Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew
The Road to Riches Weekend of 26th-27th April
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Doncaster, Haydock, Leicester, Ripon, over the jumps at Sandown and on the all-weather at Wolverhampton.
- Football, FA Cup Semi Finals and Premier League fixtures including Liverpool v Tottenham
- Cricket, the IPL continues
- Snooker, the 2025 World Championship continues
- Golf, The Byron Nelson Championship on the USPGA Tour
- Tennis, ATP Madrid Open continues
Royal Ascot
Neil’s Royal Ascot (Full Package 17th - 21st June 2025) is now live for subscription costing £199 Here
Free Tip
IPL Delhi Capitals v Royal Challengers Bangalore 3pm Sunday
Halfway through the group stages and so far our 12-1 ante-post bet on the Delhi Capitals is going well, they are second in the table with six wins from eight games, the latest a comfortable win over Lucknow on Tuesday a return to form following a couple of setbacks after five successive wins to start the tournament.
This in a tournament where a few of the fancied teams, notably Chennai and Sunrisers have been struggling. RCB meanwhile have played 9 games and lie third with 6 wins most recently beating Rajasthan who botched their chase.
Across the 2025 IPL recruitment has been a major factor and for Delhi the arrival of KL Rahul to bat in the middle order (Delhi top scorer with 323 runs, including three fifties, at an average of 65) and Mitchell Starc (11 wickets) to lead the bowling attack have been key to their improvement in fortunes this season.
Starc has 17 wickets in the first six overs of the innings since the start of last season, more than any bowler. However this has come at a cost. Since his return to the IPL in 2024, no bowler has a worse Total Bowling Impact* inside the Powerplay than Starc's -100.8, coming at an average of -4.8 per game.
(*Total Bowling impact = a Cricviz measure designed to provide an objective look at bowling performance, beyond traditional metrics of average, economy rate and strike rate providing a single figure that can be compared between players and across conditions. The higher the impact score, the better. The higher the negative score, the worse)
Left arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav is meanwhile having an “all-time” season so far. His Average Bowling Impact of +13.7 is currently the best for any spinner in any season of the IPL. Bowling to lower order batsmen (7-11) in the IPL since 2022 he has only allowed 117 runs from 142 balls taking 16 wickets at a 7.31 average and a 4.94 economy rate. No bowler has a lower average to the tail in this timeframe.
This might matter against RCB which is a very top-heavy batting order with top scorer Kohli (322 runs), Padikkal and Salt up top with Livingstone and Tim David in the middle order but very little in the way of lower order runs. The key bowler is Josh Hazlewood has been exceptional in the final overs this season with seven wickets, conceding at 8.6 rpo & strike rate of 9.2 with an average bowling impact of +2.4. Of all pace bowlers this season, only Jasprit Bumrah (+5.5) has a higher average bowling impact.
So far in the 2025 IPL Delhi’s two main bowling options have performed as follows:
Yadav 32 overs, 208 runs 12 wickets at 6 runs per over (best economy in the 2025 IPL)
Starc 29 overs 292 runs 11 wickets at 10 runs per over.
Odds in the Delhi top bowler market are:
Yadav 13/5
Starc 14/5
4/1 bar including all the domestic bowlers.
This includes veteran Mohit Sharma and Mukesh Kumar who has 9 wickets so far including 4/33 in this week’s Lucknow win.
In terms of the IPL at Delhi so far, the venue has seen scores of 163, 205 and 188. A decent batting wicket.
Between these two sides RCB chased 163 to win with two overs to spare by six wickets earlier this season in Bengaluru.
10 points Kuldeep Yadav Top Delhi Capitals bowler at 9/5 with William Hill, 13/5 Betfair Sportsbook/Paddy Power, 23/10 Bet Victor, 9/4 Bet365 and Ladbrokes/Coral
County Change
The County Championship looks increasingly likely to be cut from 14 matches to 12 per team from 2026 after another review of the domestic structure.
The new 2025 season could be the last to feature 14 matches per team as a review is held into how to improve the domestic schedule, with Rob Andrew, the England and Wales Cricket Board’s managing director, saying all three county competitions “can be improved”.
