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. What’s more, it’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 Following the ignominious demise of the outdated ‘Come Dancing’, a show watched by half a dozen ageing couples reliving their golden years at the Hammersmith Palais, it must have been a brave and visionary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.
It’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 it’s a rare sports betting talent that can navigate these muddy waters and land the winner.
It’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 D’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 - 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.
Paddy Power have a few free bet offers at the moment in the form of £10, £25 and £30 and we have chosen to represent the £25 in free bets for one good reason. Naturally, you as the punter want to get as much of a freebie as you can when you register with your selected best bookmaker online.
So, out of the three offers, obviously would appear to be the most attractive. BUT! This offer is in the form of a deposit into your account over three weeks after you’ve opened your account. With this in mind, doesn’t a lump sum deposit sound more attractive? That is, of course if it suits your budget.
There are other bookmakers who offer an extended type of free bet offer which does suit some people if they want to deposit money over a time period, rather than up front. SportingOdds is another current free bet offer through Free Betting Online. It’s a free bet that comes in the form of matched bet deposited into your account every week for four weeks (conditions apply).
Blue Square are doing things slightly different again with a free bet made up of your initial deposit and then a further free bonus after you’ve placed a further 10 bets of or more.
Keep in touch with us for more free bet offers.
Fans of free bets bookmakers will know of Expekt, a relatively new online betting entity with another superb website. Their graphics team have really gone to town for them and have created a bright, fresh look with a unique brand colour scheme. As you arrive on the home page, there’s a list of all the major sports right in front of you in the form of their tick box selection list.
Current events are then listed to the right to act as an overview and some of their current bonuses and cash prizes are presented to the left in the form of beautifully designed buttons. You’ll see a list of card payment options below so that you can quickly establish that you can make your deposit with ease.
Way over to the right is the column that takes you to the Casino, Poker, Games and Bingo areas of the Expekt site.
As with all our affiliates, registration is simple and fast. The last thing you as a punter want when you’ve decided to join an online bookie is to be hindered at this stage. Expekt deliver the usual format of a clean and easy to understand form.
So sign up for the Expekt £25 free bet today through Free Betting Online
Paddy Power have come up with their new latest free bet offer for Wimbledon which you can see by clicking here. Paddy Power are one of those innovative online betting bookmakers who like to update their offers frequently around their standard £10 free bet.
We really like the Paddy Power site, mainly because they nearly always have a humorous angle on things, not just in the way they display the current sporting events in their text boxes but over the years they’ve had some very clever graphical links with comical cartoons and flash images that bring a smile to your face. I guess it’s typical of the Irish sense of humour that they can keep presenting in this cheeky fashion and why customers just keep coming back.
We featured Paddy Power a few months ago as the Eurovision Song contest started to come into the frame but now Big Brother is one of their major events that they put a lot of effort into covering on their site. It’s very quick to go from their home page onto their pricing pages and you can navigate to anywhere on the site from just about any page you are on.
So check out Paddy Power and particlulary their latest Wimbledon Free Bet offer!
Well, look no further ! At Free Betting Online, you can find the Stan James Free Bet offer of £25 when you register with them. Stan James are of course, an established bookie in the UK and have this lovely, simplistic layout to their website which makes it easy for you to navigate for your online betting campaign.
It’s all starting to gear up at Stan James for a busy summer of sport, with cricket (England v West Indies, the French Open Tennis, Euro 2008 qualifiers and even family oriented favourites like Big Brother 8.
Your Betting Slip
If you’re familiar with online buying, you know about a shopping cart and how it will calculate what you have bought while you’re trawling through a site. Well, Stan James have a betting slip that will keep a record of what you’re doing for you in just the same way. This is handy! It means that at any time you can refer to it and see what your stakes have been to date and you get an overview of your campaign with Stan James.
In Running Diary
This feature of their site shows which future events are available to bet on “In Running”, i.e. betting on an event whilst it is still in progress.
As seems to be the fashion nowadays, Stan James are also offering online Poker, Casino and live games to add to their entertainment portfolio.
Click here to learn more about Stan James and their free bets
