Losers Welcome

There's a new exchange in town, or rather a new brand of ibetx limited, which has been operating as a betting exchange since 2003, and which is generating a little attention these days. The problem for me is that, aside from the occasional arb opportunity, it is useless.

Bettor.com say on their homepage:

We charge commission on the net profit of each bet. We do not charge commission on the net profit per market. In our opinion, this method of charging commission is more favourable for casual bettors and worse for professionals.

Note the commission is charged on each bet, not on the market, effectively ruling this company out as a trading vehicle. For "casual bettors", read "losers". It seems that a real challenger to Betfair is still some way off.

On to football now, and tonight's St Pauli v Kaiserslautern is one of two fixtures in the Bundesliga that is rated a strong draw, the other being Freiburg v Hamburg. Weaker draws are the games at Borussia Moenchengladbach v Hannover '96 and Eintracht Frankfurt v Mainz '05.

In Serie A, the strong draws, and there's a bunch of them this week, are tonight's Lazio v Internazionale plus Chievo Verona v AS Roma, Lecce v Genoa and Catania v Juventus.

Ligue 1 has the one strong draw Arles-Avignon v Nancy, with weaker draws predicted at Lens v Auxerre, Montpellier v Olympique Lyon and St Etienne v Bordeaux.

In La Liga* I have Getafe v Mallorca as a weak draw, and in the English Premier League not a sausage, as my Mum likes to say.

Speaking of old people, (it's ok, my Mum doesn't have a computer), Cubone took umbrage at my comment on one of his recent posts, where I suggested that he have someone edit his posts before posting them. He actually has some great sories, and I'm not sure if it's just me, but I do find it hard to read them with all the spelling mistakes, (yes, we all make the occasional typos), grammatical errors and poorly structured content. Even the best writers have editors, and since the content of his blog isn't time-sensitive, it seems to me that the help of a third-party would add a lot to his blog.

OK, back to footy, and if I had to bet on a draw this weekend in the EPL, it would be in the games of Birmingham City v Tottenham Hotspur or Wigan Athletic v Stoke City.

For value home teams this weekend, my top picks are Sunderland (1.91) v West Ham United, Sampdoria (1.77) v Bari and Almeria (2.28) v Real Zaragoza. I also like Wolfsburg (2.1) v Werder Bremen, Stuttgart (2.28) v Hoffenheim and Malaga (2.16) v Racing Santander.

The return of Lebron James to Cleveland last night, but the hostile reception he received didn't seem to affect him in the least. He scored 38 points! The Miami Heat comfortably covered the 5.5 point spread (1.98), winning by 28 - and the Overs came in at an overpriced 2.28. The Phoenix Suns (+2.55 was 2.02) won in Oakland at the Golden State Warriors but the Overs fell short on this one. Both teams can score in a hurry and the last time these two teams met, the score was 133-131. Still, three wins at close to evens and one loss will work for me every day.

I just realised that the SBP's selections are no longer arriving. He must have finally realised I'd never paid him. His spammy e-mails continue though.

* Note that I originally had Levante v Atletico Madrid as a strong draw, but this was an error. It's close, but not close enough!