The schedule was last cut from 16 to 14 matches ahead of the 2017 season, but there has been a looming threat in recent seasons that further reductions could come. The 2022 Strauss revieww recommended a radical reduction to 10 Championship matches and was thrown out by the county chairs, who require a two-thirds majority to enact any change.
Andrew believes there is more of an appetite for change among county leaders three years on, with the global landscape of the game changing rapidly and the Professional Cricketers’ Association regularly calling for a reduction in the overall volume of cricket.
ECB officials say there is little interest in reducing the Championship to 10 matches but there is much discussion about dropping to 12. In addition, the 14 matches played in the Vitality Blast is in line for a cut to 12 with a view that the Blast needs a refresh, to give it renewed energy lost a little bit through the Hundred in recent years. Meanwhile, it is understood that there is a desire to see a portion of the Metro Bank One-Day Cup played at the start of the season, not entirely concurrent with the Hundred.
Volume of cricket is at the heart of the debate. The high-performance review was very much focused on performance only mainly the performance of the England team. This is a county led review focused on the domestic game cricket. What that looks like in terms of the number of games that are played will come out in the wash.
Any changes would be made in time for the 2026 season which is also likely to be the first with a full bells-and-whistles Hundred tournament, following the sale of stakes in the eight teams earlier this year.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 8th February 2025. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £68,468 All bets have an ROI +2.71%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £72,468, a 1711% increase.
The Road to Riches Weekend of 19th-20th April
Coming up this Weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Musselburgh, over the jumps at Carlisle, Haydock and Huntingdon and on the all-weather at Wolverhampton
- Football, Premier League fixtures include Aston Villa v Newcastle United
- Cricket, the IPL continues
- Snooker, the start of the 2025 World Championship
- Formula One, the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix
- Golf, The Zurich Classic of New Orleans on the USPGA Tour and the Hainan Classic on the DP World Tour
- Tennis, ATP Madrid Open
Royal Ascot
Neil’s Royal Ascot (Full Package 17th - 21st June 2025) is now live for subscription costing £199 Here
Free Tip
The 2025 World Snooker Championship
First things first lets look at the shape of the draw making a simple assumption that if the Quarter-Final line-up is according to seedings, what does it look like?
Wilson v Allen
Selby v O’Sullivan
-------------------
Higgins v Williams
Brecel v Trump
Of course it’s highly unlikely to play out like this. Last year for example eight top sixteen seeds fell in the first round and such is the depth of the tour/strength of the qualifiers these days that something similar is very possible this year. Note the 16 Qualifiers include 5 former top sixteen seeds and of the record 10 Chinese players in the event six are young qualifiers including Xintong who hit 12 centuries in the Qualifiers and has a nice opening draw. Only three of the qualifiers are debutants.
You could also make a strong case that the 9th seed Neil Robertson would be a second-round favourite over 8th seed Mark Allen and 10th seed Ding Junhui would certainly be a warm favourite over 7th seed Luca Brecel (down to 47th in the provisional rankings after a wretched two years since he won his 2023 title) in the second round.
A fortnight ago I was planning to write this column and highlight the 7/1 each-way value on defending World Champion Kyren Wilson, who has been a “good” World Champion on and off the field. He’s won four more ranking titles this season and has beaten 7/2 tournament favourite Judd Trump in 3 ranking finals this season, is 6-1 over Trump in their last seven meetings and now 17-20 all-time against him.
Then John Higgins rose all the way up to number 3 in the seed rankings after his late season form including winning the Tour Championship (a 12-player ranking event) recently. This put Selby into Wilson’s half and gave Wilson a path to the title that realistically could go Xintong>Robertson>Selby>Trump. That would take some doing, without even considering that Ronnie might come through a Selby Quarter, a complete wild card as he hasn’t played since January and frankly we don’t know what Ronnie will show up.
I then re-looked at the outright market to search for value elsewhere, most likely in the far softer looking bottom half. After all the last two winners of the event have been at 50/1 (Brecel) and 28/1 (Wilson) pre the Crucible stages.
The market at the time of writing is as follows:
Trump 7/2
Selby 11/2
Wilson 7/1
O’Sullivan 7/1
Robertson 12/1
Higgins 12/1
Zintong 14/1 (back from ban, unseeded playing as amateur, no seed will want to draw him)
Allen 14/1
Murphy 16 /1
Hawkins 22/1
Ding 25/1
The third Quarter in particular drew my attention. Here we have Higgins, Xiao Guodong, Barry Hawkins and Mark Williams.
