A beginners guide to Cheltenham

With Cheltenham Festival coming up we have a few tips for the new and casual punter. All major boomakers are offering incredible bonuses during the festival week work £1,000s we have them listed in our Cheltenham Festival Bonus Diary A Day At The Races: Growing up in Baltimore, home of the famous Pimlico and its Preakness Stakes, I spent a childhood filled with trips to the races. The 1970s were not exactly the glory days of racing, but there was still considerable fanfare about the Sport of Kings. Everyone in my extended family had some “secret” to picking a winning horse. My grandfather insistently studied the pedigrees of the horses in each race; my mother opted for a more down-to-earth approach: she went to look at the horses in the paddock right before each race, and placed her bet on whichever horse relieved itself in the paddock. I, still in the single-digit ages, had a “lucky” pair of purple socks.

“Picking a winner” can be an exacting science, and the amount of effort you decide to put into it should probably reflect your own goal when you’re at the track. If you’re really just out at the track for a day of fun, you’re probably safe with the “lucky sock” approach. Let’s say you really want to make some money, though–or maybe you just really like to analyze things. You’ll want to put a bit more thought into your picks. Look at the information in the Daily Racing Form (it’s for sale at the track). It gives you what you need to make an informed decision, especially the horse’s past performance, and how the horse has done with this particular jockey. Once you get used to using this kind of information, you’ll do better at making a good bet.

Things you’ll want to consider when you look at the racing form: Does the horse seem to prefer a specific track condition? If the horse has performed consistently well on a dirt track, but not well on an artificial surface or turf, you’ll want to think about the kind of surface your track has before you bet. How about the jockey? The racing form will give you this, too. If a horse has always done well with this particular jockey, your bet stands a good chance. And what about the odds on your horse? If the odds are high, then you can win a lot more–but the horse’s chances of winning aren’t as high. For a pretty safe bet, pick the horse with the lowest odds–the favorite–to show. (This means your horse can come in first, second OR third.)

Racing has come to be seen as a little old-fashioned in the past twenty years, but it’s being rediscovered as a fun way to spend an afternoon. Remember the old saying that it takes money to make money–if you want to win big, you’ll probably have to put down a bigger bet–but you don’t have to break your budget, either. For your first time out, restrict yourself to the two dollar bets on the favorites. You’ll be excited if you do win, and you won’t be too disappointed if you don’t. After a couple of weekend outings to the track, you might have your own pair of lucky socks.

Manchester United 1998/99 – A historic treble

 

Given Manchester United’s rich history, there are a lot of great moments which will go down long in the memory of football fans all around the world but arguably the Red Devils’ greatest achievement has to be their brilliant 1998/1999 treble triumph.

The legendary Sir Alex Ferguson is a born winner and the trophy less 1997/98 season would have certainly hurt the Scotsman’s pride. Therefore, Ferguson was intent on making amends during the following campaign and he assembled a formidable squad to do so.

The fabled class of ’92 consisting of David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Gary Neville, Nicky Butt and Phil Neville – along with established stars such as Roy Keane, Andy Cole, Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer formed a strong squad and to add to the strength in depth, a lot of cash was splashed to bring in the likes of Jaap Stam, Dwight Yorke and Jesper Blomqvist.

Despite the ridiculously talented group of players, United did not get off to the best of starts and had to wait till mid September to claim their first victory of the season. Then to make matters worse, the Red Devils succumbed to a disappointing 3-0 defeat at the hands of title rivals Arsenal early on.

While United struggled domestically, they were decent in the Champions League after claiming thrilling draws against the likes of Barcelona and Bayern Munich before thumping past Brondby.

Building on from their good performances in Europe, United were able to translate such form into the league and keep themselves afloat at the top of the table alongside the likes of Aston Villa, Chelsea and Arsenal.

A terrible run of only one win in eight matches during the month of December looked like United’s season was put in jeopardy but it was after their blues in the winter that the Red Devils embarked on a sensational 33 match unbeaten run to conquer all before them.

