- Football, F A Cup 4th round weekend (see article below)

- Racing, national hunt meetings at Cheltenham, Doncaster and Uttoxeter

- Tennis,  the Australian Open in Melbourne continues with last sixteen matches this weekend

- Golf, on the European Tour the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters in Qatar and on the USPGA Tour the Humana Challenge in California

- Cricket, preparations for the World Cup continue with the ODI Triangular series between Australia, India and England and ODI internationals between New Zealand and India (see tip below)

- Rugby Union, the last pool games of the European Champions Cup will decide the quarter final line up for after the Six Nations in February and March

NFL Superbowl (February 1st 2015)

Neil has just published a FREE preview on the Superbowl: you can read it HERE

As well as analysis on the Superbowl itself next weekend Neil will also be sharing all his prop bets. His record on this type of bet is very good over the years. Last year for Denver v Seattle in Superbowl XLVII we posted 8 winners from 11 bets (73%) with an ROI of 51%

If you subscribed to the NFL playoffs, you do not have to subscribe again and you will automatically have access.

Australian Open Tennis - January 19th to February 1st by Nigel Seeley

Match by match analysis and write ups are ongoing after a successful first week of tips:

Free Tip of the Week   

Today with the cricket World Cup only a few weeks away a look at the game in the current warm-up series between two lively World cup outsiders, hosts New Zealand and Sri Lanka.

The sixth game in the seven match series takes place on Saturday evening our time (10pm start) in Dunedin. New Zealand lead the series 3-1 after scoring 360-5 after falling to 93-5 in the last game.

New Zealand are in the World Cup reckoning because they are a much improved team with an imaginative captain, lots of  batting depth and one of the best seam attacks in world cricket. Sri Lanka have less strength in depth but on their day can beat anyone and it is they that are the focus today, particularly their batsmen.

The core of the Sri Lankan batting has been the same three players for the past decade, Tillekaratne Dilshan and two all-time greats who retire from the one day game after the World Cup, Kumar Sangakarra and Mahela Jayawardene. They fill three of the first four spots in the batting line up and are well ahead of the rest of the team in experience and ability

So far in the four Sri Lankan innings in this series they have scored as follows:

Dilshan 295 runs, 332 balls faced, strike rate 88

Jayawardene 255 runs, 247 balls faced, strike rate 103

Sangakarra 127 runs, 156 balls faced, strike rate 81

Strike rate shows the runs scored per hundred balls faced. Below these three batsman the next highest Sri Lanka scorer has 89 runs, as if we needed it a sign of how dependent the team’s totals are on the “big three”

Dilshan has two centuries in the series and is coming off a hundred in the massive chase on the same ground on Thursday. Formerly renowned as a ferocious hitter and little else, he has changed style since the change of playing conditions in 2012, the onus now on saving wickets at the top of the order, to have wickets in hand for the later power-play and help achieve scores of 300+. This helps explain why his strike rate is lower than Jayawardene’s, typically batting later in an innings.

As we will see in the forthcoming World Cup, those batsmen in and well set in the mid to late part of the innings are going to have a big advantage in strike rates with five fielders mandated to be within the 30-yard circle at all times in an innings with only three fielders permitted outside the circle for the five Power-play overs to be taken by the batting team before the 40th over.

Looking at the “Top Sri-Lankan batsman” sub market for the game on Saturday night sees the following:

Sangakarra 11/4

Dilshan 100/30

Jayawardene 7/2

Bar 11/2

On current form, the favourite looks wrong and priced off his form in 2013-14 and it helps that we can discount so many of the XI outside the three named above from our calculations, in the majority of games. For example Mathews is a late order hitter and Thirimanne has technical flaws. They might come off, but the percentage play when betting on batsmen sub-markets in this Sri Lanka team will always be one of the three stars.

Jayawardene is the most consistent player (three scores of 50 plus in four innings this series, Dilshan is more of a “boom-bust” betting proposition), with the highest strike rate and yet the outsider of the three main contenders.

