Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew
The Road to Riches Weekend of 11th-12th October
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Newmarket, York and Wolverhampton. Over the jumps at Chepstow and Hexham.
- NFL, Week 6 including the Detroit Lions at the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday Night Football.
- Football, World Cup Qualifying, Latvia v England on Tuesday
- Golf, The India Championship on the DP World Tour.
- Tennis, ATP Almaty, Nordic and European Opens.
Free Tip
Gallagher Premiership Rugby
Northampton v Leicester Tigers 3.05pm Saturday
The third weekend of the new season sees the Midlands derby between Northampton and Leicester, bitter rivals.
Northampton have begun the season with two high scoring games, firstly a 33-33 draw at home to Exeter. They were 33-7 up at half time! Then a 37-35 win at Gloucester. They were 31-0 up at half time in that one.
Leicester meanwhile lost 42-24 in Bristol on opening weekend before beating Harlequins 29-19 at home last weekend from 16-0 down.
In the putative league table this means 4th plays 5th here.
I was at the Harlequins game and the first half was really poor from the Tigers with a woeful lineout. Very predictable in attack and hammered at the breakdown.
In the second half they scored 29 unanswered points behind a dominant scrum and were clinical in the red zone.
It’s not surprising that Leicester will be a “work in progress” in the first part of the season. There’s a new Head coach in ex Leicester/England player and recent Australia forwards coach Geoff Parling and in the off-season there were departures/retirements fo important players like Pollard, Montoya, Youngs and Coles.
New fly half James O’Connor was called back to play in the Rugby Championship for Australia too. He's back in the UK now and might well play this weekend.
Leicester’s traditional strengths are in the forwards and the kicking game but the arrival over the past two years of wingers Ollie Hassell-Collins and Adam Radwan have given them speed and finishing potential out wide helping the team (which finished second to Bath last year) keep pace with a changing domestic game that sees more attacking (fitness and specialist attack coaches) and bonus points for 4+ tries in a game.
Northampton have been in the vanguard of that change as an exciting, attacking side. 70 points in the first two weeks of the season missing their Lions quartet of Tommy Freeman, Fin Smith, Alex Mitchell and Henry Pollock is a good start, and they are all available this weekend. but there is an Achilles heel in the defence as conceding 68 points to two presumed bottom-half of the table sides shows. "Of course, its a mental thing. Sometimes its hard to coach that" their director of rugby said about their early season defensive frailties in the second half.
The game is priced up Northampton 1/3 Leicester 12/5 outright and Northampton -7 on the handicap spread. I think the definite value is Leicester with the points on the assumption that Parling is on the way to tightening the defence and the Leicester attack can keep pace with Northampton.
12 points Leicester Tigers +7 at 20/21 Bet365 and 10/11 generally
Shelved
County chiefs voted to turn down a 13-game structure for the Championship from next summer after earlier plans to cut the schedule to 12 matches were shelved. The competition has been played over 14 rounds in a two-divisional structure since 2017.
There has been a county-led review into the whole domestic calendar following pressure from players and some administrators over the condensed schedules.
“We have 18 counties that agree that it’s not right, but 19 different versions of what the answer is” said the review chairman.
Any change required a vote with two-thirds (i.e. 12 out of 18 counties) in favour. Counties announced earlier this month they had agreed to cut the Vitality Blast schedule from 14 group matches to 12, with the knockouts and Finals Day following straight after, before the Hundred.
On the County Championship a number of options were mooted with a strong push to cut the schedule to 12 games. However, it became clear that, after resistance from their members, enough counties would oppose the proposals. Counties who told their members they would not support a reduction were: Middlesex, Surrey, Somerset, Kent, Essex, Derbyshire and Yorkshire.
That left a 12-game structure dead in the water, but counties then discussed a tweaked 13-game structure. Changes would have started next season with the aim of keeping the same structure in place until 2031.
Exactly how a 13-game structure would have operated is unclear, but it was highly likely to include a top flight of 12 teams split across two pools of six, above a lower tier “Championship 2”, consisting of six teams. The top 12 for 2026 would have been made up of the 10 Division One teams for this year, plus the two teams promoted from Division Two. The two pools would be seeded based on ranking from the previous season.