Because of his form in the second half of the season I regard 50-year-old Higgins as a “false” seed in terms of his position at number 3. At seed 6 Mark Williams has been struggling with his eyesight, experimenting with contacts, but was very out of form in both the players and tour Championships recently.
This looks to me a very winnable quarter for Barry Hawkins whose route to the latter stages of Williams>Higgins>Trump gives him a realistic shot of a semi-final, and were Trump to not go deep who knows beyond that?
Hawkins is known for his six-year Crucible span from 2013-18 where he made a World final, four semi-finals and a quarter-final. He then fell out of the top 16 but worked his way back on and recent form this season is consistent, reaching the semi-finals of the Tour Championships beating Trump 10-5 along the way, and he lost 10-9 to Wilson in the final of the German Masters and 10-8 to Trump in the final of the UK. He hasn't got the easiest first round draw with Vafaei who is just 7/4 to beat him but that has led to some 25/1+ being around outright.
I have been waiting for odds for the Quarters, not available as I publish but worth a look at the odds to win the Third Quarter if markets go up before Saturday.
EDIT 12.30pm Friday: Third Quarter odds are Higgins 2/1 Hawkins 7/2 Williams 13/2 Guodong 13/2 with Bet365.
Something more speculative would be the 20/1+ each-way for the title. Plenty of seeds falling along the way in the bottom half would help that along, with Judd Trump being the obvious obstacle if he won the Quarter.
8 points each way (1/2 1,2) Barry Hawkins to win the World Championship at 28/1 StarSports, 25/1 BetVictor and Betfair Sportsbook/Paddy Power, 22/1 Ladbrokes/Coral and Betfred, 20/1 widely available
Under Strain
The competitive element of the Premier League works partly because it keeps the ratio of prize money earned by its top-earning club roughly no bigger than 1.8 times the size of its lowest earner.
There was a time when the international rights revenue was simply divided by 20, but as that became a growth area so the biggest clubs insisted that part of it should be dictated by merit payments. The prize pot for this year’s FIFA Club World Cup is $1 billion, which will only widen the gap between the smaller teams and elite clubs, and the ratio has become strained in recent years.
There is a squeeze from the top global and European tournaments on the Premier League’s competitiveness. But it also comes from the other end and the Football Governance Bill, currently in the House of Lords, proposes assigning to the new independent regulator powers to do what the government has decided is most crucial for football: keeping it all sustainable.
No clubs are better equipped to deal with heavy government regulation than the biggest and the wealthiest. Not so the smaller clubs who might live on recruitment or data models: Brighton and Bournemouth for example. They are less able to lodge bonds to cover themselves for whatever doomsday scenario the regulator might imagine. That will severely curtail their competitiveness.
For ambitious clubs outside the elite there is much to concern them. Parachute payments are now a matter of some uncertainty. It is understood the regulator would have power to determine the value of parachute payments in the second and third years a club spends outside the Premier League after relegation.
No ambitious club can plan for the Premier League without parachute payments. No serious ownership can invest in the playing squad without the certainty that it will be able to manage those contracts in the event of relegation, which even for a well-run team must always be considered a possibility.
The likely teams facing relegation this year are the three promoted clubs but they all invested to varying degrees in being competitive last summer. In Ipswich Town’s case, to the tune of more than £100 million net. None of them could have done so without the safety net of a parachute payment that is, for now at least, set at a percentage of the 20th-placed club’s earnings, that falls year on year for three seasons.
The clubs are already subject to the profit and sustainability rules designed to keep the league competitive by trying to stop the wealthiest owners breaking the market. But the other side of the coin is the smaller clubs keeping their part of the bargain investing in competitive squads that sustain the jeopardy of match day.
If clubs are prevented from challenging those at the top then the league itself ceases to be what it was: competitive enough that the best can never be sure of winning from match day to match day.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 8th February 2025. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £68,468 All bets have an ROI +2.71%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £72,468, a 1711% increase.
The Road to Riches Weekend of 12th-13th April
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Brighton, Newbury, Nottingham and Thirsk, over the jumps at Ayr and Bangor-on-Dee.
