Sport is made for betting

The Victorian summer of harness racing is in full swing this weekend with a fantastic meeting at Tabcorp Park Melton. The Group 1 Victoria Cup headlines the card but strangely hasn't found a sponsor ('Good Form' is a department within Harness Racing Victoria). The Victoria Derby is the traditional pinnacle of the classic generation and the Australasian Trotters Championship tops it off for the square-gaiters. For the preview, it's over to harness racing tragic and racecalling prodigy Luke Humphreys, @WorldRacingLuke . ---------------------- Victoria Cup Saturday January 30 Melton Race 7 - 9:30pm AEST (1030 GMT) 2240m – Mobile Start Grand Circuit, Group 1 AUD$400,000 1: FLAMING FLUTTER: You’d struggle to find a more consistent horse anywhere. Placed in the last two Inter Dominions and last start controlled the race and did it well to get a much deserved G1 win in the South Australian Cup. Now even though that race is nothing like this particular race, from a...

Inside two months now before the Festival and to keep the blog ticking over, why not have an antepost preview of the Gold Cup? Jon da Silva, @creamontop , pipes up with an early assessment in his own inimitable style. -------------------- The 'Who's Sponsoring It This Year?' Gold Cup Let's deal with the elephant in the room, Vautour . I have to say if there is one thing I dislike about National Hunt racing it's the constant veneration of Novice racing. Much of it is completely uncompetitive and runaway winners of novices merely prospects - "novice championship" being an oxymoron and far too many of them to even be a test. Yet before a fence and in some cases even a hurdle is jumped they are stars. On breeding Vautour's best at three miles like Kempton not the 3 miles 2f Gold Cup see park [course] 3 milers Quinz, Sir Des Champs, un Temps Pour Tout and arguably Quevega who ducked the big bucks taking on Big Buck's. In many ways like anointed y...

You can't blame media outlets for saving the big stories until the spotlight is naturally on the particular sport. This story has obviously taken plenty of time to put together, seems strange that it's a collaboration between the BBC and Buzzfeed but there's plenty of depth to it. The Tennis Racket - Excellent but VERY long. The best quote is saved until the final line - “Tennis hasn’t got a problem because they don’t want to have a problem.” How BuzzFeed News Used Betting Data To Investigate Match-Fixing In Tennis For the data miners, here's a link to the data and the Python code on Github BBC - Tennis match fixing: Evidence of suspected match fixing revealed - short but they have a Radio 4 special due to air on Tuesday night. My brief take on it - you'd be very naive to think that all the corruption in tennis has been restricted to the no-name players that the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) has banned. Too many players nobody has ever heard of, picked of...

The Inter Dominion might have finished a few weeks ago but now it's time for the traditional summer features. Once again Trent Orwin, @themightytrent3 , chips in with the preview. ---------------------------- Retravision Fremantle Pacing Cup Group 1, $300,000. 2536m Gloucester Park 2100 local, midnight AEDT Form Analyst: Trent Orwin Twitter: @themightytrent3 Website: BettingPro Form guide The Fremantle Cup (2536m) at Gloucester Park on Friday night is one of WA’s most prestigious races. I have provided a runner-by-runner guide of the Group 1 feature that outlines the best odds available at the time of writing on Thursday, January 7. Speed Map: Bettors Fire has the pace to lead and Beaudiene Boaz is likely to sit outside him. Alternatively, Bettors Fire could hand up to Beaudiene Boaz which would allow the breeze position to be occupied by Lovers Delight. Assuming Bettors Fire holds up, Devendra will be behind him, Libertybelle Midfrew and Our Blackbird are like...