One option was thought to include a 12-match regular season then a “13th round” against teams in the equivalent position in the other pool to decide final standings. Another was a 10-match regular season (home and away against the other five in that team’s pool), plus a three-match series against a team in a similar position in the table to determine final placings and prize money.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 1st June 2025. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £65,960 All bets have an ROI +2.55%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £69,960, a 1649% increase.
The Road to Riches Weekend of 4th-5th October
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Ascot, Newcastle, Newmarket, Redcar and Wolverhampton.
- Football, Premier League fixtures include Chelsea v Liverpool and Leeds v Tottenham
- Rugby Union, the final round of the rugby championship, Australia v New Zealand and Argentina v South Africa
- Formula One, the Singapore Grand Prix
- Golf, The Baycurrent Classic on the USPGA and the Spanish Open on the DP World Tour.
- Tennis, The ATP Shanghai Rolex Masters continues
Free Tip
Rugby Championship Round 6 Australia v New Zealand Perth 6.30am Saturday
The last round of the 2025 Rugby Championship, one of the most even/competitive in years. South Africa lead New Zealand by a point both having won three games. Australia in 3rd are a long shot to win the Championship. They need to win here and hope Argentina upset South Africa this weekend at Twickenham.
It’s a shame that there is no Rugby Championship next year, the tournament is moving to being held every other year with the advent of the Nations Championship.
Last week at Eden Park, Auckland, the toughest of the New Zealand venues for an away side Australia were 20-3 down in round 5, fought back to 26-24 down in the second half then conceded a late try after a 70th minute yellow card to lose 33-24, a competitive performance.
Australia’s revival over the last six months has been good news for World Rugby. Their fitness level is impressive and the rugby league strain in their play has them attacking in numbers and at pace. Their defence needs some attention and they are short of depth at scrum half and fly half. They have been relying on veteran James O’Connor (Leicester Tigers bound shortly) at 10, and he is not a game controller/kicker out of hand when circumstances require, but he can prompt some dangerous attacking patterns.
For this week, the return fixture in Perth key forwards Will Skelton and Rob Valetini (on the bench) are back and we saw the impact of the power and physicality of both in their impact on the Lions series during the summer. Scrum Half Tate McDermott misses the match with a hamstring injury suffered last week and veteran Nic White has again agreed to postpone his retirement for this week.
Lock Skelton returned to his French club after helping the Wallabies to one win and one loss on their tour of South Africa, while loose forward Valetini has been in and out of the side this year because of a recurring calf issue.
Prices for this game are Australia +4.5 on the spread and 13/8 outright (New Zealand 8/15). With Skelton and Valetini back, I am going to have a small value bet on Australia outright. They are not far off.
10 points Australia to win at 13/8 Betfred, 6/4 generally
Sub-optimal
The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) is proposing reducing the number of professional sides in Wales from four to two in a radical plan which includes its "optimal solution" for transforming the struggling game.
A six-week consultation period is concluding where the Union presented its favoured option to stakeholders before a final decision on the plans, which was expected to be made by the end of September.
Cardiff, Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets are currently the four professional men's sides in Wales, but the WRU is suggesting the number of teams is halved. The news comes despite the fact that Ospreys have plans to move into a revamped stadium at St Helen's in Swansea for the 2026-27 season, while Scarlets have recently unveiled new investors.
Dragons said this week that elite professional rugby must continue in Gwent, while Cardiff are currently owned by the WRU.
It remains unclear whether the two future sides being proposed will be new entities or existing teams. There could be 50 players in each men's squad with a budget of £7.8m each.
The Union says the two squads would feature predominantly Welsh-qualified players, while there would be a rethink on non-Welsh qualified players. There will also be a transition to contracting of players and staff within central national academies. Phase two would involve the clubs moving to training at one site which will be known as a national campus.
The WRU said in July the current system was failing and unsustainable and that it was looking at a more radical strategy. This came after Wales' men's side had lost a record-breaking 18 international matches in a row and slipped to 12th in the world rankings, while the four regions have struggled in the United Rugby Championship (URC) and European competitions.
The number of professional sides in Wales was most recently reduced in 2004, when the Celtic Warriors ceased to exist after only one year of competing. That came after Welsh rugby had switched from the professional club model to a regional system of five sides in 2003.
Reaction to the intended proposals has been universally negative whether it be fans of the existing four teams, current players, former players or journalists.
