Paddy Power Grand National Offers

As usual Paddy Power seems to be the only bookmaker trying to grab the initiative, this time they have a series of offers for the Grand National to attract the punters.

They are offering Faller Insurance, where you can back your horse at a slightly lower price, (ie, a 7/2 shot would become 3/1 with insurance) if your horse (with insurance) then falls, you get your money back.

They are also offering 5 Places on all Each-Way bets. And on top of all that they have a £20 Free Bets offer.

If you place 5 bets of £10, that will be matched with a Free Bet of £10. Repeat the 5 bets of £10, and Paddy Power will give you another Free Bet of £10.

Tight Bookies remove Free Bets for Grand National

The Grand National is the day the bookmakers traditionally fill their boots when a third of the adult population go out and place a bet on the big race.

They make a fortune from all the house wife, and once a year punters, who stake a couple of quid on a horse they like the name off, or their mate down the pub told them would win.

Not content with just bagging all this money, the bookies tightness shows through with the removal of their free bet offers.

Here are this years offenders.

Worst of the lot is Sky Bet, who have removed their free bet offer for just under a week, from Tuesday 6th til Monday 12th, quite staggering.

Coral have removed their free bet from 4pm on Friday til 9am on Monday.

Totesport have no free bet offer from 5.30pm on Friday until 4.30pm on Saturday.

Ladbrokes have removed their free bet offer for the whole of Saturday.

At least Paddy Power have bucked the trend with a series of offers, including a £20 Free Bet offer, Horse Faller Insurance and 5 Places on each-way bets.

What A Friend for Fergie

Alex Ferguson wasn't long getting back to winning ways when What A Friend, a horse part owned by Fergie won the Totesport Bowl at Aintree on Thursday.

Ferguson, a sore loser on Wednesday, was clearly delighted with the win. He got that carried away he even gave an interview to the BBC on Radio 5 Live, after the race.

Fergie generally won't speak to the BBC after they did a programme investigating one of his sons activities when he was working as a football agent, dealing with some Man Utd transfers.

On Thursday he couldn't contain his delight though. It's amazing how much his mood changes when he's winning. Did he forget he dosen't speak to the BBC? Or did the sort of over excitment shown by Rafael against Bayern Munich the previous night, get the better of him?

Either that or he forgot to bring Mike Phelan with him to conduct the interview.

Tiger cut after Day 1

At times it looked as if Tiger Woods had never been away, he played a controlled round today and is at -4, two shots behind the leader.

The bookies have now cut him from 6/1 at the start, to 5/2 with Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, 888 Sport, Blue Sq and Betfred. Some firms have him as short as 2/1.

For England, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter are up there, Westwood on -5 is a best price of 8/1 with Bet365, Skybet, Paddy Power, Stan James, Ladbrokes and Sportingbet. Poulter is on -4 and is 16/1 with Sportingbet, 14/1 with most others layers.

Padraig Harrington at +2, a full 8 shots behind leader Fred Couples is a massive 100/1 with Bet365.

The other big hitter on show is Phil Mickleson, he is on -5 and is 6/1, 2nd favourite with Hills, Coral, Ladbrokes and Stan James.

I'm still sticking to my call that Woods is too short, I know he is well placed at the moment, but if he didn't represent value at 6/1, then I'm hardly going to back him now at 5/2.

There is still a long way to go, and a lot can go wrong in the remaining three days.

Is Tiger Woods value at The Masters?

He's a best price of 6/1 with Ladbrokes at the moment, a day before the start of the tournament. He has been as short as 3/1 with some firms when he first confirmed he would be playing in this weeks event, which was just ridiculous.

For me he dosen't represent great value to win his 5th Green Jacket this weekend. I think that Woods is just using this tournament to ease his way back into the world of golf after his 5 month break. The controlled enviroment of The Masters is the one place he is guaranteed no heckling or abuse, or no tabloid celebrity style press to annoy him.

Tiger generally plays a tournament the week before a major, so if he is serious about winning the event I think he would have come back earlier and played a warm up event. If ever he would have needed one, it would be this time.

Never the less, I still wouldn't back against him (he is 6.8 to lay on Betfair). If anyone can come back after all what has happened and show the mental strength to win, it is 'The Tiger'. I will though, adopt a watching brief and if his odds go out to something stupid over the first couple of days I might invest a small wager on him. I just think 6/1 is too short at the moment.

