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Aussie
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Centrebet Capers RACING Makybe Diva is now a 2.20 shot to win this Saturday's Cox Plate and while the champion mare looks hard to beat, there are a few around who think she is under the odds. As we have mentioned over the past few weeks, all the early big bets have been for Makybe Diva, including two $10,000 wagers at 3.00 and a bet of $50,000 at 2.80. She has continued to firm as the weeks have passed and after drawing favourably in barrier four, came into the 2.20 from 2.35. Lad of the Manor and Xcellent are on the second line of betting at 9.00 with a New Zealand client placing $3000 to win on Xcellent at 10.00 on Tuesday of this week while a Sydney punter backed South African stayer, Grey’s Inn to win $30,000 each way at 17.00. Japanese stayer, Eye Popper was one of the hard luck stories in last week's Caulfield Cup and given the extra ground he covered in that race, he should be adept at any longer races. Punters didn't miss that performance either as the stallion has been one of the best backed runners this week to win the Melbourne Cup. He has been backed to win nearly $60,000 at 11.00 and that was after we accepted two $500 each way wagers at 51.00 prior to the Caulfield Cup. Makybe Diva is an easing Melbourne Cup favourite and is now out to 4.80 as conjecture still rages whether she will compete. All the press surrounding Plastered has seen punters drop right off the West Australian stayer, now back out to 8.50 after vying for favourtism up until his Caulfield Cup failure. CRICKET Australia put the recent Ashes defeat behind them with a comprehensive victory over the World XI in the Sydney Test. The Aussies went into the test heavily backed favourites after winning the one-day series. While the make-up of the team was quite different, that didn't matter to the betting public as the Australians firmed from 2.20 into 1.80, with the biggest bets being $45,000 at 2.00 and $30,000 at 1.90. There is a host of cricket coming up with New Zealand beginning their South African Tour this week. There will be a 20/20 match on Saturday and the first of the one-day matches will be on Sunday. South Africa is favourite to win both but the Kiwi's have a good squad and an equally good one day record. We have taken two bets of $5000 for South Africa to win the 20/20 match at 1.70 and also the one day game at 1.58. Locally, the Pura Cup got under way this week and the ING Cup continues this weekend. Queensland is 1.45 at home on Saturday against Tasmania, even though they only scored 99 against NSW last week. Punters have been keen to take that as the Tigers appear to lack the necessary depth in the bowling department. We have taken two early bets of $2000 for NSW at 1.40 to defeat South Australia on Sunday but with Simon Katich likely to miss and Matthew Elliott now playing for the Redbacks we think an upset is on the cards here. INTERNATIONAL RULES Australia goes into the first International Rules match as slight underdogs at 2.25. It was in this match two years ago that Australia scored a big win which saw them win the series, even though they were defeated in the second match at the MCG. Last year in Ireland, the Irish lads defeated Australia easily in both matches. They picked too many 'talls' but this year they appear to have a side that is well equipped at ground level. There is some chance that the weather will not be good, which might actually suit our side but punters don't really rate them. In the first six hours of betting, of the $5000 bet on the game, less than $200 has come for Australia to win with punters preferring the Irish at 1.60. Betting on the second match for the series in Melbourne) will open on Saturday morning. RUGBY LEAGUE New Zealand scored one of the biggest boilovers in the history of Rugby League with an amazing 38-28 win over Australia in the tri-nations opener at Telstra Stadium on Saturday night. The Kiwis stormed to an 18-0 lead after as many minutes, including a double to man-of-the-match Clinton Toopi before the home side struck back to have it all locked up at half-time. An early second half try to Matt King had Australia side up 22-18 and appearing to be on the way to a comfortable win. A scenario which would have appeased the many punters prepared to take the short odds, including one client who had $30,000 at the opening price of 1.16. So unrelenting was the deluge of money for the Kangaroos that they eventually started 1.10 and 21½ point favourites after the handicap was set at 16 ½. Our opening wager at 16½ was $15,000 from a Sydney client, while our final one at the start was $5,000 conceding 21½. The Kiwis launched a fight back to seal the match 38-28. Luckily punters get the opportunity to recoup some of the damage this week when the Kangaroos travel to Auckland for game two. Betting commenced at 1.22 and 4.25 with the Kangaroos giving 11½ point-start. However, all the early money was for the visitors, including a $10,000 at the handicap. Bradford defeated Leeds15-6 to claim their fourth Super League title in the last five years. In doing so they landed a couple of big wages, including $10,000 at 1.85 from a local client and another £3,000 from one of our UK clients. The continual flow of money forced them to start 1.80 favourites at kick-off with Leeds drifting to 2.00. FORMULA ONE Renault ended the season on a winning note when Fernando Alonso won the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday. As