- Football, Premier League fixtures include Newcastle United v Manchester United
- Rugby Union, the Investec Champions Cup Quarter Finals
- Cricket, the IPL continues
- Formula One, the Bahrain Grand Prix
- Golf, The RBC Heritage and Corales Punta Cana Championships on the USPGA Tour and the China Open on the DP World Tour
- Tennis, ATP BMW and Barcelona Opens
Royal Ascot
Neil’s Royal Ascot (Full Package 17th - 21st June 2025) is now live for subscription costing £199 Here
Free Tip
European Rugby Champions Cup Quarter Finals
Toulon v Toulouse Sunday 4pm
After last weekend’s last sixteen ties, Leinster are favourites for this year’s Champions Cup:
Leinster 5/4
Toulouse 15/8
Bordeaux 4/1
Northampton 16/1
Toulon 22/1
Glasgow 22/1
Munster 50/1
Castres 125/1
Undoubtedly the competition has some issues. 2023 and 2024 saw only 2 of 24 ties in the last sixteen and Quarter Finals won by away teams. 2025 saw only 1 of 8 last sixteen ties won by the away team, a famous win by Munster in La Rochelle.
Six of this year’s Quarterfinalists are Irish or French with sides form both countries having the structural advantage of the biggest salary cap (France) and best academy system (Ireland).
For the English sides the last sixteen saw only the fifth time a Premiership side conceded 60 points or more in a Champions Cup tie, and it was Saracens no less and then it happened again, Harlequins shipping 62 points in Dublin and losing 62-0 to Leinster.
Only Bath, Northampton and Gloucester have reached the last eight of the Champions Cup and Challenge cup combined, testament to how far behind our domestic competition is compared to the best in Europe.
That Northampton had a home tie in the last sixteen and a home tie in the last 8 against the weakest of the remaining French sides is a benefit of the sub-optimal tournament structure that seeds the last sixteen by Pool finishes. Last year’s finalists are also a major beneficiary in a half of the draw without the major French sides and with a path to the final going Harlequins/Glasgow/Northampton. Northampton is a side in the bottom half of the Premiership. Frankly it’s a surprise they are not odds-on for the tournament at this stage.
For Bordeaux, my ante-post tip, their “reward” for being the top seed into the knockout phase is a likely semi-final against Toulon or Toulouse (who they finished ahead of in their pool) the three sides making up three of the current top four in the Top 14. If they are to win it, they’ll be doing it the tough way.
Still the tournament isn’t that competitive even down to the last 8. Three of the four Quarterfinals sees double digit handicap favourites (Leinster -15, Northampton -14 and Bordeaux -11).
The exception is where Toulon (3rd in the top 14) host Toulouse (top of the Top 14 and defending European Champions and six-time winners) this weekend in the last of the Quarterfinals. Toulouse are six-point away favourites which pricked my ears when I saw it.
Toulon haven’t lost at home in Europe for 2 years, won 11 of 12 home games in the Top 14 last year and have won all 10 top 14 at home so far this season. They haven’t played Toulouse at home yet but beat them at home by a point last year
The Stade Mayol in Toulon on the Mediterranean coast sees Toulon play in a frenetic, cramped and passionate environment without question one of rugby’s bucket list experiences. The stadium itself is the centre-piece of the town. It is deafeningly loud, it’s vibrant and chaotic fun. The home advantage is clear.
Toulon are direct, big and powerful, perhaps they lack the gas around the back three to match the very best in France, but they’re a tough and physical side to beat.
Such is the strength in depth of French rugby that Toulon scrum-half Baptiste Serin isn’t near the national side but is nevertheless a wonderful player and in the likes of Argentine No.8 Facunda Isa and English exile second row David Ribbans they have some terrific forwards.
If Toulon were hosting an absolute full-strength Toulouse in a European tie then the Toulouse -6 where the line opened the week would seem fair enough but minus Dupont they are a way off peak form, down on efficiency and precision without their “Quarterback”. For example last weekend Sale led them 15-10 at half-time. Toulouse pulled away in the second half but lost Capuozzo to a serious looking injury in the second half. The line is now Toulouse -4.5 points.
That said of course you still have Ntamack, Ramos (and his 85% goal-kicking), Kinghorn, Jack Willis and a raft of French International forwards such as Cros and Marchand to contend with, a formidable side.