In fairness to him, he impressed me in Monday's press conference. He answered nearly all the questions asked of him, and generally always looked in control. He still had a level of control over the press, and kept his cool with them, showing a high level of dignity when asking the press not to bombard the other players with questions about him.

A request, which unfortunately they ignored.

I felt this was a far more assured public showing than his previous stage managed events. I also felt that I warmed to him more with the way he answered the questions, unlike before.

I have heard some people saying maybe Tiger has lost his aura of invincibility, only time will tell. Another question for me is, had it already gone? Did he lose it when he lost to South Korea's YE Yang in last years PGA? The first time Woods failed to win a major he led after 54 holes. For these reasons I probably won't back him this year.

Real Madrid cost me again!

As I'm sure you can tell from the blog title, I didn't have the greatest weekends gambling this week, although in hindsight it could have been a lot worse, so maybe it was a good weekend after all.

After losing a few quid conducting a draw laying, with cover, experiment on the Man Utd V Chelsea game, I got into the Saturday afternoon fixtures.

Got stuck into Arsenal after half an hour, as they were still 0-0. Was on over 2.5 goals, then got on over 1.5 as cover and also laid 0-0 in the last 10 mins to cover the lot. As you well know Nicklas Bendtner scored a 90+ mins goal, which got me off the hook, so was very releaved.

Then, while still breathing a sigh of relief I heard Phil Thompson shouting that Arsenal had a breakaway attack and that Samir Nasri had blown a great chance, a great chance that is, for my over 1.5 goals bet to come in and turn it into a great winner.

Anyway, after that I needed a late goal to get me off the hook in the Cardiff V Swansea match as well, so was lucky in both those games.

Ended Saturday in profit after backing Barcelona on 'Any Unquoted Score' on Betfair, layed off at 3-0, and as is usually the case when you go by the book, the 4th goal went in about 5 minutes later.

Got it totally wrong on Real Madrid on Sunday, my big loss of the weekend. Went in big on 'Any Unqoted', then had cover on 'Over 2.5 goals'. Was looking good when Higuain made it 2-0 in 76th minute.

Just needed one more quick goal for my cover bet to come in, and to also hopefully be able to try and cover, some, if not all of my 'Any Unquoted' bet. Guti hit the bar and then Ronaldo missed a sitter from 5 yards out, I wasn't impressed.

Cost me about £20, but it was probably some justice for all my lucky breaks on Saturday's games. Clawed back a fiver on the Athletic Madrid V Deportivo game with 'over 2.5' goals bet, and stood to win a few more quid if Athletic had got the 4th, as had 'Any Unqouted', before laying it off for a risk free bet.

All in all, it could have been better, but it could also have been a lot worse. Very frustrating though. One thing I did get right this weekend though, was I stayed well away from Scottish football, although I did lose on Rangers on Tuesday night.

Whilst on Twitter on Saturday, I noticed that 'Boatrace' and 'Clare Balding' where in the trending topics, I couldn't help but think that this was quite ironic, given Balding's boatrace. Wonder if she might expose this years winning Grand National jockey to any personal defects that he might have? We shall have to wait and see on that front.

Premier League Darts - Week 8

Phil Taylor is now a best price of just 1/3 with Coral, Hills, Ladbrokes, Stan James and Sportingbet to win the 2010 Premier League darts title.

Taylor has dominated from the start this year and is a clear leader at the top of the table. The main problem with this bet is (not just the short price) that the winner of the league dosen't win the title.

The Top 4 play-off (finals day) format leaves Taylor vulnerable to getting beat by a one off performance, like what Mervyn King did to him in last years Semi-final.

Back to the present, and Taylor easily beat Barney 8-2 on Thursday, following up his week 7 victory over Adrian Lewis (8-4). When are Sky Sports going to stop hyping up the Taylor V Lewis fixture as some kind of explosive encounter.

Taylor thrashes Lewis every time, it is not even a proper contest. As soon as Taylor gets a couple of legs in front, Lewis drops his head and packs up. Mervyn King is the only man out there who pushes Taylor and gives him a real game at the moment.

Ronnie Baxter is continuing his good form, he looks almost certain for a Top 4 finish this season, his 8-5 win over Simon Whitlock was a massive result for him as it puts clear daylight between him and 5th place.

By the way, Andy Goldstein badly needs a haircut, or even a hairstyle for that matter, what a state he looked on Sky presenting the programme.