The Weekend Wager

Posted on March 5, 2010 by Darren Hall

Welcome to this the latest Weekend Wager free betting column produced courtesy of the team at the Secret Betting Club

Each and every Friday we bring together some of the finest betting experts to give you some of the best tips, advice and guidance to help you out with your next 7 days betting.

CONTENTS

1. Mike Says
2. The Next Week In Betting
3. Herbie Goes Racing
4. The Winabobatoo Weekender
5. Skeeve’s Non League
6. A Little Birdie Says..

Ordinary People Making Extraordinary Betting Profits

Issue 46 of the Secret Betting Club newsletter is out now and is full of information we believe could help you start to make or even improve upon your existing betting profits.

Here’s the highlights from this month’s magazine…

• Full review of the Racing Post’s Pricewise Extra
• First look at the horse racing ratings service which is impressing our testing team.
• An in depth update on the main football tipsters we track. Who is top of the performance charts this season?
• A first look at the football tipster that would have doubled your bank this season.
• The horse racing tipster the professional gamblers wanted to keep secret.
• Tips & tricks on how to avoid bookmaker restrictions.
• Double chance betting – Our need to know guide.
• The little known football statistic for this season.
Read about all of this and more by joining today risk free at http://www.secretbettingclub.com
Don’t forget too that all memberships also come with our 100% money back guarantee!

1. Mike Says..

In this column, Secret Betting Club founder and professional gambler Mike Bishop discusses some of the weeks most topical betting issues.

Last week British bookmaker William Hill released its latest financial results, saying ‘2009 was hellish for bookmakers’
Their full year profits fell by 9% – Hurrah! You might think, the punter must have had a good year.
Well that’s part of the story, but not all of it.

When Betfair first launched, they ran with some great PR shots of a bookmaker in a coffin. ‘RIP bookmakers’ the coffin read. For those new to gambling, Betfair is a peer to peer betting site, so you’re betting against other punters instead of the likes of old ‘Billy Hills’. This revolutionised the betting industry with the bookmakers falling from their throne.

So has Betfair finally killed the bookmaker?

Despite its best efforts, Betfair hasn’t killed the bookmaker, although it has certainly shaken the old establishment and made the bookmakers up their game.

Betfair gave punters a new option for betting and that’s what’s killing the bookmakers – Choice.

Like the insurance comparison sites with those annoying TV commercials, canny punters use odds comparison sites like www.oddsportal.com to search through dozens of bookmakers and betfair for the best prices.

In their financial statement, William Hill blamed offshore bookmakers for eating into their margin. These offshore bookmakers such as Pinnacle Sports often offer prices that smash the odds supplied by regular UK bookies.

If a punter can get a better price on Wigan vs Liverpool by a 2 second search, why would you take the poor odds offered by William Hill?

Nowadays, gamblers have never had so much choice, but it can be confusing to know what to do about it. Betfair offers great odds, but you need to know what the real odds are after commission.

Offshore bookmakers are a godsend, but which ones can you trust with your money?

At the www.secretbettingclub.com we cover all these things and more every month in our magazines. In recent months we have published a whole section of articles designed to show you how to take advantage of these offshore bookies.

Not only this but we show you where to safely get the best prices and how to maintain your accounts like a professional gambler.Because after all, if its got William Hill and other bookmakers on the hop, then its a must for you all to get involved as well!

Until next week…
Mike Bishop
Follow me on Twitter

2. The Next Week in Betting

Mike analyses the forthcoming betting opportunities over the next week and highlights a few bets he feels offer value.
We have FA Cup Quarter-final action this weekend with the first game of the round taking place at Fratton Park where crisis club Portsmouth are narrow faves to see off this year’s surprise outfit – Birmingham City. Many people trace back Pompey’s troubles to the year they won the FA Cup and it would be ironic to see them reach the final again, which isn’t totally inconceivable.

Pompey have not been playing too badly lately and you can back them to win at 2.65 with Pinnacle, although I prefer the Asian Handicap 0 ball odds of 1.88 with SBObet. This is effectively a ‘draw no bet’ so we win if Pompey win, get our stake back if they draw and lose if Birmingham win.

The other game that jumps out at me is over at Craven Cottage where the usually very strong at home Fulham host Spurs. The visitors were lucky to beat Everton last weekend (featuring the miss of the season from Landon Donovan) and Fulham are well organised and resilient. You can pick up 3.1 with Bet365 on the Cottagers to win the tie or even play the +0.25 Asian Handicap at 1.83 with Paddy Power.