Ladbrokes will lay us 4/1 too, and i think eh should be joint favourite.

15 points Mahela Jayawardene Top Sri Lanka batsman (6^th ODI v New Zealand, Dunedin 24^th January) 4/1 Ladbrokes, 7/2 generally available

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Matchbook

Matchbook are a genuine bookmaking alternative for UK punters who are missing the likes of innacle and SBOBet. Matchbook are an exchange with good market liquidity and low commission rates (they charge 1.15% commission on all bets). They are very competitive on soccer and tennis and particularly NFL - especially closer to kick off with very thin margins. They also plan to add horse racing in early 2015. Matchbook are a must have for BettingEmporium.com customers. Open your Matchbook account here and get a £25 FREE bet.

"The Cup is a great leveller"

So we are used to being told. In fact, it is arguable that in recent years the betting markets have failed to recognise how comprehensively the FA Cup is now dominated by the bigger clubs, with fewer upsets than ever.

It used to be said that the best team won the Premiership and the luckiest team won the FA Cup. Now the best team, or one of the very best teams, usually win the FA Cup as well.

During the twenty competitions from 1994 to 2014, the FA Cup was won five times each by Arsenal and Chelsea, four times by Manchester United, twice by Liverpool and once by Manchester City and Everton. In fact in the last twenty years there are only two "outlier" winners outside the "big five" at the time, Portsmouth in 2008 and Wigan Athletic in 2013. This is latterly in an era where the financial importance of every Premier League position and qualification for Europe leads too much rotated sides for FA Cup games and you would think more opportunities for upsets. However there is little evidence of it

Inferior teams will sometimes beat superior opponents but in the FA Cup it doesn't happen any more often than it should. We might think back and remember Wycombe winning a quarter final at Leicester. We forget all the other bottom-division teams who did not beat Premiership opponents. In fact, during the last twelve seasons, no other team from the lowliest section of the Football League have won away to Premiership opponents. Psychologically, in our search for the upset, we fail to notice the unspectacular results that are far more routine.

I looked at FA Cup results recorded during the last twelve seasons by Premier League teams against Championship opponents and League One teams against League Two opponents. Premiership teams scored an average of 0.9 goals per game more than Championship opponents and League One teams scored an average of 0.6 goals per game more than League Two opponents.

We can gauge the relative strength of these divisions from the results of clubs promoted and relegated between them. In the same twelve seasons, the average goal difference per game of clubs relegated from the Premiership to the Championship improved by 1.0, while the average goal difference per game of clubs promoted from the Championship to the Premiership deteriorated by 1.0.

The average goal difference per game of clubs relegated from League One to League Two improved by 0.7, while the average goal difference per game of teams promoted from League Two to League One deteriorated by 0.7.

The gap between the Premier League and Championship in one-off FA Cup ties was very similar, though not identical, to what it was in ordinary league fixtures. Likewise, the gap between League One and League Two.

So why might there be fewer upsets now than in yesteryear, despite squad rotation and in some cases questionable commitment to the F A Cup from leading teams?

After all this year, all us romantics had to go on in the third round was a QPR team losing in the third round to Sheffield United and the next biggest shock was probably Rochdale's win over Forest. Both barely registered on the upsets scale compared to an FA Cup round of 25 years ago

a) Squad depth is greater for the top teams than it ever was. The financial resources gained from every growing TV deals have led dramatic wage inflation and to greater strength in depth for top flight teams compared to the rest.

b) Playing conditions are more "big club" friendly. Newer stadiums across the league, undersoil heating..no more sloping pitches, mud baths and reasons for unmotivated Premier league players to mail it in. When AFC Wimbledon hosted Liverpool at the Kingsmeadow Stadium, the pitch was as close to perfect as it could've been - the only thing that gave the game the David vs Goliath feeling was the presence of Adebayo Akinfenwa, whose unorthodox physique and playing style caused Liverpool trouble throughout

There is no evidence for the almost universally accepted belief that the FA Cup is a great leveller, indeed these days it is less true than ever. There have been a few upsets. In the past four competitions we've seen Stevenage 3-1 Newcastle (2011), Leeds 2-1 Tottenham (2013) and Oldham 3-2 Liverpool (2013). Proper surprises, usually no more than one or two per year, which is roughly par, just don't go betting on too many of them happening.

