July 2016

Welcome to our brand new betting blog!

Each week we’ll be keeping you up to date with the latest goings on in the world of betting. We’ll look at the big sporting events taking place around the world, preview matches, games, races etc. Plus we’ll keep you abreast of industry news and events, and critically, of any short-lived offers you might want a look at. We hope you find our thoughts helpful, we’d be happy to hear any feedback or suggestions via our contact form.

27th July 2016

European Football already!

We said in our last post that it was still a few weeks till the football season starts up again. How wrong we were! This week sees top English and Scottish teams in mid-summer action, with qualifying rounds for the Champions League and Europa League already underway. Owing to finishing positions, UEFA co-efficients and fair play tables, we are now seeing some big teams barely get a break from one season to the next. Particularly when you consider that a fair few of the players did travel to France for Euro 2016.

This afternoon the action includes a daunting looking assignment for Celtic, travelling a long way East to play FC Astana of Kazakhstan. They made hard work of getting past part-timers Lincoln Red Imps of Gibraltar in the last round, so they’ll be keen to avoid another first leg slip up here. It’s another 2 legged affair and you do wonder if Celtic would be quite happy with a 0-0 draw to bring back to Scotland. The money will surely be on them to get the business done one way or another, after which they’d still have a play off in August to negotiate before the group stages start in September.

Tomorrow night it’s the turn of Premier League West Ham. They travel to Slovenia to take on Domzale in their 3rd round Europa League qualifier. It’s a similar set up to that faced by Celtic, they’ll need to get through a 2 legged tie here, then the final play-off round to reach the competition proper, aka the group stages. It might be (very) early in the season with precisely zero form in the book, but the bookies still make West Ham strong favourites. You won’t get better than 4/6 on them to win the game tomorrow, and they are very short odds-on to qualify over the 2 legs.

Golf – US PGA

Also tomorrow, the top quality golfing summer continue apace with the US PGA Championship from Baltusrol, New Jersey. It’s a very strong field, with last years winner Jason Day a healthy 10/1 to retain his title. It’s the first time in over 10 years that Baltusrol has hosted this, back then it was Phil Mickelson who won it. As you’ll know if you watched the British Open last week, Mickelson is still going strong – you can get 22/1 that he’s good enough to win here – for me he makes a decent each way bet.

13th July 2016

Football

First things first, congratulations to Portugal on their recent triumph at Euro 2016. By most peoples reckoning it wasn’t the finest tournament we’ve ever seen, but you don’t win it without deserving to. Portugal had one of the most consistent defences we’ve ever seen, and perhaps it was no surprise for them to shut France out over the entire 120 minutes of the final. They might not have won many games, but you don’t lose many either when you keep the back door so tightly shut. Maybe England could learn a thing or two about tournament football eh?

A special mention to Cristiano Ronaldo as well. A cartoon-character of unbelievable strength, talent, ability and also emotion, he might split opinion but you can’t fault his commitment to the cause. His personal dream dashed due to injury, he almost took on the role of coach to get his team over the line. A fine winner from Eder sealed it in extra time, and Ronaldo was there to lift the trophy.

Portugal started the tournament outside the group of teams expected to have a realistic chance of winning it. They were a top priced 22/1 with Coral who will likely have paid out a fair few decent sized winners there. The bookies really did get it completely wrong, with fellow finalists France an incredibly tight 3/1 right from the start of the tournament. Germany and Spain were the other two main fancies, and neither of them looked anything like the teams we’ve seen over the last few years. England at 9/1? Really there was more chance of Roy Hodgson taking the team training on an Icelandic volcano than winning the tournament, 9s was a laughable price. We shouldn’t let the bookies off so easy in future.

Golf

This week we see The British Open championship from Royal Troon. A strong field is out for this one, and there are 4 players all closely ranked by the bookies at the top of the outright market. Will one of Day, D Johnson, McIlroy or Spieth do the business? It’s a tough tournament to win, so if you are thinking of a bet then an each way one is perhaps the safest option. We’ve got odds on the homepage for this at the moment. Remember you can either take a price boost or a standard free bet promotion if you want to get involved.

And the rest…

There’s plenty of sport to keep us busy over the next few weeks until the football returns. Although after the Euros the break is always that bit shorter, in fact its only just over 3 weeks until the Community Shield curtain raiser takes place between Leicester and Manchester United. We’ll be looking at the cricket and the olympics in the coming weeks, plus we’ll have news of the latest offers from the world of betting.

More soon.