In the outright market for the FA Cup, Chelsea are clear faves at 11/10 best price but I also fancy a small dip on Fulham with the 14/1 on them with Ladbrokes outstanding value in my eyes. Of course they need to see off Spurs and will want to avoid Chelsea in the Semi Finals, but if they can do that then I can see this price looking very tasty!
In the league, Man Utd can jump to the top of the table if they take 3 pts from their trip to Molineux and Mick McCarthy’s Wolves. The bookies think this is a no brainer and only offer a best priced 1.39 with 5dimes on United but this looks mighty short a price to me.

Whatever you bet on this coming week, good luck!

3. Herbie Goes Racing

Herbie Fogg is the Editor of Key Racing News, a unique horseracing information service, which is free to join. Racing news…with a difference.

Sportingbet.com Grimthorpe Chase (Handicap) (Cl2), Doncaster – 3.25pm Saturday, 5th March
Plenty of usual suspects here. For what looks a fairly wide open event the result is generally predicted – assisted by good ground which has prevailed in all recent years bar one, when it was good-soft. In the last 7 only 1 winner was priced above 11/2 – and that was Skillwise under 9-11 in 2002.

Any weight can win – this century we’ve seen 9-11 to 11-12. It’s invariably taken by a horse who is in good form and suited to the track and conditions and easily recognised as such by the market.

I don’t have the benefit of a market to reference while preparing this, but the top 5 in the betting seem likely to be: Possol, Wogan, Gypsy George, Merigo & Air Force One

Air Force One looks the first up for eviction. He’s never won left handed, although he’s run very well at Newbury on a number of occasions. His mark is lower and he shaped OK on reappearance, but you have to go back to November 2008 to find a RPR in excess of 139. He’s been consistently running 25 to 30lbs below his best and he has only come down 14lbs in the handicap – perhaps he’ll be popular but this is a handicap and he looks too high.
Wogan is a possible. He ran well here over 24fl latest, went up 9lbs for that but has been freshened up and should be nicely ahead of his mark. The downside is he tends to make heavy weather of things and his jumping isn’t the soundest and he’s stepping up in class here. This is a nice prep but he’s entered in two handicaps at Cheltenham and the Henderson style is to leave plenty to work on.

Merigo of course would have bang on last week for the aborted Eider Chase. He’s had a cagey prep to protect his mark, but demonstrated his well-being over hurdles 3 weeks ago. He’s also a past winner on soft here over 24fl and a winner at Ayr on good over 26fl – he’s an out and out stayer but at this shorter trip also looks ahead of his mark – although by how much is questionable. He’s won 3 times at this grade, all left handed. My concern is he will have been trained specifically for extended stamina and may find this happening too quickly.

Gypsy George is in good form and ran well latest at Ayr over 25fl on good. He actually went down 2lbs for that and is on a feasible mark. My concern is that he was in first time blinkers which may not galvanise him to the same degree again and 3 out of his 4 wins have come on testing ground, and although there may be some ease I think we’re looking at a pretty sound surface.

Possol has been in excellent form, doing a turn over hurdles and showing himself to be a smart horse whichever way you look at him. He was runner up to Nacarat in last years’ Racing Post Chase then sent out too quickly at the Festival. He was freshened up after that and has never looked back. He’s got a big weight but is capable of running well ahead of that mark – this is a decent prize and he’s been off for 84 days. Is this his big target? I think they’ll have left a smidgen to work on, but even so he looks the class act here.

Possol – 1pt win

Bon chance,
Herbie
Visit Key Racing News

4. The Winabobatoo Weekender

Winabobatoo are English Premier League, Football League and Scottish Premier betting experts. Using their own excellent football system to often ‘Win a bob or two’ for their members, they are penning an exclusive Weekend Football Guide to help with your bets every Saturday and Sunday.

Winabobatoo Weekend Football Guide

Unfortunately, last weekend’s double went astray when Rushden only managed to draw with Kettering. The selection method used to pick the games for the recent doubles I have been giving you is based around my Winabobatoo ratings and is called the Home Zone System.

Last weekend there were 7 games satisfying the rules for the Home Zone System and it was desperately bad luck that I gave you Rushden, as all of the other 6 won – which is typical Sod’s Law, isn’t it?

I can’t flag all the games for you as this wouldn’t be fair to my paying members, but the good news is that there are just three to pick from this weekend, so let’s hope I can find you two winners.

The games are Leeds to beat Brentford and Stevenage to beat Crawley.

I estimate that the true chance of both teams winning is around 48%. Ladbrokes are offering the best double price at the time of writing – 2.30.