English Football - Leagues and Cups Stuart analyses the week's games in F A Cup fourth round, free to access here

Premier League Statistical Analysis – You can read this here still FREE to all registered users

Betting Emporium results

The detailed results page has been updated as have the spreadsheets with the detailed bets. They can be found by clicking RESULTS

£10 per point on every recommended bet since  launch in Feb 2013 would be winning £12,288 (as at 8-1-15)

All bets have an ROI +5% and Horse Racing has an ROI +20.89%

There is also a Frequently Asked Questions Section

- NFL Play-Offs:  The NFC and AFC Conference games.  The play-offs continue this weekend with two games on Sunday. Green Bay, our ante-post Superbowl pick, at Seattle and Indianapolis at New England. For all Neil's play-off analysis and selections through to the Superbowl sign up here

- Football  Premier League and a full Football league programme with Manchester City against Arsenal a highlight on Sunday afternoon

- Racing, national hunt meetings at Ascot, Haydock and Taunton

- Snooker The 2015 Masters concludes at the Alexandra Palace with the O'Sullivan/Robertson semi-final on Saturday at 1pm set to be a cracker. 

- Tennis, the 2015 season continues with tournaments in Sydney and Auckland building up to the first grand slam of the season, the Australian Open in Melbourne next week

- Golf, the new season continues with the USPGA Tour at the Sony Open in Hawaii, and the European Tour's Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship.

- Cricket, warm ups for the World Cup continue with Australia playing India in the Tri-series and South Africa hosting the West Indies in One day Internationals

NFL Playoffs and Superbowl (3rd January - February 1st 2015) - full package £40 - sign up here

Neil Channing will be providing write ups and analysis on all the games:

WILD CARD ROUND - Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th January 2014

DIVISIONAL ROUND - Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th January 2014

CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS - Sunday 18th January 2014

SUPERBOWL XLIX - Sunday 1st February 2014

Australian Open Tennis - January 19th to February 1st by Nigel Seeley

Free Tip of the Week   

For an NFL prop bettor, we are about to reach the best weekend of the year with the Superbowl where odds-setters will offer us a wealth of opportunities. With the two NFL conference games this weekend there is also a wider than normal range to choose from.

Of the two games, New England is a tough prop team to bet, as Bill Belichick is very unpredictable in his game planning versus other coaches. Last week for example saw trick plays and alingnment wrinkles. My focus instead is on the Green Bay at Seattle game, in part because i have ante-post positions on Green Bay recommended which were a motivation to look at the game very closely.

At first glance, Green Bay face a huge task in Seattle. The Seahawks have one of the great defenses and are the first team to lead NFL in fewest points per game and yards per game allowed in consecutive seasons since the legendary 1985-86 Chicago Bears. Seattle have a renowned home advantage and the Packers, with 318 points at home and 168 on the road during the regular season created a record, as no team in NFL history has a bigger home/road points split. On top of that Aaron Rodgers has a calf tear, beat Dallas on one leg and this weekend is likely to be similarly restricted against a far better defense.

I'll leave Neil to talk about points spreads, points totals etc in his NFL Play off package (sign up here) and instead take all of the above and look at what strategy Green Bay have to use to give themselves the best chance of winning. As I found last week, with Denver rather mystifyingly deciding to rely on big plays from an injured Peyton Manning to win rather than running the ball consistently, this might not be the approach adopted but to my mind its their best chance and if correct helps us identify where some prop value may be.