This should be an extremely close match that could go either way. Getting Toulon at home with a three-point plus start is a bet.
11 points Toulon +4.5 points at Evens Bet365 and 10/11 generally
Rock Bottom
There have been plenty of lows for Wales over the past 18 months, but the 68-14 ten-try rout by England in the final round of the 2025 Six Nations was a record defeat for Wales in the Five or Six Nations and saw a new nadir. It extended their losing run to 17 Tests, which is the longest endured by any Tier 1 team in the professional era.
Wales conceded 25 tries during their five matches in this Six Nations. For context, they conceded just two in Shaun Edwards’ first Championship campaign in 2008.
We’ll come onto the structural reasons for this performance but there are cyclical factors at play too. Over a dozen experienced Welsh internationals, some world class players included, retired in last 24 months leaving a young callow team to take over.
Interim Coach Wayne Sherratt said at the post England game press conference “There are four or five players here we can build a team around. But everyone always looks at the top of the pyramid. The base is where it counts. Any good team has got a good foundation underneath it, which is the age grade. Get the age grade right and then the top of the pyramid will look a lot better. I think there are some green shoots with the U20s, so it’s about trying to nurture that group of players.”
In terms of new appointments Wales will appoint the next permanent Wales head coach and the WRU director of rugby before Wales next play, a Summer tour to Japan.
The game went professional In 1995 and they are still trying to get it right. Time to end the bickering and take decisive action!
Who will the WRU go for as head coach? A quartet of candidates who have been mentioned repeatedly: Glasgow’s Franco Smith, Leicester’s Michael Cheika, Ireland’s Simon Easterby and Bristol’s Pat Lam.
Former Springbok fly-half Smith is favourite. At Glasgow, he has also shown an ability to rapidly implement his game plan with successful outcomes, winning the URC title. He has made no secret of his desire to return to being an international head coach at some point, having previously been at the helm of Italy. The question is whether he might be being lined up to take over the reins with Scotland before too long.
Wales have seven home matches to sell tickets for next season with the autumn Tests and the Six Nations. That is not going to be an easy task on the back of such a poor sequence of results and it will become even harder if the barren spell continues.
Just as important and arguably even more significant for the long term is the identity of the new Director of Rugby. Former Bridgend hooker Huw Bevan, the Union’s interim performance director, appears to be a frontrunner.
Whoever is appointed faces a huge challenge. They have to find a way of putting in place a pathway and a system which produces players who are able to meet the physical demands of Test rugby.
At the moment, Wales just haven’t produced enough young players to compete. They were blown away in the contact area by Scotland for 50 minutes and it was an even worse against England In every physical aspect of the game, whether it be scrum, maul or the collisions, they came second best.
They also struggled in the one-on-one situations, missing 25 tackles against England to add to the 33 they fell off in Edinburgh.
It’s crucial that the new deal between the WRU and the four regions is finally signed off, with a commitment to increased funding over the next few years. Then there are those two big appointments. The new Director of Rugby might decide that four regions is too many, and a side such as the Dragons based in Newport might be vulnerable.
Ultimately the system has to fix the grass roots, develop Academies and create a pathway for young players to develop into the national team. Italy for example have overtaken Wales at the bottom end of the Six Nations, not with too many wins yet but heaps of talent now in the senior national team having come from the Academy system.
Finally Wales need to identify and compete for players with Welsh Qualification playing around the world, something which all Tier one teams do and potentially remove the block on Welsh players playing overseas with less than 25 caps being ineligible for national selection. The player pool left without them is not deep enough for this policy to work as intended.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 8th February 2025. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £68,468 All bets have an ROI +2.71%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £72,468, a 1711% increase.
The Road to Riches Weekend of 5th-6th April (Updated Masters bet)
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Great Yarmouth, over the jumps at Aintree (including the Grand National), Chepstow and Newcastle and on the all-weather at Wolverhampton.
- Football, Premier League fixtures include Manchester United v Manchester City.
- Rugby Union, the Investec Champions Cup last sixteen
- Cricket, the IPL continues
- Formula One, the Japanese Grand Prix
- Golf, The Masters next week at Augusta
- Tennis, ATP Monte Carlo Masters
Free Tip
The 2025 US Masters
Ahead of Neil’s full discussion of the 2025 Masters which will be with us next Wednesday just before the first round next Thursday a look at a contender at a price.
