Sport is made for betting

The lead-in to the Breeders Cup provides some great American racing as the older horses take their share of the spotlight, rather than the classic generation who hog the attention around the Triple Crown. Tonight, at 2245 BST, we see the running of the time-honoured Woodward Stakes from Saratoga. Penning the preview is US racing aficionado and regular blog contributor Jon da Silva, @creamontop . ------------------ Woodward Grade 1 9 Furlongs The Travers was where the three year olds were meant to lay down a marker but the hissing sound was Verrazano's bubble letting down - only excuse is he may be a best fresh. Will Take Charge is sneaky good in that not high time figures but has decisions over Oxbow and now the Travers field. Palace Malice probably the best of his generation despite his 3rd. Now the older horses get to set out markers for the Breeders Cup and Horse of the Year honours in Saratoga's Woodward. Sadly Cross Traffic and Fort Larned are out. Otherwise this wou...

Sports betting has evolved in recent years, gut instinct and opinion have mostly been replaced by databases and algorithmic trading models. One of the very best of those is Football Form Labs who have shared their wisdom with a preview of some of this week's action. You can also follow Football Form Labs on Twitter, @footballformlab -------------------------- Football Form Labs provide the most effective football betting software on the market with the ability to analyse games both pre-match and in-play across 50 different leagues. You can also generate your own models and see the statistical impact players have when they are missing. Form Lab Black is down from £150pm to £40pm – Try Form Lab Black here with Promo-code: FLBPROMOMONTHLY Form Lab MAX is down from £75pm to £20pm – Try Form Lab Max here with Promo-code: FLMPROMONTHLY MATCH PREVIEWS Liverpool v Man Utd It will probably be said in the build up to this match that David Moyes has never won at Anfield in...

The US Open is underway and once again I'm moaning at the scheduling. Bloody Yanks and scheduling everything for local TV rather than the international audiences or the welfare of the players . Anyway, I've not had time to write my comprehensive previews this year, but I have managed to secure the services of someone with an incredibly sharp eye, using analytics and data to back up observations and opinions. Please welcome to the blog Dan Weston, @tennisratings . Follow his work on his website - Tennisratings and make sure you take a look at his magnificent new piece of work, the 'Ultimate In-Play Spreadsheet' . I wish I had the time and dedication to produce something like that! ---------------------------- There are another 34 matches today in the US Open as the tournament continues and the workload for bettors and traders reduces to a more manageable level! So far in the ATP tournament there's been 77.1% holds which is 1.6% below the current hard cou...

It's never easy to get it right when overnight rain makes a mess of your form study but Sam Darby of sports betting community site OLBG.com where members discuss and share their best bets, competing for a share of £5,000 in monthly cash prizes, has had a crack. Follow @OLBG for free tips. ---------------------- Melrose Stakes One of the most difficult puzzles to solve not only of the day but of the entire season. Five of last seven winners of this race have gone on to win a Group race (including Australian Group 1 handicaps) so we are looking for a real handicap snip here. At least half this field is well handicapped so whether you back the winner or a loser in the race take note of those that run well as they will win lesser events in the remaining months of the season. With plenty of rain over the last two nights, there are several to draw a line through (Ed. - preview tweaked accordingly) Great Hall (N/R) Beat Fledged (now rated 98) in a maiden two starts ago and ...

The Ebor might be the headline act this week but there's a higher class race for the top-line stayers - the Group 2 Lonsdale Cup. Stepping up for his blog debut is Adam Webb, @AdamWebb121 . Read more of his penmanship by visiting his blog -------------------------- Lonsdale Cup Day three of the Ebor meeting has both extremes of flat racing from the speedsters in the Nunthorpe compared to the stayers in the Lonsdale Cup in which seven go to post. Sadly earlier this week, the Queen’s Ascot Gold Cup winner Estimate was ruled out of this race by trainer Sir Michael Stoute as he was not satisfied with the filly’s well-being. That has taken some of the intrigue from the race but we still have a top class performer in Simenon who was second behind Estimate at Ascot who has the Melbourne Cup as his main aim later in the year. He was very unlucky when running on to be fourth earlier in the season in the Chester Cup behind Address Unknown before his excellent run at the Royal meeting...

The Ebor Festival holds championship races across a wide range of distances and age groups. The cream of the pure sprinters line up for the fastest Group 1 of the year, the Nunthorpe. Note that at time of going to press, it's supposed to be raining quite heavily. Considering the times they've been running this week, they'd need a fair deluge to make any serious change to the going. Returning to the blog to preview this cracking encounter is regular contributor Lara Pocock, @lara_pocock. Read more of her musings on her blog . ------------------------ Nunthorpe Stakes For many the highlight of the Ebor Meeting at York is the Nunthorpe Stakes, a Group One run over five furlongs. The race has produced some surprising results in the last five years, with the 2010 winner ( replay here ), Sole Power, who lines up in this year's renewal, going off at 100-1. Last year's winner, the Paul Messara-trained Ortensia ( watch the replay here ) was the first favourite to win t...