The essential problem a franchise model has in Wales is that Welsh rugby is village v village, town v town, it’s tribal. Asking people from Maesteg and Neath to support Swansea, or Pontypool to support Cardiff hasn’t been an easy process that cutting to two franchises will make even harder.
As recently retired Wales hooker Ken Owens said after the announcement
“The issue with all this is, we’re forgetting about the cultural element of it and what the effect of dropping 2 teams, going from 4 to 2 is going to have on communities across Wales and no one’s really listening to that”
Other points raised include
- On match days 46 pro players will be involved rather than the current four team number of 92. This doesn’t seem like it is expanding opportunities at the highest club level possible for Welsh talent.
- It would only make sense if they remove the 25-cap rule as loads of players will simply go elsewhere if they can’t play in Wales.
- The 2 remaining teams will just fill the teams with non-Welsh players to compete and win in club rugby. Where does that leave the pathway for Welsh players? It’s short-sighted.
- The WRU rips up 20 years of work and dedication of the four Regions to solve their own inadequacies. All the problems in Welsh Rugby at the moment stem from the WRU.
- The £7.8m playing budgets would be less than the best funded pro clubs were operating on five years ago.
- If two new teams are made then who wants to play for a team with no history and no loyal and passionate supporters? All the best Welsh players will want that and find it outside of Wales.
- The top end comes first but it needs to be underpinned by grassroots...Wales has gone top heavy for too long and it has eroded the game’s foundations.
This will be the type of feedback being given in the current consultation process.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 1st June 2025. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £65,960 All bets have an ROI +2.55%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £69,960, a 1649% increase.
The Road to Riches Weekend of 27th-28th September
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Bath, Chester, Doncaster, Lingfield and Musselburgh.
- Football, Premier League fixtures include Newcastle United v Arsenal
- Rugby Union, the opening weekend of the Gallagher Premiership season.
- Golf, The Sanderson Farms Championship on the USPGA and the Alfred Dunhill Links at Carnoustie on the DP World Tour.
- Tennis, ATP Rolex Shanghai Masters.
Free Tip
2025 Ryder Cup Top European Points scorer
Looking back over the 2018-21-23 Ryder Cups Rory McIlroy, the one player we would confidently expect to play all five sets of European team matches in 2025 has played in the following positions
2023 1st pair once 4th pair three times
2021 3rd pair once 4th pair twice (didn’t play one round)
2018 first pair once, second pair twice, fourth pair once
So overall Position 1: 2 Position 2: 2 (but not since 2018) Position 3: 1 Position 4: 6
I’d suggest as the “banker” player this time he’d go out 1st (maybe Rahm/Hatton leading off first morning) and/or 4th pair (McIlroy with Lowry/Fleetwood) in 2025, but here I would also suggest he would run into Bradley doing the same with Scheffler and DeChambeau, his two “bankers” across two pairs.
Rory is 9/2 top European scorer, but the matchups that are likely are going to make that bad value. He’s a dog to Scheffler in most pairings, everyone is.
Fleetwood is suggested as another player who might play five rounds, but he is a McIlroy partner, twice out of four pairs in 2023.
So who else might play all four pairs pre-singles?
We can rule out Hojgaard, Fitz, Straka (a rookie and foursomes players). Rahm playing on LIV is 5/1 second favourite, but I am not a huge fan of LIV form. Hatton has temperament problems. Rose is a big ask to play five rounds as a veteran. Lowry is tied to McIlroy’s fortunes. MacIntyre and Aberg: maybe.
In 2023 Viktor Hovland played all five matches (3.5 points). In 2021 he played all five (1 point).
Firms offer 1/4 3 places at up to 10-1 about Hovland. Isn’t he great value to a) play a lot b) miss going out 1st or 4th against Scottie and/or Bryson and c) finish top 3 in this market?
10 points each way (1/4 1,2,3) Viktor Hovland Top European Points Scorer at 11/1 Sky Bet, 10/1 BetVictor and Paddy Power, 9/1 Betfred
All Change
The men’s T20 Vitality Blast will be reduced from 14 to 12 group-stage games from 2026 to streamline the competition and ease the workload on players in the latest reshuffle of English domestic cricket.
The reduction in the number of games will allow the competition to be played in a block with Finals day held before the Hundred starts in Augus, rather than before, stumbling back to life in September.