I won’t repeat from previous years the characteristics of Augusta as a course but suffice to say as a major contested on the same track each year, with a limited field of whom a third (winners from a while ago, amateurs etc) are not realistic candidates to win and there are a number of repeatable factors we can take into consideration.
These are from an Oddschecker article:
- 26 of the last 27 winners made the cut the year before the won the Masters
- 15 of the last 17 winners had a finish of 22nd or better in the Masters
- 19 of the last 22 winners were 27 years of age or older
- 14 of the last 16 winners had four wins or more
- 14 of the last 16 winners had a win in the US within two years of winning the Masters
- 57 of the last 60 winners failed to defend their title
- 23 of the last 25 winners came from the top 30 in the world rankings
- 13 of the last 15 winners had a top six finish in a Major in the previous two years
- 15 of the last 16 winners ranked inside the top 50 in Driving Distance before winning
- 24 of the last 27 winners finished 38th or better in the year before winning
Now unsurprisingly a lot of the head of the field can be ticked on virtually every box and no doubt the likes of Scheffler, Rory, Bryson, Schauffele and Aberg will be discussed in Neil’s write-up. Personally I like Aberg at 16-1, runner-up last year on his Masters debut.
I’ve been through the field though, derived a longer odds short-list and from it found a player at 66-1. 2nd in the current FEDEX Cup standings, 13th on the OWGR, has won in the US this year too. He “misses” on one of the list of stats above, which we will come onto, but we aren’t going to find perfection at 66-1. What we do find is a contender outside the top 20 in the market. He is Sepp Straka.
The Austrian has lived in Georgia since he was 14 and has respectable Masters form figures of 30-46-16, never missing the Augusta cut in his three attempts.
Straka finished seventh in the 2023 USPGA and was second in the Open, then played his part in a winning European Ryder Cup side. Second place behind Scheffler in the Hero World Challenge in December 2023 was followed by a quiet spell before his T16 in last year’s Masters.
Following that he had four top ten finishes in 2024 USPGA events, in two of those he led the field in Driving Accuracy Percentage (83.9%) and a Top 25 in the Open too.
In 2025 he has won the American Express and finished in the top 25 in 7 of 10 starts including three top ten finishes.
This is now a form book of good results over two years. He's been able to secure those positive results thanks to his consistent iron play. ranked second in greens in regulation percentage (76.5%) and 11th in strokes gained: approach to green.
He ranks inside the world top 10 in driving accuracy and iron play so far in 2025. This is the combination that led him to rank sixth in driving accuracy, fifth in greens in regulation and eighth in strokes gained tee to green in the 2024 Masters. Recent improvements on and around the greens should improve Straka's chances too.
There is a fly in the ointment of course which is that to date in 2025 he only ranks 142nd in driving distance, always a factor on a long course (especially for example if there is weather and the course is soft). Against this he is second in total driving efficiency this year.
Realistically of course without the prodigious length of some of those at the head of the field he is an each-way rather than a win candidate and the terms on offer are going to be important.
As I write, before casual interest in the Masters ramps up, current each-way odds are uninspiring at six places 1/5th and five places ¼.
Despite the current state of the industry and with marketing departments operating a way off the promotions of a few years ago we should still expect extra places to be available in the days before the event. I’ll put up the current terms but please wait a few days and shop around.
I’ll update with a note next Wednesday. I want the extra places for the column too!
EDIT Tuesday 8th April: Most of the enhanced place terms are out, obviously at the expense of the outright price but extra places are key so updating below as indicated late last week. It's obviously a trade-off places/price: I wouldn't go down to 40/1 10 places (Ladbrokes) or 45/1 12 places (Betfair Sportsbook, as academic as that firm is for getting on)
10 points each-way Sepp Straka to win the Masters at 55/1 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 Betfred and Bet365, 50/1 William Hill.
Twenty Minutes
The 2025 Six Nations saw three red cards, one more than full red cards shown in 2024, with it being the first major tournament with the 20-minute red card following more stringent safety regulations. With the benefit of knowledge of a post-game citing after the final game of the tournament, Mauvaka the Frech hooker should have received a red-card too. He was subsequently banned for three matches.
Despite the protestations of the lawmakers that permanent reds can still be awarded for serious foul play, it still led to frustration amongst teams and supporters.