The correct price for the double ought to be around 2.10, so the odds are nicely in our favour.
Please visit oddschecker before you place your bet and make sure you get on at the best possible price.

Recommended double: Leeds to beat Brentford and Stevenage to beat Crawley.

Good luck until next time.

Mike Lindley

Visit The Winabobatoo Website
Read our review of the Winabobatoo service

5. Skeeve’s Non League

Skeeve is our resident non-league football betting expert who each week shares his best advice for this weekend’s domestic lower league action.

Hi everybody,

Four points lost last weekend – we can’t win them all unfortunately. Two months until the end of the season, exciting times, here’s one of the four picks I’ve sent to my clients a few hours ago

cheers,
skeeve

6/3/2010

BLUE SQUARE PREMIER

(-0.25) BARROW – Cambridge 1 (2.10 @Pinnacle) 4 units

Barrow have lost only one home game against teams outside the top six (0:3 to Altrincham back in August) – there may have been a bit too many draws (2:2 vs Wimbledon, 1:1 vs Hayes, 3:3 vs Gateshead, 1:1 vs Forest Green, 2:2 vs Grays), but they’ve also won a few (3:1 vs Mansfield, 1:0 vs Tamworth, 2:0 vs Ebbsfleet) and, if we take a look at both Barrow’s and Cambridge’s current teams and recent results, they should be much bigger favorites against Cambridge who have only won twice away from home (4:2 at deleted Chester, 3:1 at Ebbsfleet back in August). After all, Barrow showed what they’re capable of infront of their fans on Tuesday, when they kicked York out of the FA Trophy and they’ll be even stronger tomorrow – strikers Chadwick (who scored a hattrick last weekend) and McEvilly were both ineligible for the FA Trophy tie and they’ve just brought another midfielder, Owen from Chester.
Cambridge are without no1 goalkeeper Potter, key winger Willmott (both injured), another winger Murray (suspended) and maybe even defender Partridge and midfielder McAuley (both are doubtful), their only win in the last thirteen (!) games was an FA Trophy win at poor Eastbourne and btw Cambridge have lost 0:2 at home to Barrow back in August. Anything better than 1.85 for this asian handicap (we only lose two units in case of a draw) looks great to me.

(2.09 at SBO, 2.08 at 188bet, 2.05 at Victor Chandler, 2.04 at Ladbrokes, 2.00 at Bet365…)

6. A Little Birdie Says…

Roger Green of the Birdie Golf tipster service is the latest contributor to the Weekend Wager. Previously supplying advice under the Tipping Legends banner, he has been providing golf tips since 1987 and has spent his entire life working in the golf industry.
RYDER CUP 2010

This years contest takes place at Celtic Manor (Wales) in October and the European team are currently 4/5 to win. Come October time, these odds could look pretty generous in my opinion especially considering the relentless progress of European Golf.

To help prove the point, this weeks USPGA event is the Honda Classic at PGA National in Florida, and the top 3 in the betting are Europeans – Casey, McIlroy and Westwood. Incredibly, the shortest priced American golfer for this event is available at 40/1!! (Rickie Fowler, and he is not certain to make the US Ryder Cup team).
Paddy Power are currently taking bets on who is to make the USA team and go :-

4/11 Hunter Mahan (Looks a certain starter to me, as he is currently 5th in the points list)
8/15 Kenny Perry
4/7 Nick Watney (Should make the team)
4/7 Lucas Glover (Very, very ,tempting!)
4/5 Justin Leonard
2/1 Matt Kuchar (Tempting!)
9/4 Chad Campbell
9/4 Ryan Moore
9/4 JB Holmes
11/4 Bradd Snedeker
11/4 David Toms
11/4 Ben Crane
11/4 Brian Gay

These guys are effectively competing for 5 available places in the 12 man team. The US captain , Corey Pavin, has 4 wild card picks and the top 8 in their Ryder Cup Points list on the 11/08/2010 automatically make the team.

The top 10 in the USA points list at the moment are

S. Stricker 2,068,530 points
D Johnson 1,963,150
L Glover 1,952,200
S Cink 1,795,017
H Mahan 1,702,210
T Woods 1, 286,163
P Mickelson 1,196,735
B Crane 1,153,815
D Duval 1, 117,270
R Palmer 1,106,202

I would not bank on Crane and/or Duval staying in the top 8, nor would I expect either of them to be a wild card pick.

With Lucas Glover only 116,330 pts behind the current leader, I reckon the 4/7 will be snapped up pretty quickly!!

Thanks for your emails, if you require any info or wish to join, please contact me at birdiegolf@live.co.uk

Roger Green

That’s all for today! Have a great weekend…