet of $15,000, but some early money has arrived from New Zealand for Auckland with 11½ points start. The last time this pair met was in Auckland, with Canterbury winning an intense battle 18-11. Saturday's semi will see Waikato take on Otago in Hamilton. Otago won the last match 35-20, but that was in Dunedin. Should they display the form they did last week against Canterbury, Otago ($3.20) can win, but that game would have taken a lot out of them. One New Zealander has taken the two favourites Waikato ($1.33) in a $10,000 double ($1.60), but apart from that, there isn't any early interest on this game. Predictably, Eastwood won the Toohey's New Cup on Saturday, but not before Sydney Uni put up a spirited fight before going down 19-15. We rated Uni a strong chance, and while there was plenty of interest in the $1.40 for Eastwood to win, we did get a good amount of money for them to cover a 7½ point handicap, so it was a winning match. [Formula One | FORMULA ONE] While a lot of Formula One fans would have been watching the battle up front to see what would happen at the end of the Japanese Grand Prix between Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello, Centrebet F1 fans would have been focusing on what was going on behind the Ferrari duo. In original betting, just over $4000 had been placed on Juan Pablo Montoya to be the "best finish" excluding Ferrari's, but following two days of testing, the whole betting option opened up, with Montoya getting out to $3.25. David Coulthard started $3 favourite after an English punter backed the Scot to win $9000 at $3.25, and naturally all our Finnish clients hopped into Kimi Raikkonen, who started ($3.75). We were left with Ralf Schumacher, but again he was forced out of the race late with engine trouble when he looked certain to run third. Raikkonen eventually finished third, his fourth podium finish for the season. The new "Flying Finn" is obviously a superstar in the making. [Bathurst | BATHURST] Punters proved the best judges when Mark Skaife and Jim Richards won an action packed Bathurst. Unfortunately for Centrebet, the safety car proved the major difference when following the ninth intervention, Car 16 (Richards/Ingall) had a huge lead reduced to nothing, and from there on, Car 1 assumed control, with the only minor hiccup being overheating in the final two laps. Skaife and Richards were favourites all week, but it wasn't until they won the "shootout" that we took our first serious bet for the duo. Two Sydney clients each placed $4000 on Car 1 at $3.50, and we couldn't rustle up enough interest in too many of the other cars to avoid a loss, but we did finish on a positive note from the market on the podium finishes. Car 21, which after two changes was eventually driven by Brad Jones and John Bowe, drew a $4600 place bet at $2.50, with Car 00, driven by Craig Lowndes and Neil Crompton, also attracting a big bet of $3000 to finish on the podium at $4.50. We may have been very fortunate to win that bet as Lowndes looked likely to be a contender until a small plastic bag found it's way onto the grill of the car, blocking the radiator and cooking the motor! [Motor Bikes | MOTOR BIKES] Max Biaggi's win in the Malaysian Moto GP has paved the way for an exciting season finale at Phillip Island this weekend. Biaggi scored his second win of the season in Sepang, and will go into the Aussie Grand Prix full of confidence. Biaggi was runner up (by .013 seconds) to Valentino Rossi last year, and these two are fierce rivals. Brazil's Alex Barros is also in terrific form, having won in Japan before finishing third in Sepang. Biaggi's win in Malaysia was our best result of the season so far, even though he started the race on the third line of betting at $5.50. Early in the week, Biaggi and Daijiro Katoh both had some backing at $6.50, as did Rossi at $1.60, but after testing, punters thought it was a race in two. We wound Rossi out to $2.10, taking bets of $6000 (Italy) and $4500 from Australia, but we were also forced to cut the price for Barros ($3.50 - $3) after he met with solid support from a group of German clients. Rossi is $1.80 to win in Victoria, but there is a definite swing away from the flamboyant Italian. Biaggi ($4.50) and Barros ($4.50) have each been backed to take out in excess of $6000 early in the week, and we have also taken a bet of $4300 for Katoh to finish on the podium at $2.50. It looks as though event the most ardent Aussie fans font rate Gary McCoy a winning chance ($81), although there have been some bets placed on McCoy to finish in the top three at $15. Centrebet will also cover the 125cc and 250cc, and as it turns out, both these titles