The hope is that this will enable counties to retain overseas players for the entire competition period, play games on more sellable days of the week and give players more rest between matches. It will also greatly reduce the number of back-to-back fixtures.
The 18 first-class counties voted through the change in line with the recommendations of the county-led men’s Domestic Playing programme review and in harmony with the wishes of the players’ union, the Professional Cricketers’ Association.
The counties will be divided into three regional groups of six with counties playing each other home and away, plus one home game and one away game against a county outside their group giving each county an opportunity to play every other on a rolling basis.
Attendance figures for the Blast have fallen sharply since a peak of 950,000 tickets sold in 2019, knocked first by Covid and then by the introduction of the Hundred in 2021. The review’s steering group, believes that rejigging the fixtures alone will not be enough to reinvigorate the Blast and more innovative moves such as the introduction of a central investment fund will be needed.
Where there has previously been widespread county opposition to any reduction in the number of lucrative Blast games, the Hundred windfall has given the counties more wriggle room.
Meanwhile the Hundred could be changed to a T20 competition as soon as next year. The 100-ball format is enshrined in the ECB’s domestic TV contracts with Sky Sports and the BBC until 2028 but both broadcasters are open to switching to T20 next summer if requested by the newly formed Hundred board, a change of heart from both.
The sale of, in most cases, minority stakes in the eight franchises for £520m this year has altered the power dynamics, however, with the new co-owners expected to have a huge influence over the future of the competition given the collective size of their investment. Four of the joint owners are IPL franchises, two are Indian‑American consortiums, and two are US investment companies.
The IPL owners in particular want to switch to T20 to align with the other franchise leagues where they operate teams in India, South Africa, the US and the United Arab Emirates. The T20 format will also be used in the Olympics when cricket returns after 132 years at Los Angeles 2038, which is particularly significant given India are bidding to host the Games in 2036.
The Hundred this summer is in effect a transitional tournament before the new owners formally come on board on 1 October, when the sales of Oval Invincibles and Trent Rockets are due to be completed.
While Sky and the BBC have resisted ditching the Hundred until this point, there is a growing feeling that it would be better to relaunch the competition with a bang next year rather than make a series of incremental changes. There will be other significant innovations next year, including new team names at some franchises, new commercial deals and a fresh digital strategy.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 1st June 2025. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £65,960 All bets have an ROI +2.55%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £69,960, a 1649% increase.
The Road to Riches Weekend of 20th-21st September
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Bath, Chester, Doncaster, Lingfield and Musselburgh.
- Football, Premier League fixtures include Arsenal v Manchester City and Liverpool v Everton.
- Cricket, England’s T20 series against Ireland continues in Dublin.
- Formula One, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix
- Golf, The Ryder Cup next week at Bethpage in New York
Free Tip
English Premiership Rugby 2025 season ante-post
The new season starts next Friday, plays across 18 rounds until the top four in the regular season table play in the post-season knockouts next April-May with the Grand Final at Twickenham.
Last year Bath finished top in the regular season 11 points clear of Leicester with Sale Sharks and Bristol Bears rounding out the top four. Bath beat Leicester in the Grand Final.
For Bath this was the culmination of a five-year rebuild with new coaching, considerable investment in players (Finn Russell etc) under local entrepreneur owners.
Structurally each team operates within a £6.4m player salary cap (with one marquee player excepted) and logically this should lead to some parity depending on recruitment and roster management. It has been possible for Bath to go from the bottom three years ago to the top now and Leicester from 9th to 2nd in two years. This year though there has been relatively little movement into the league in the marquee player category. Many sides are struggling financially relying on benefactor investment.
Santiago Carreras and Henry Arundell to Bath, Louis Rees-Zammit back to rugby at Bristol, Australians Len Ikitau and Tom Hooper to Exeter are the highest profile arrivals this season.
Subject to meeting the eligibility criteria for promotion (ground capacity), the champions of the new Championship season (second division) season will play in a two-leg play-off against the team which finishes 10th in the Premiership table at the end of the regular season. The winner, based on aggregate score, will play in the Premiership for the following season.
This introduces an element of jeopardy to this season for two reasons. Newcastle, tenth for successive years but protected from relegation by lack of promotion eligibility of the Championship winners, have been taken over by Red Bull with significant player recruitment already and more to come. They are no longer short prices to finish bottom. Secondly Worcester Warriors are back, in the Championship as potential winners of the division, also with player investment and a 14,000-capacity modern stadium.