Teams that have been unable to run the football against Seattle fall behind and typically get stuck in passing situations where the defense knows a pass is coming on virtually every play. That plays directly into Seattle’s hands as it allows their pass rush to ignore run responsibilities and just attack the quarterback. With the strength of Seattle’s secondary, the Seahawks have the players to cover receivers in the back end as well.

Seattle kept the Packers in check in their 36-16 win over Green Bay in Week 1. Eddie Lacy was held to 37 yards on 12 carries before leaving with a concussion in the fourth quarter, and the Packers had just 80 yards on the ground. However, the Packers rushing attack is much-improved since then. Over their final eight games (seven regular season games and last week’s playoff game against Dallas), the Packers averaged 137.25 rushing yards per game. That rate would have put Green Bay fourth in the league in rushing if extrapolated over a full season.

“From the first eight games to the second eight games, their rushing stats have flip flopped and that’s a big change in their approach,” Seattle head coach Pete Carroll said.

After watching the Packers rely on Lacy extensively in their win last weekend, I believe Lacy should be the focal point of the offensive game plan in this matchup. Lacy should get more attempts than the first game in the rematch as part of a ball-control game plan designed to alleviate some of the pressure on Rodgers. If Lacy finishes with 25 or more attempts (admittedly this is a very small sample, Green Bay is 3-0 when Lacy receives 20-plus carries in a game this season), the Packers should have a shot.

On the other side, "Beastmode" Marshawn Lynch is priced up as a short first touchdown favourite in every game he plays. Not only are Seattle favourites every week, especially at home, but they are a conservative offense without too much big play potential on the outside and Lynch himself is the focus of the offense. He doesn't represent great value though, 7/2 in places and 5/1 generally

Contrast that with Lacy who we can back at 9/1 first touchdown scorer and should get the carries to make this a really interesting price for all the reasons above. Green Bay may get the ball first (Carolina did against Seattle in the divisional round) and Lacy should be the feature on the first drive. In any case with the combination of the Seattle defense and a fairly workmanlike offense for the home team, we could well get a couple of opportunities to drive for the first touchdown.

10 points Eddie Lacy First touchdown scorer Green Bay @ Seattle 9/1 BetVictor or William Hill 

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Skrill and Neteller Accounts: Bonus Cashback

As always we are trying to help our users make the most from their sportsbetting. Here is a simple way to increase your bank roll risk free. If you don't have a Skrill or Neteller account you can open them here and receive great monthly bonuses in association with eWallet-Optimizer, one of our marketing partners, plus plenty of other benefits.

Please use sign up code: bebonus

Access great cashback incentives from transfers to bookmaking, gaming and online poker sites, which are credited to you just for opening your accounts through us. If you already have an account, check with us to see if you might still be eligible here.

SKRILL:

• Monthly cashback bonus 0.4% - 0.5% of transfers (plus any Skrill Loyalty Club Bonus, +0.2% typically, and Promotions).
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Matchbook

Matchbook are a genuine bookmaking alternative for UK punters who are missing the likes of innacle and SBOBet. Matchbook are an exchange with good market liquidity and low commission rates (they charge 1.15% commission on all bets). They are very competitive on soccer and tennis and particularly NFL - especially closer to kick off with very thin margins. They also plan to add horse racing in early 2015. Matchbook are a must have for BettingEmporium.com customers. Open your Matchbook account here and get a £25 FREE bet.

"They are on a good run, so they are a good thing today" "They are on a bad run, and its getting worse"

Back the team has not lost any of their last eight games?  but oppose the team who had not won any of their last eight games?

Actually, a perfectly ordinary mid-table team are likely to run up both of these sequences at least once in a season.

A mid-table team will usually win 36 per cent of their games, draw 28 per cent and lose 36 per cent. In other words, they will avoid defeat in 64 per cent of the games they play.  I got out some old Rothmans annuals and flicked through the pages of teams who had finished halfway down their divisions. What I found was that each team I checked did indeed run up at least one sequence of eight or so games without a defeat and another of eight or so games without a victory.