In Round three Wales had particular frustration. When Garry Ringrose charged at Ben Thomas with his head up, causing one of those head-on-head collisions that will never be looked at sympathetically by the bunkers, the score was 10-6 to Ireland. By the time Bundee Aki came on to replace the dispatched Ringrose (a recipient of a 20-minute red card can be replaced but not return to the field himself at the end of the period), the score was 18-13 to Wales and it was a well-deserved lead; Ireland looked rattled.
Wales quite clearly had a far better chance of winning that game against 14 men than against 15, never mind the fact that the replacement for the expelled player is a world-class centre who is surely a shoo-in for the Lions this summer. Ireland essentially suffered very little for Ringrose’s indiscretion bar an extra 10 minutes with a man down.
Exactly how egregious does an offence need to be for a red card to be permanent instead of 20-minute anyway? There’s no suggestion that Ringrose was out to nobble Thomas, but at the same time the technique was both aggressive and negligently poor. He was suspended for three weeks (one game suspended for Leinster included a game he would never have been selected for in the middle of a Six Nations) with a remedial trip to tackle school, but the team has not taken one for him at all as a result.
The red cards dished out for head contact have been criticised for being both too stringent and for skewing the balance of games. But officials and TMOs have become much better at picking out poor technique from accidental collisions over the months and seasons; the stringency has become less of a problem than it was.
Skewing games? That’s one argument, there’s another perfectly rational argument that the poor tackle technique from Ringrose should have opened a door for Wales to take advantage, but that the 20-minute red card slammed it shut again. That’s a skewed game too, where a team does not pay the proper price for a player’s misdemeanours.
The bottom line is to stop fudging the issue and focus on getting better at working out what deserves a red card and what does not. Right now we’ve a red card with no red card effect, which does not sit right.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 8th February 2025. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £68,468 All bets have an ROI +2.71%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £72,468, a 1711% increase.
The Road to Riches Weekend of 29th-30th March
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Doncaster over the jumps at Stratford and Uttoxeter and on the all-weather at Kempton and Newcastle.
- Football, FA Cup Quarter Finals.
- Cricket, IPL continues
- Golf, The Texas Open on the USPGA tour
- Tennis, ATP US Clay Court Championships and events in Bucharest and Marrakech.
Aintree Festival
We have added the Aintree Grand National Festival (Full Package) 3rd - 5th April 2025 to the website here
Free Tip
IPL Mumbai Indians at Gujarat Titans 2pm Saturday
Mumbai began as favourites for this year’s IPL having finished bottom of the table last year but lost their first match in Chennai, failing to defend their score of 155.
That game was played on an archetypal Chennai track, slow and spin-friendly pitch a rarity in this year’s IPL, which has been very high scoring.
As I write first innings scores so far this IPL are as follows:
174, 155 (in Chennai), 286 (30 sixes in the match), 209, 245 (32 sixes in the match) and then Rajasthan’s disappointing 151.
There are various reasons why a structural change in IPL scoring is underway (such that it has been widely suggested that we might see a 300+ T20 innings for the first time this competition), though whether scoring is so easy when pitches have become heavily used later in the tournament or elsewhere in more difficult conditions remains to be seen. I’d summarise the reasons are
- Batting conditions are blameless on flat/hard pitches, prepared for the “spectacle” of high scoring.
- Two new white balls per innings introduced as a playing condition: Easier to see and hit
- Player fitness, strength and conditioning advances
- Range hitting techniques being refined and a focus of coaching
- Bat technology advances
The big hitting in the early stages of this season's IPL has been especially obvious in the powerplay where batting teams have looked to absolutely dominate. 23% of the Powerplay overs this season have gone for 16+ runs. The corresponding figure last season was 13%.
54% of balls have a batting “aggressive intent” compared to 32% in 2024, so far its 3.9 balls per boundary compared to 5.8 last year and 9 balls per six compared to 13.7 in 2024.
This match venue, Ahmedabad, is the ground where Gujarat conceded 245 to Punjab Kings and fell 11 runs scored short in a game with over 470 runs scored.
For Mumbai Bumrah is missing, Rohit scored a duck in Chennai but in Boult and Santner especially they have two canny overseas players. They are favourites here as the away side…not too surprising given they are one of the two glamour franchises in the IPL always going to attract public money.