it was the last race of the season, we noticed there was a big drop in business but that seemed a little strange as the constructor's title was still alive. Alonso's win saw Renault win that from McLaren by nine points in an action packed race. As we said this was a very quiet betting affair with punters coming out slightly ahead of us when Alonso won. He went into the race a solid second pick at 3.00 (biggest bet was €2300) behind Kimi Raikonnen at 1.85. There had been a sprinkling of money for Michael Schumacher at 21.00 and also a bet of $12,000 for Fisichella to finish in the top eight at 1.40. That punter had some anxious moments as Fisichella was penalised during the race but still ended up in fourth position. MOTOR BIKES Valentino Rossi was backed as though unbeatable in last Sunday's Australian MotoGP and the Italian didn't let his supporters down when he won easily. Rossi went into Saturday's qualifying as a 1.50 chance but when Nicky Hayden grabbed pole position; we thought we would have a good betting contest on our hands. How wrong we were as Aussie punters clambered to get on Rossi, who was backed from 1.55 into 1.35. The biggest bet was $12,000 at 1.45 and apart from Rossi, the biggest bet on any other rider was $500 on Carlos Checa at 21.00. As soon as the race was over, riders made a quick exit from Melbourne to Istanbul to back up this week in the Turkish Grand Prix. Capirossi is still out of action and Rossi is 1.40 in pre-post betting. There is one early bet of $2500 at that quote from a punter who backed him for the first time last week but not surprisingly we haven't seen a lot of interest in any other rider. GOLF In what was a pretty poor week betting wise on golf events it also proved to be an equally poor week for favourite punters. On the US tour, Phil Mickelson was sent out 8.00 favourite in the Michelin Championship with Jim Furyk second pick at 12.00. Mickelson failed to make the cut while Furyk failed by a shot to prevent unheralded Wes Short from winning his first PGA event. Wes who? Yes Wes Short, who had as many followers as he had bogies during his final round. If that wasn't enough, Frenchman Raphael Jacquelin, who had gone almost 280 events, finally broke through for his maiden European tour title at the Open de Madrid. His odds of 41.00 were probably reflective of the fact he was the most consistent player on tour without a victory. The tours get back into full swing this week with Tiger Woods heading the field at the Funai Classic in Florida. Woods is 3.25 favourite ahead of Vijay Singh at 8.00 and a slightly out of sorts Retief Goosen at 12.00. Best backed have been Justin Rose, Vaughn Taylor, Ryan Palmer, Briny Baird and Jason Gore all at 81.00 and all to win in excess of $50,000. On the European tour, Sergio Garcia, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Jose Maria Olazabal head the betting at 4.50, 9.00 and 10.00 respectively. Garcia was the winner last year and Jimenez the year before so expect both of these players to be tough to beat in what has been an extremely disappointing betting affair. RUGBY UNION The best backed team of the week went down to the visitors from Dunedin. Canterbury was effectively bundled out of the NPC during a seven minute blitz by Otago. The only consolation Canterbury supporters can take from the loss at home is that the Ranfurly Shield is not up for grabs during the finals series. Otago, generally friendless in the betting, secured a 15 point victory which paid a dividend of 17.00 to one astute punter who selected Otago to win by 13+. In the other NPC semi-final, an even betting affair saw early money for North Harbour, followed by late Saturday money for the Auckland. North Harbour will learn from this encounter that to be asleep for any period, let alone the opening 20 minutes, against Auckland is suicide. Auckland has been well supported by the punters in this weekend’s final against Otago. The opening quote of 1.40 was taken by a New Zealand client for $12,000, he also had another $5,000 on the handicap of 7 ½ at 1.90. We expect the Auckland boys to maintain their successful finals record, but Otago have shown in recent weeks that if they show up on the day, they are genuine contenders. IDOL Outsider, Rosita Vai won Monday night's New Zealand Idol. Vai drifted from 2.00 out to 2.30 in the final after sustained support for Nik Carlsson who started at 1.55 after opening the week at 1.70. While the volumes bet were nothing like we have seen on Australian Idol, it did start to fire up when we got down to the last three or four and the biggest bet was a bet of $NZ4000 on Nik just before betting closed at 1.60. There was nearly a catastrophe on Australian Idol this week when favourite Emily Williams escaped eviction by a hair’s breadth. After getting a 'touchdown' last week, Emily had been a solid 2.75 favourite but once again it only goes to prove that quite often it is not how good you are, but how popular. In another twist, we opened Emily at 3.25 after Monday night's show, and nearly $2000 has been placed on her since, perhaps the public is waking up to the fact that the girl can sing. Lee Harding has become quite popular with punters and has moved ahead of Dan (4.00) in the betting to 3.75. Anne has been neglected to some degree recently but we still have her near the top of the betting at 4.50 with a gap to Kate at 8.00 and Daniel the bolter of the field at 51.00 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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