A couple of firms at the time of writing (Bet365, Betfred) offer each-way terms of 1/3 1-2 which give us the opportunity to take on Bath (6/4 favourites to win for a second year) for each way value. Here are the best prices at those firms:
Bath 6/4
Saracens 100/30
Northampton 5/1
Leicester 11/2
Sale Sharks 10/1
Bristol 16/1
Harlequins 28/1
Newcastle Red Bulls 40/1
Gloucester 40/1
Exeter 40/1
Leaving Bath aside for the purposes of this exercise, I do expect Leicester to take a step back following significant retirements and departures and Northampton to recover from their poor season last year. Saracens have Owen Farrell back but look short to me.
I like the look of Sale Sharks, 3rd last year, at 10/1 in a relatively stable year for squad strength across the league. They’ll miss the injured Tom Curry until after the Autumn Internationals but still have a squad with a lot of depth with George Ford, Ben Curry, Tom Roebuck and an entire England International front row when at full strength.
10 points each-way (1/3 1-2) Sale Sharks to win the Gallagher PREM Rugby at 10-1 Bet365, 9-1 Betfred.
Relaunch
A men’s Twenty20 Champions League will be relaunched as soon as September next year, after the tournament was backed by key member countries at the International Cricket Council’s annual conference in Singapore.
Test cricket’s future and a possible split into two divisions may also be decided by the end of the year, after the ICC formalised a working group to reshape the game’s calendar from 2027 onwards. It will be expected to present interim findings and recommendations to the ICC board, chaired by India’s Jay Shah, before the end of this year.
There is now a distinct possibility that the number of Test playing countries may be capped, on the basis that only a few currently make money from the game’s oldest format and that many nations do not have the resources to support the systems required for developing competitive Test teams.
The first iteration of the T20 Champions League was launched in 2008 and lasted until 2014, before the company then known as ESPN Star cut its losses after paying an inflated rights fee of $1bn for the event, having lost out on the first rights to the Indian Premier League.
Cricket Australia, India’s BCCI and Cricket South Africa were partners in the league, and ESPN Star’s rights fees helped to provide the seed funding for the first few years of the Big Bash League, before it began to generate its own significant broadcast rights revenue in 2013.
Since then, the T20 franchise circuit has exploded, and one of numerous complexities for the Champions League will be determinations about which clubs players choose to play for. Some of the world’s top T20 players can take part in at least two and often as many as four or five different franchise leagues per year.
It has not yet been decided how the finances of the new league will be split. Lobbying has continued for a parallel concept where a circuit of T20 tournaments are hosted around the world, bankrolled by Saudi Arabia, but the Kingdom’s future role may be as a potential host for the Champions League.
Among other decisions, the ICC board has approved a qualification model for the cricket tournament at the 2028 LA Olympics.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 1st June 2025. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £65,960 All bets have an ROI +2.55%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £69,960, a 1649% increase.
The Road to Riches Weekend of 13th-14th September
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Bath, Chester, Doncaster, Lingfield and Musselburgh.
- Football, Premier League fixtures include Manchester City v Manchester United.
- Cricket, Vitality Blast T20 finals day and England’s T20 series against South Africa continues in Nottingham.
- Rugby Union, the Rugby Championship: Australia v Argentina and New Zealand v South Africa.
- Golf, The French Open on the DP World Tour
- Tennis, ATP China and Japan Opens.
Free Tip
Rugby championship Round 4
New Zealand v South Africa Wellington Saturday 8.05am
New Zealand beat South Africa 24-17 at Eden Park in round three of the Rugby Championship last weekend. South Africa weren’t too far off the All Blacks in the end, they were attacking under the posts at the end with a chance to draw but paid the price for inaccuracy and a comparatively poor kicking game. Their “bomb squad” of substitutes had got them back into the game from 17-3 down early on.
The result consolidates the All-Blacks’ position at the top of the Championship and they now have 10 points, while the Wallabies are one point adrift in second spot with the South Africa and Argentina level on five points apiece.