In Gujarat’s first game their batting strength and weakness was clear to see. In Gill, Buttler and Sai Sudharsan they have a strong front three but apart from Rutherford/Phillips in the middle order as the fourth overseas player (Rutherford played the first game) there is not much to get excited about.
I saw quite a bit of Sai Sudharsan in English county cricket in 2023 and 24 when he was recommended to Surrey and slotted into their Championship winning County side for a few games each season.
He’s 23, on the fringes of the India one day sides and a “glue player” in the manner of (but obviously not the overall quality of, yet) a Joe Root/Kane Williamson, a technically correct player that his teams can play around.
In the 2023 IPL Sai scored 362 runs in the tournament averaging 51.71. He scored 96 in the IPL final against Chennai
In IPL 2024, Sai continued his good form and finished as Gujarat’s leading scorer with 527 runs. He scored his first IPL century against CSK, and in the process became the fastest Indian to 1000 IPL runs.
Sai opened in the first game of 2025 against Punjab Kings and top scored with 74. Prices for the first game, where Sai was expected to bat 3, were
Buttler 5/2
Gill 3/1
Sai 7/2+
5/1 Bar
Now it’s slightly frustrating for the purposes of this column, as he’s been the value for Gujarat top bat for two seasons (everyone knows the high profile players last year Gill and Williamson/Miller, this season Gill and Buttler) and now he’s opening and there is the recency bias of his top score prices for the second Gujarat game are:
Gill 2/1
Sai 11/4
Buttler 3/1
5/1 Bar
He’s not favourite though, and I think there is an argument he should be with consistency of performance likely. Guill and Buttler will undoubtedly come off in some games and score heavy, but nevertheless Sai will be occupying the crease and accumulating alongside them.
10 Points Sai Sudharsan top Gujarat Batsman v Mumbai at 11/4 Betfair Sportsbook/Paddy Power and Star Sports, 5/2 BetVictor, 12/5 Bet365.
Rebuild
England have lost 16 of their past 22 ODIs and have lost four bilateral series in a row. Their past three defeats by Australia, Afghanistan and South Africa resulted in an early exit from the Champions Trophy, and their third poor ICC tournament in succession. Understandably Jos Buttler has stepped down as captain. In the past two years, Buttler has averaged 27 in ODIs, well below his own high standards, and his strike rate has dropped, too.
Notwithstanding his dip in form there are deeper reasons at play here, which have made the captaincy job much harder in 50-over cricket than previously was the case.
The dire state the Test team was in at the end of Chris Silverwood’s time in charge meant much of the planning, thinking and effort has fallen on the Test team in the past two years. That has been the main focus. International scheduling, as a result of Covid, which led to T20 World Cups in 2021, 2022 and 2024, meant that much of England’s focus in white-ball cricket has been on the shortest form of the game.
There has been a shift in domestic and commercial priorities, too, towards T20. The biggest problem facing anyone taking over this ODI side is structural and simple: the best limited-overs players in England don't play domestic 50-over cricket. There is no longer a competitive domestic 50-over tournament to speak of. The One-Day Cup is a development competition, played simultaneously with the Hundred. It is why the 50-over competition should be moved to the start of the season, when the best players are all available, bar those in the IPL.
Then there is team selection and tactics. Jamie Smith’s last-minute promotion to No3, for example, was a first for him in 50-over cricket. Only seven matches into an ODI career at the start of this Champions Trophy, he was in an unfamiliar format in an unfamiliar position. Phil Salt (48 50 over games, 276 T20s) looks like a big hitting T20 batsman unable to build an innings in 50-over cricket.
England put all their eggs in the fast-bowling basket. Mark Wood, Jofra Archer, Brydon Carse and Jamie Overton have all conceded more than seven runs an over, and Wood and Carse are now injured.
Nowhere to be seen in the squad was a left-handed seam option (Sam Curran, Reece Topley), no room for the best left arm spinner and good late order bat Liam Dawson, Sam Hain the best domestic 50 over player (career average over 50), not selected.
Rebuilding lies ahead but a huge year of Test cricket approaches, with five matches against India and then the Ashes. It is quite a task to focus on both.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 8th February 2025. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £68,468 All bets have an ROI +2.71%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £72,468, a 1711% increase.