The final day of the Ebor Festival isn't just about Britain's best staying handicap, there's also a great little juvenile race to savour. Covering the race with an eagle eye is another blog debutant, the astute judge Wayne Butcher. You can follow him via @ WayneSButcher . --------------------- Gimcrack Stakes The Gimcrack Stakes is the feature two year old race of the York Ebor Festival and this year takes place on the final day of the prestigious meeting. Despite the race being named in memory of Gimcrack, who won twenty seven of his thirty six race career, this race has not been a great pointer to future classic success, with plenty of ultimately disappointing horses littering the recent roll of honour. The major exception being the superstar Rock of Gibraltar, who was successful in 2001 and went onto classic success the following year. The Gimcrack Stakes forms the fourth two-year-old six furlong Group 2 race of the major summer festivals, following the Coventry at ...

Friday's card at York opens with a tasty handicap. Contributing to the blog for the first time is Sam Darby of sports betting community site OLBG.com where members discuss and share their best bets, competing for a share of £5,000 in monthly cash prizes. Follow @OLBG for free tips. -------------------- Sky Bet Stakes 16 runners go to post at the time of writing but this is perhaps not as competitive as it looks with a fairly exposed field taking part, only five of these have raced fewer than twelve times on the flat. That quintet look most likely to provide the winner of this contest with six of the last 10 winners going into the race equally lightly raced. Chancery Chancery is the most exposed of those to have run fewer than 12 times and he now looks handicapped up to his best having gone up 13lbs for a 3.75 length win here at York over 10 furlongs two starts ago. He was uncompetitive next time out at Haydock in an equally strong handicap as this over 10f again and e...

This Ashes series might be done and dusted as far as the urn is concerned but there are still plenty of betting opportunities available. David L from CheekyPunter.com suggests a lay bet strategy for the final test of the series. ----------------- England v Australia 5th Test: Top Team Batsman England start the game priced 2.16 on the exchanges with the Aussies 3.7 and the draw slightly more favoured at 3.65. Definitely room for manoeuvre there but my article is going to focus on the Top Batsman market and employ a strategy I've been using with good success throughout the series so far. Let’s get stuck in. 5th Ashes Test: Top Team Batsman Here are the averages so far this series where the batsmen are concerned along with each player high score (HS): England Ashes Batting Averages Bell 71.42 HS 113 Root 37.14 HS 180 Pietersen 34.50 HS 113 Bairstow 29.00 HS 67 Cook 27.23 HS 62 Trott 24.25 HS 58 Australia Ashes Batting Averages Clarke 49.42 HS 187 Rogers 43.00 HS ...

This week I'm delighted to see a few new contributors on the blog, the first of which is James Constantine, @racingfurlong . He debuts with his assessment of the best race of Ebor Festival - the Juddmonte International. Welcome aboard! ---------------------- Juddmonte International The Juddmonte International Stakes is a melting pot of talent pitching the three year olds against their older counterparts in the four and five age brackets. Once the scene of an imperious victory for the resoundingly brilliant Frankel, this year’s renewal presents a far harder betting proposition. One such factor that niggles away at the most confident of punters is the various weights and ratings that seem to blow the field wide apart. This is best seen in comparing bottom of the handicap Rewarded with the next up in the handicap, Hillstar. Rewarded is rated 12lbs inferior to Hillstar but has to carry an ugly 8lbs extra than her younger counterpart. This leaves rewarded requiring 20lbs of imp...

And finally, the headline race in Chicago tonight - the Arlington Million. American racing form student, Davy Lane, @loscharruas , completes the meeting with the preview. ------------------------ Arlington Million The Arlington Million has attracted 13 runners, including an African, a Latin American and several Europeans. This race has a complex flavour. The key ingredient is the pampas grass. The lightly raced Real Solution started his career in Italy. Frankie Dettori and Umberto Rispoli won minor contests on him. He returned to the USA as 4 year old and has since put in a couple of respectable Grade level performances, most recently finishing 3rd only 1 3/4 lengths behind Point of Entry in the Woodford Reserve Manhattan Handicap at Belmont. Chad Brown trains. Peru's Alan Garcia rides. I rate this horse as one the best of the American contenders. He's 10/1 on the US Morning Line, but as high as 20/1 with a few English bookies. Finnegan's Wake finished second ...