are still undecided, so both will be competitive races. In the 250cc, we have listed Italian Marco Melandri favourite at $2.20. We have taken a bet of €2000 from Italy for Melandri, who holds a 27 point lead over Fonsi Nieto, who is $2.50. Nieto was successful in Malaysia, but Melandri retired after only 5 laps. Arnaud Vincent is our $2.50 favourite to win the 125cc event following a win last weekend, but we haven't struck a decent blow in the betting with Vincent. Reigning champion Manuel Poggiali ($3), finished fourth after a first lap crash in Sepang, and we have taken four early bets (from Europe) totaling $2600, for Poggiali to win. Daniel Pedrosa ($3.25) is also in championship contention with the two mentioned above, so looks a good hope. Mildura youngster Josh Waters, who isn't yet 16 years old, has received a wild card into the 125cc event, but after an early fall in Sepang, is a $501 chance to create history on Phillip Island. [Basketball | BASKETBALL] Nobody has mentioned the "p" word (premiership) yet, but the Sydney Kings got off to a typically good start to the NBL season with two wins on the road at the weekend, and that was without any major impact from Shane Heal. The Kings were favourites in both games, and we won on both when money arrived for the two outsiders. The 22 point win by Sydney over Cairns on Saturday night saw four separate $2000 bets placed on Cairns to win, and get within 5½ points of Sydney, but they were completely outclassed. West Sydney had a horror weekend when they had to go to double overtime before beating Brisbane 122-117 on Friday night, and then going to Melbourne on Saturday, only to suffer a humiliating 10 point loss to the Victoria Giants, who many thought would struggle to win any games this season. Granted that classy import Willie Farley was out of the West Sydney side, but it still displayed that there may not be a lot between some of these sides. At least one Victorian punter thought that the Giants would be in the game as he placed $5500 on them with 9½ points start, but the bigger bets, including $8000, were on West Sydney. The NBL experiment of games on Wednesday seems to be going well as evidenced by the betting on these games. Last night, the local derby between the Giants and the Tigers was televised on Fox Sports, and of the games played so far this season, this match had the highest amount of individual bets placed on it so far the action was spread evenly amongst the two, with some of the bigger bets being $6600 on Victoria with five points start, and bets of $12,000 and $7500 for the Tigers to win at $1.50. The Giants again proved “giant killers”, and handed out a lesson, winning 130-102. The other match last night saw Adelaide travel to Perth. The Wildcats were the only team wanted, attracting in excess of $11,000 to beat a 4½ point handicap. In a tight tussle, Perth barely covered the spread, winning 106-101. Games for the weekend follow, where possible, the "derby" theme, with the highlight being the clash between West Sydney and the Kings on Sunday evening. Again, this has been one of those rare occasions where there has been good, solid backing for both sides. Difficult games will often see lots of betting, but not by our "big" players, and as a result, the biggest early bet has only been $2500 on West Sydney at $1.65. Sydney's Friday night game with Wollongong has seen a $5000 wager placed on the Kings to win at $1.40, with the same punter from Victoria, placing $7000 on the Melbourne Tigers at $1.90 to defeat Canberra. You may recall last week when it was mentioned that we would cover all WNBL games this season that the betting wasn't expected to reach any great heights, but a strange set of occurrences on Saturday's Dandenong v AIS game saw us facing up to a monstrous five figure liability had the AIS scored an upset win. When betting opened, we took a bet (from Victoria) of $1000 for Dandenong to cover a 13½ point handicap. Injuries to two of the Dandenong squad saw us take the precautionary step of reducing that to -11½, bringing the AIS into $5.50 to win. A Norwegian punter disagreed with that price, and went into a Scandinavian chat forum, stating all the reasons why the AIS would win. This sparked a massive plunge, with bets coming from Norway, Denmark, Sweden, England and Croatia. The AIS firmed into $3.30, with the handicap moving into 7½ points. One Norwegian punter single handedly backed the AIS to win 50,000 NOK ($AUD 10,000), also placing a total of 30,000 NOK on the handicap of 8½ and 7½ point start. Unfortunately most of the punters who missed the early handicap of 11 points start did their money as Dandenong won 74-64. The "tip" wasn't far astray, as it appeared as though the inexperience of the AIS cost them dearly as they "coughed up" a staggering 32 turnovers to Dandenong's 8. The irony of the whole story is that the AIS played Bulleen on Sunday, went in as 5 point outsiders, and yes, they won the match 71-63. Only two Norwegians decided to "stick" with the AIS, each placing only 50 NOK on them to win at $2.70! [Golf | GOLF] New Zealander Phil Tataurangi shot an awesome 10 under on the last round of the Invensys Classic to win by one shot from Jeff Sluman and Stuart Appleby. It was Tataurangi's first win on the PGA Tour, and he was another "long shot" winner as he was $161 in our opening market. More than 40 percent of tournaments this season have been won by first-time tour winners. Co favourites David Duval and Jim Furyk were both in winning positions coming into the last round, but strangely had difficulty on the final 18 holes of the "easy" Highlands course. This week, Duval ($17) and Furyk ($18) are the second and third favourites behind Tiger Woods in the Walt Disney Classic to be played in Florida. This is one event that Tiger hasn't taken complete control of yet (although he did win in 1996 and 1999), he was placed third behind Duffy Waldorf in 2000, and tied for 16th last year behind Jose Coceres. At this stage, Tiger has only had bets of $1600 and $1000 placed on him at $2.70, but John Huston ($41), Steve Flesch ($51) and Rocco Mediate ($51) have each been supported to take out over $20,000. From a betting perspective, the interest on golf this week is firmly focused in England where Ian Woosnam is $11 to defend his World Matchplay title. Woosnam is the number one seed, so has the benefit of a "bye" in the first round. Sergio Garcia and Ernie Els share favoritism at $5, but our worst results are Padraig Harrington ($8), Colin Montgomerie ($8) and Vijay Singh at $8.50. Harrington was backed to win $30,000 in a single bet by a client from NSW, who also backed Singh to win $16,000. The Brits went 23 years without winning this event, but have won five of the last six. The first round pairings have seen all four favourites carry the bulk of support, with two British clients placing £4000 between them on Vijay Singh at $1.65 to beat Justin Rose, and another investing £4500 on Padraig Harrington at $1.55 to beat Canadian Mike Weir. [Cricket | CRICKET] At least we didn't have to go through a nail-biting finish before we lost our money on the Second Test match between Pakistan and Australia. The Pakistani's broke all sorts of records (bad ones!) in being all out for less than 60 runs in both innings, and that crushing victory by Australia has killed off most interest in the final Test which will begin in Sharjah on Saturday. The only thing that might "save" the game as a spectacle will be the scrutiny that the Waugh brothers are under. Australia opened the betting on Wednesday at $1.40, and straight away a Sydney client plonked $10,000 on that option. The draw is "unlayable" at $4.20, but there are a few punters who think that Pakistan can rebound, and have taken the $9. There is also a Test match which begins today between India and West Indies in Chenai. India are the $1.60 favourites, and while none of our Indian punters have found that price appealing, one Victorian punter has outlayed $12,500 at that quote. The Australian domestic season is now well and truly under way, with two Pura Cup matches played during this week, and both games will be repeated in the One Day format (ING Cup) at the weekend. On Saturday, South Australia are $1.65 to beat Victoria ($2.20), with an early bet of $3000 coming for South Australia, while Qld are $1.40 to beat NSW on Sunday. The Ashes betting is up, with Australia $1.16 to win the series. We have found a few punters who think England can score a "miracle" win at $10, and even one (from England) who has gone for five miracles, England to win the series 5-0 at $401! He has only placed £5 on, but I think we can safely assume that we will be winning that bet! Run-making machine Matthew Hayden has been backed to take out $10,000 at $5.50 to top the series run totals, but Ricky Ponting ($5.50) is also popular of the English batsmen, Marcus Trescothick has been backed to take out $24,000 in two bets at $12, with Mark Butcher ($15) the only other who is considered a threat by punters. It seems quite strange to put up a series batting market with the Waugh twins in it and not attract any money for them, but with the noose hanging over both, we have only taken $50 for Steve at $11, and nothing for Mark at the same odds. [Racing | RACING] The heavily backed Fields of Omagh is $5 to win Saturday's Caulfield