It was a vastly improved showing from Scott Robertson’s hosts as they showcased their defensive strength with a number of outstanding defensive stands. The Springboks will need to shore up their suspect lineout in Wellington this weekend for Round four. They had the edge at scrum time but the kicking game was imprecise.
All week coach Rassie Erasmus has rued the ‘stupid errors’ that cost his side, and alluded to the coaching staff making mistakes with their selections for the match and forecasting changes for Wellington. These then occurred with seven changes to the starting line-up including dropping Pollard from the match-day 23, returns for de Jager and Wiese in the pack and Reinach and Feinberg-Mngomezulu at 9-10 and the return to a 5-3 bench.
New Zealand have a couple of enforced changes too because of injury plus a couple of big calls too notablhy at scrum-half.
South Africa went off +3 last weekend and are +4.5 (6/4+ outright) for this game, where they should be improved it being clear where they needed work this week, and away from Eden Park. This time we get the 3-point penalty goal onside so I will try the handicap.
11 points South Africa +4.5 points at 10/11 generally
Changing the Hundred
After six months of negotiations after a live-auction process in January six of the eight Hundred franchise sales were completed prior to the 2025 Hundred.
Investors include four IPL franchises and another two winning bids involved Indian businessmen and some other very Bottom of Form
influential business figures amongst them the chief executives of Google and Microsoft in London Spirit and ex-NFL superstar quarterback Tom Brady at the Birmingham Phoenix.
£419m from the six completions has been transferred to the ECB (the £100m due from the sales of Oval Invincibles and Trent Rockets remains outstanding as they have yet to be completed).
The Hundred is likely to look very different in 12 months, however, with the new investors eager to make changes. With such a big Indian presence in the new ownership groups there is a clear majority in favour of switching to Twenty20, the globally recognised short format.
The Hundred’s main broadcaster, Sky Sports, expressed reservations about moving to T20 when the idea was first floated two years ago and its contract runs until 2028, but the power of the new money may be enough to bring it around. The BBC would definitely prefer the shorter format as matches are easier to fit into their evening schedules, but the corporation is not contributing much to the £35m-a-year joint deal with Sky, so will have less influence.
The name of the competition is unlikely to change even if the 100-ball format is dropped, as the ECB has spent more than £100m marketing it in a bid to bring in a new younger audience, which has been largely successful.
While the ECB technically owns the competition, the eight franchises will have 16 of the 20 votes on the new Hundred board that will control its governance.
All of the £520m-plus windfall will be handed over to the 18 first-class counties in the hope of ensuring their financial health for a generation. The grassroots game will receive a £50m investment. Having been tied into ECB commercial contracts since the Hundred began in 2021, the franchises are now free to do their own deals and given the contacts and expertise of many of the new investors, income levels are set to soar.
The so-called “tech titans” who have bought into London Spirit, for example, are already understood to have secured a lucrative new kit deal with Nike that will begin next season, while Sun TV and Reliance Industries (who are buying Oval Invincibles and own Indian TV monolith JioStar) are already working on new overseas broadcast deals.
In the short term at least most of the extra revenue will be spent on increasing the salary cap to attract better players in the hope of establishing the Hundred as the second-biggest short-form tournament after the IPL. With the top salary bracket for men’s currently £200,000 there was a lack of big names in this year’s competition, with Australian stars such as Mitchell Marsh and Glenn Maxwell preferring to play in the more lucrative Major League Cricket in the United States. The aspiration is to treble pay within the next few years. Recruiting Indian players would be a genuine gamechanger, but the Board of Control for Cricket in India is likely to continue blocking them from overseas competitions.
The investors have secured a veto on expanding the competition to 10 teams, which has been mooted by the ECB, so while new teams in the North East and South West will not be added imminently the identities of some of the existing franchises will differ from next season.
New names including the Manchester Super Giants have already been agreed, while despite some objections from Surrey the Oval team are likely to be rebranded as MI London, named after the Mumbai Indians, whose owners Reliance Industries Limited bought a 49% stake in the team.
The optics of an injured Ben Stokes pulling out of the Oval Test after bowling himself into the ground in a five-match series with India being crammed into 44 days to keep August free for the Hundred were awkward for the ECB, which has already acknowledged this error. The schedule has been changed next year and England will play two Tests against Pakistan during the competition.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 1st June 2025. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning + £65,960 All bets have an ROI +2.55%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £69,960, a 1649% increase.