More great racing from Chicago previewed by Davy Lane, @loscharruas . ---------------------- Beverley D Stakes The markets say the 24th running of the Beverly D stakes is a three horse race. Marketing Mix is the 2/1 US Morning Line Favourite. Duntle and Dank are generally 3/1 Co Favs in UK markets. Armando de la Cerda has booked a big time jockey for La Tia in Kent Desormeaux. Desormeaux's experience should help the front running La Tia make best of the inside draw. If Desormeaux can lull the field to sleep then La Tia has an outside chance for a place. The more likely scenario is that La Tia will be smoked coming down the stretch. Save your money. Duntle is a very capable horse. I was confident about her Beverly D chances before her latest outing at Deauville. Some commentators suggested it was a credible performance. I disagree. She gave Elusive Kate no race at all and only took 2nd place on the nod. She has guts, but that ain't going to be enough to win h...

Next up on the Arlington card for assessment is the Secretariat Stakes. American racing form student, Davy Lane, @loscharruas , lines up with another preview on the top-class card. ------------------------------- Secretariat Stakes There are no stand out contenders in the 37th running of the Secretariat Stakes. Finding the winner from the 13 declared requires forensic research and lashings of luck. Europunters may see the shipping of Ulster based First Cornerstone as a Team Valour vanity project; they will wonder why the Aga Khan is bothering if Visiyani is not good enough to win; and they will be stuck in two minds as to whether Yeager got on the plane to just keep Grandeur company or whether his late nomination is a sign this fast progressing 3 year old is ready win a Group 1 race. Chris Hayes is destined to ride Group winners outside Ireland, but it is hard to see First Cornerstone being his first. There were high expectations about this horse after his 3 wins as a 2 year...

The British racing spotlight heads towards Yorkshire, next week for the Ebor Festival at York, but firstly for the Great St Wilfrid at Ripon, 'Yorkshire's Garden Racecourse'. High class handicap racing, I love it. Taking the reins is the shrewd Stephen Boardman, @ste_b85 . You can read more of his work on his site, TheRacingGuru . --------------------- Great St Wilfrid Stakes HOOF IT Brilliant in 2011 when taking the Sky Bet Dash, Stewards' Cup and placing a Grp1 company. Only a handful of runs since and doesn't appear to have the old sparkle back yet; others preferred. CAPTAIN RAMIUS Solid 4th in this last year off 7lbs lower before going on to land the Ayr Gold Cup. That race will be the aim again, so this likely to prove a stepping stone after a nice Summer break; classy but has bigger aspirations. BORDERLESCOTT Another of the older brigade and he was actually pulled out of retirement to race again this season. Drop back to handicap company will suit b...

As the world of bookmaking goes corporate, more and more accounts get heavily restricted or closed altogether. This letter, originally published here on Progamble.me - is a funny summation of bookies reacting way too fast to ban punters who might strike it lucky occasionally. Braco sir! -------------------- As I’m sure most of you guys are, myself and me mates are cut off from Bet365. Some of their accounts even had losses of their lifetime and were still cut off because they “believed they would win more than they lost in the long term.” Here is an email from one of my mates attempting to get reinstated. It was so good we couldn’t not post it on here. We will let you know the outcome, if they respond. Hello! My name is xxxxxxxxx and my username for my account is xxxxxxx. I am writing to you as my account was cut-off on the 4th of July 2013 due to being found guilty in Kangaroo Court of the unspeakable crime of not losing money to an online bookmaker on a consistent b...

One of the best cards of the American racing year takes place on Saturday at Arlington in Chicago. Making his debut on the blog is American racing form student, Davy Lane, @loscharruas , and he'll be covering each of the big races. ------------------------------- American St Leger Although eight have been declared, Dandino finds himself up against only one significant local challenger in Dark Cove . The near US$250,000 winning purse may not have attracted more than one other challenger from Europe, but the American St Leger is now a proven pit stop on the road to Melbourne. This may not be appreciated by many Americans who see their industry apart from other jurisdictions, but ultimately it could nudge some American owners and trainers into thinking about how they too can find a stayer that passes the Flemington winning post like a runaway train. Europunters should grab the general 2/1 offered about Dandino and include the horse in any and every weekend multiple. What about...

Have you heard? Apparently Premier League football starts again this weekend, I hadn't noticed... perhaps they should work on generating more headlines and TV coverage. Sports betting has evolved in recent years, gut instinct and opinion have mostly been replaced by databases and algorithmic trading models. One of the very best of those is Football Form Labs who have shared their wisdom with a preview of the Premier League Relegation market. You can also follow Football Form Labs on Twitter, @footballformlab -------------------------- Football Form Labs provide the most effective football betting software on the market with the ability to analyse games both pre-match and in-play across 50 different leagues. You can also generate your own models and see the statistical impact players have when they are missing. Form Lab Black is down from £150pm to £40pm – Try Form Lab Black here with Promo-code: FLBPROMOMONTHLY Form Lab MAX is down from £75pm to £20pm – Try Form Lab Max h...