Cup. Three weeks ago we laid Fields of Omagh to lose $100,000 at $13, but the Tony McEvoy galloper isn't the only horse in the market who has been backed to take out big money. Northerly remains second favourite at $5.50, but in the last seven days, Republic Lass ($10), Pentastic ($10) and The SecondMortgage ($26) have all been backed to take out in excess of $50,000. We aren't left with much on our side, apart from perhaps Helene Vitality ($17) who was seen motoring home two weeks ago. Vinnie Roe is under a cloud in the Melbourne Cup following an admission from the stable that the horse is struggling following the long trip from Ireland. Vinnie Roe is back out to $8, and is being hotly pressed for favoritism by Pugin ($9), who was runner-up to Vinnie Roe in the Irish St Leger. The past week has seen the first decent push for two of the Australian horses with a $1500 each way bet for Magical Miss at $10, and a $2500 win bet for Rain Gauge at $15. [American Football | AMERICAN FOOTBALL] One Norwegian client could justifiably think the gods weren't smiling on him following the late NFL game on Sunday night. He had coupled up two Norwegian Division One football teams, six South American football teams, two NHL Ice Hockey sides and two NFL sides to win for an outlay of the equivalent of $20 at odds of just over 1000/1. In a mighty fine "tipping" performance, the first 11 won, and the result was hinging on whether or not Denver ($1.55) would beat Miami. Denver were down 21-19 inside the last minute before they scored a 55 yard field goal with 35 seconds left on the clock. That should have been enough to see the Bronco's through, but amazingly Miami did exactly the same thing, scoring a 53 yard field goal with 6 seconds left on the clock to win 24-22. Favourite backers again had a horror round of NFL when only five of the fourteen covered the spread. Followers of the early trends would have shown a profit when Pittsburgh and Green Bay both won easily, but a big push for Jacksonville missed when they were beaten 23-14. Jacksonville were the best backed side for the week, carrying bets of $16,000, $10,000 and $9500 to beat a 1½ point handicap. Tampa Bay had the honour of landing the biggest winning bet when an Australian client had $22,000 on the Buccaneers at -7 against Cleveland. Tampa Bay won 17-3, and are now $7.50 equal favourite to win the Superbowl. This week, Denver, Detroit and Pittsburgh have been the early movers. The -2½ Denver over Kansas was taken by an Australian client with a $10,000 wager, Detroit (+3) had two $5500 bets placed on them from Canada in the game against Chicago, and a New Zealand client pitched in with $9500 for Pittsburgh to beat a 4 point handicap. [Soccer | SOCCER] Fans of England got the money in last Saturday's Euro 2004 qualifier against Slovakia, but they would be the first to admit things weren't looking too good when Slovakia scored first. A $100,000 plunge forced England in from an opening $1.72 to $1.63 at kick off. There were also plenty of smiling faces in Norway when Norway beat Romania 1-0. Several big bets won when Norway saluted, including 35,000 NOK and 25,000 NOK at $4.10. That was the bad news, but the defeats of Belarus ($2.20), and Poland ($1.28) by Austria and Latvia respectively, and Yugoslavia holding Italy to a 1-1 draw more than compensated. The midweek round of matches also saw big betting take place, with a $50,000 bet (Malaysia) placed on the Czech Republic at $1.30 to beat Belarus, and two $25,000 bets, one from Austria, the other from Singapore, placed on Holland ($1.85 and $1.80) to defeat Austria. Both those sides had convincing wins, but Macedonia holding England to a 2-2 draw was a massive result as nearly every multiple bet was through England at $1.10. Full fixtures are back on the menu this weekend, and it was only a matter of minutes after opening the English Premier League matches that we received our first influx of bets. Two bets from Asia totaling $37,000 were placed on Arsenal at $1.70 to defeat Everton, a $10,000 bet, also from Asia, went on Blackburn ($2.50) to beat Newcastle, while and English client placed £2000 on West Ham ($3.75), who are away to Sunderland. Betting has been opened on this week's Norwegian Tippeligaen, so we already have taken a good amount of money, but there haven't really been and "standout" pushes. The biggest bet of the round has been 60,000 NOK ($AUD 12,000) for Rosenborg ($1.55) who play away to Sognal, but of all other favourites, only Viking, $1.70 at home to Bryne seem to be the most likely to shorten. 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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