Sometimes in sport you have to grind out victories and none more can be true of the British and Irish Lions first game of the South Aftrica tour where a 37 – 25 victory against Royal XV in Phokeng. With just 15 minutes left to play and Royal XV leading by 25 points to 13, the British and Irish lions finally found their bite and ran in 3 tries in the closing minutes.
You have to hand it to Katie Price AKA Jordan, not content with being a mother of three, a reality TV star, author and former glamour model (we’ll skip the singing bit if you don’t mind) here is a woman determined to be part of Team GB at the 2012 London Olympics. Katie has been taking part in the Dressage trials since early summer and it seems her dream may come true as she continues to do well in the prelims.
There is one thing about the Olympics that really makes the games worthwhile and that is Boxing. So many great fighters and champions of this sport made an early name for themselves at the Olympics and here’s hoping boxing betting fans that the Beijing 2008 Olympics follows this trend.
They are the ones that you look to for inspiration – on and off the park. Men that are born leaders, that will fight for the team, lift heads when they are down and think second place is for wimps. They are the football captains who carry the dreams and glory of thousands upon their shoulders.
We’re delighted to pick our favourite Top 10 great football captains for all our football betting readers. I’m sure you’ll feel that we have missed someone out so please use the comments to let us know who you feel should be in our Top 10 great football captains list.
Betting is a great form of entertainment and its popularity has spiralled since its birth on the internet. People are now having bets on the most bizarre and surreal situations as well as having a flutter on sport betting, political betting and TV show betting especially song contests.
Through the years there has been some outlandish bets made that are the stuff of legend. Here we highlight some unique and sometimes unfortuitous bets.
The Cheltenham Festival takes place during 11 – 14 March this year and Cheltenham Betting will soon be upon us and across the nation, well over £500 million will be wagered on the outcome of the 25 races so get your free bets ready. The Festival will attract about 240,000 people over the four days with online betting fans adding to the unique fever generated by this meeting.
The Festival represents the first leg of the Spring Double, the second being the Grand National meeting. While the latter offers a majority of handicap races, the Cheltenham meet features a diverse set of races both with and without handicaps, thus producing a different approach to sports betting tactics.
The Grand National Handicap System poses greater challenges of winner prediction, but longer odds, for followers of online betting, while Cheltenham offers non-handicap races which, although having shorter odds, tend to yield clear favourites.
Online betting enthusiasts will, however, still have the opportunity to pit their wits against the bookies because Cheltenham has a history of occasional, unexpected long-odds winners nosing home and providing rich reward for those with an eye for the unpredictable. Nevertheless, form is still the key at Cheltenham and it is worth noting that, statistically, previous festival winners have a better of chance of winning at subsequent festivals. WhatÂ’s more, itÂ’s rare for a horse carrying over 11 stone to win in the handicap races.
A modern and entirely unexpected success on our TV screens in the last four years has been the phenomenon of ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ which has then sparked a great deal of interest for bets being placed in the betting market. Following the ignominious demise of the outdated ‘Come Dancing’, a show watched by half a dozen ageing couples reliving their golden years at the Hammersmith Palais, it must have been a brave and visionary controller that gave this show the nod.
Followers of sports betting will have spotted one or two of their sporting heroes flinging themselves about the place on the show. Darren Gough, of all people, is credited with moving the show up a gear.
ItÂ’s a hair-raising process to engage in online betting for this event, now termed “strictly come dancing betting“. For all its veneer of civility there underlies a fierce competitiveness spiced with a satisfying undertow of cattiness. Bloggers record their frustration as talented competitors lose to popular TV faces. Judges impartiality is drawn into question wholesale and itÂ’s a rare sports betting talent that can navigate these muddy waters and land the winner.
ItÂ’s all good fun and, after weeks of tears and tribulation, the show draws to a close this coming Saturday. Alesha is the bookies fave and will surely take the tiara. Matt DÂ’Angelo lies a distant second in the bookies view – but then what do they know? In this melee of flamboyant emotional extravagance anything can happen.
This week, THE hot topic in the world of online boxing betting is the forthcoming Las Vegas encounter between welterweights, ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd Mayweather and Ricky ‘the Hitman’ Hatton. This fight will be shown on Sky Box Office on Saturday night – seconds out at 2am.
Billed by some as the fight of the decade, and with each fighter standing to lose his undefeated run of victories, the winner will earn a place among the greats of boxing history. As is usual, a war of words precedes the actual event with the American asserting that Hatton is a mere ‘street fighter’ and Mayweather being described by our own man as ‘totally full of himself’. Of course, they each regard themselves in the highest esteem with Mayweather claiming to be ‘better than Ali’ and Hatton awarding himself the ‘best fighter in the world today’ accolade.
Sports betting is offering odds on not just the outcome, win, lose or draw, but also, on some online betting sites, a price for the number of rounds etc. Lennox Lewis reckons that Hatton can take the supposedly unbeatable Mayweather but will have to do it in four rounds. Hatton really believes he can win and observes that British boxing is on a roll right now with seven world champions – and many of them will be there in Vegas to watch his fight.
What a line-up for sports betting fans this weekend. The choice is fantastic with the rugby world cup betting taking centre stage, beginning today but with England playing their first match tomorrow against the USA.
The series-deciding One Day International cricket match between England and India begins at 10 in the morning – see Sky TV -Â and we have a number of Euro 2008 qualifiers to look forward to which include all the home nations.
It’s weekends like this that make you want to check out your free bets deals though Free Betting Online and get your account ready, particularly if your a live betting fan. Many of the major bookmakers will offer live betting, or “In running” betting” so that you can bet on the outcome of a match while it’s happening.
With events like the rugby world cup, some bookies change their free bets offers for the duration, as we blogged about last week, Victor Chandler have upped their conventional £50 free bet to a huge £100 offer.
Also, get looking around for money-back specials – Paddy Power are particularly good for these in nearly all their sports betting areas. They are doing a “FAstest Goal This Weekend” special by time elapsed so get going with your search for the best free bet.
As September breaks, we bring you two extended free bets offers from two of our bookmakers as Betfred celebrate their 40th birthday by offering new customers a £40 free bet and Victor Chandler increase their free bets offers from £50 to £100.
As always, we aim to bring you up to date with the latest betting offers from the online bookmakers and this month there is no let up as the action continues at a pace in the sports betting world. The major event is the Rugby Union World Cup that starts in Paris next week. England will be desperate to prove everyone wrong by clicking into some sort of form to retain the trophy from the favourites – The All Blacks - who no one can see being stopped at the moment.
The Premiership also continues to provide a very interesting season with t he top of the table looking far different from last year but we know that the best teams will always start to gel now. By Christmas, there could be a big change around before the push for the championship in the new year.
Outside of sports there is also X-factor betting which is generating a lot of interest with the usual comedy acts amongst them as Simon Cowell continues to make no friends at all!
With these two bookmakers increasing their offers, others are bound to try to compete back at them which is good news for the punter! Keep an eye out with us on the betting world and what sort of betting offers are around.