United raced to the top of the Premier League table by February and were still going strong in the FA Cup as well as the Champions League. Then as the business end of the season approached, there were murmurs that the Red Devils could even achieve the impossible by claiming the treble – with football betting experts and pundits all excited at such a prospect.

However, it was going to be anything but straightforward for United as they were being pursued by Arsenal in the table as well as in the FA Cup while the mighty Juventus laid in wait in the Champions League.

Great teams prove their worth during the big occasions and it was exactly what United did by defeating Arsenal in the FA Cup semi final extra time through a wonder goal by Ryan Giggs, while launched a wonderful comeback victory against Juventus to seal their place in the final of the competition against Bayern Munich.

Despite their wonderful feat throughout the season though, it all came down to the final three games which would decide whether the campaign would end in a dream or tragedy for United.

First of all was a must win Premier League clash against Tottenham Hotspur to decide the fate of the title and in typical United fashion, they went behind early on. Nonetheless, goals from David Beckham and Andy Cole saw the Red Devils claim the victory and in turn, the title.

The FA Cup final against Newcastle United was more of a straightforward victory as Teddy Sheringham and Paul Scholes guided United to a 2-0 result.

However, the same could not be said regarding the Champions League final against Bayern Munich where United came back from the jaws of defeat to claim a victory.

Having been dominated throughout the match, it looked like Bayern would crush United’s treble dream but the Red Devils managed to claim the most sensational comeback victory ever as goals from Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in injury time helped them to a wonderful triumph and an improbable treble.

By: http://www.footballbettingo.com

 

Find Out About Betfair Trading On The Exchanges

Typically the numbers of individuals working at home making use of their own skills on the web keeps growing at a breakneck speed and one of the biggest areas of growth in The UK is online trading, in sports activities as well as various markets.

There are many benefits of establishing and operating a sports or miscellaneous trading operation from your home. First of all, expenses are usually kept low, it is not necessary for costly office property or expensive staff, and there is no requirement to buy stock or any possibility of bad debts. Secondly, any and all profits are completely tax free ( in Britain presently at least, though you would need to check that in your own country. )

The markets that you can trade from home are far too numerous to mention here, but are not confined solely to sports. Political appointments and results, stock markets, even reality TV show results are avidly followed by the growing army of online traders.

So what is the difference between online trading and gambling? Very simple, in betting you bet on a horse or a team in the hope it is victorious. In internet trading you buy a bet as you think it to be of good value, after which you are able to sell it to another person to get more cash if you would like, therefore locking in a guaranteed profit whatever the result of the horserace or sporting event or whatever it is. On the other hand, should you think a bet to be overvalued you are able to sell it first, armed with the idea of buying it back at a lesser amount of money a bit later to make your profit. This procedure was completely impossible using a conventional bookmaker before the creation of betting exchanges.

Just what exactly is the big difference between trading the Dow Jones closing price on the stock exchange, to trading exactly the same thing on the betting exchange? In my view, absolutely nothing at all, except of course the ridiculous advantage I previously mentioned that all your profits on the betting exchanges are untaxed. Little wonder then that serious businesses and serious money have been pouring into the betting exchanges in the past few years.

They also offer a hedging vehicle to balance existing trading in more traditional markets and here too the influx of business has been heavy and sustained.

Already there are countless books and courses available supposedly to tell you and teach you how to effectively trade these exchanges. As with all business books and manuals, some are brilliant and rapidly become bibles, while others need leaving in the nearest public convenience poste haste.

All this interest in online trading has brought a huge surge in liquidity that makes it so much easier to trade. On one exchange alone during a recent cricket match, in excess of forty million pounds was matched, that’s about seventy million dollars. On one game! That’s a statistic which is certain to make any person think very seriously regarding online trading.

Betting exchanges are gaining credence and also influence all the time and with each and every month which goes by seemingly yet another nation legalises the whole operation, and it would appear it is just a matter of time until the big betting exchanges will be entirely made legal and accepted around the world. The rapid progress within this industry is certain to carry on, government interference currently being the only feasible barrier to their onward global acceptance.

For anyone who is thinking about beginning a new business online at home, and if you do have a talent for maths, you could possibly do a great deal worse than examine whole business of trading.