You can be sure that a lot of punters toward the end of each of these good runs were beginning to think that the team had got better, and toward the end of each of these bad runs they were beginning to think that the team had got worse.

In fact, often neither conclusion is true.

Since the start of the Premier League in 1992, the team who won the league failed to win 37 per cent of the games they play. Even Arsenal, when they went unbeaten throughout season 2003-04, failed to win 32 per cent of the games they played. This season (and we might argue that the resources of the top few teams compared to the rest should lead to greater distribution of results top four relative to the rest over the years) Chelsea have failed to win 28% and Manchester City 33% of their 21 games.

In other words, the best teams in England fail to win approximately one out of every three games they play.

As a sequence of good results gets longer, we should progressively upgrade our assessment of the team and as a sequence of bad results gets longer, we should progressively downgrade our assessment of the team but not as dramatically as most people do.

Going back to 1992, fewer than half of teams in the Premier League who won six games in a row won the next game. Similarly, of all the teams who lost six games in a row, fewer than half lost the next game.

All this points to the contrarian approach, seeking value based on price or an angle rather than the momentum of recent results. It is the times that the teams on a strong run lose that the bookmakers love, they are in the vast majority of the weekend's accumulators for starters.

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Subscription to Brodders' write ups, analysis and bets is £50 amonth. You can join at any time

What else is on Betting Emporium?

English Football - Leagues and Cups Stuart analyses the week's games in Premier League and Championship, free to access here

Premier League Statistical Analysis – You can read this here still FREE to all registered users

Betting Emporium results

The detailed results page has been updated as have the spreadsheets with the detailed bets. They can be found by clicking RESULTS

£10 per point on every recommended bet since  launch in Feb 2013 would be winning £12,288 (as at 8-1-15)

All bets have an ROI +5% and Horse Racing has an ROI +20.89%

There is also a Frequently Asked Questions Section

Happy New Year to all "Road to Riches" readers.....

Coming Up this weekend

- NFL Play-Offs: Wild Card week.  The play-offs start this weekend with four games over Saturday and Sunday on Wild Card weekend. For all Neil's play-off analysis and selections through to the superbowl sign up here

- FA Cup third round weekend with Arsenal v Hull on Sunday afternoon a repeat of last year's final. 

- Racing, national hunt meetings at Sandown, Newcastle and Wincanton.

- Darts, the PDC World Championship at Alexandra Palace. The semi finals and final as the event concludes this weekend.

- Cricket, Test matches in Cape Town (South Africa v West Indies) and Wellington (New Zealand v Sri Lanka).

NFL Playoffs and Superbowl (3rd January - February 1st 2015) - full package £40 - sign up here

Neil Channing will be providing write ups and analysis on all the games:

WILD CARD ROUND - Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th January 2014

DIVISIONAL ROUND - Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th January 2014

CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS - Sunday 18th January 2014

SUPERBOWL XLIX - Sunday 1st February 2014

PDC World Darts Championship (Dec 18th 2014 - Jan 4th 2015) by Nigel Seeley

Match by match analysis and write ups of the semis and final.

Free Tip of the Week   

This week, to complement Neil's work on the start of the play offs with NFL Wild Card weekend, a look at the first of the four play-off games Arizona Cardinals at Carolina Panthers on Saturday evening, this time from the perspective of sub-market value.

The Cardinals (11-5) are the No. 5 seed in the NFC playoffs after finishing second in the NFC West having lost four of their last six games. Despite one of the league's best defenses, the relative decline in results occurred due to quarterback injuries which have stymied the points scoring potential of the team only scoring 64 points in those last four games. Current quarterback Ryan Lindley has completed less than 50 percent of his passes in the last two games, for 532 yards, two touchdowns and four interceptions, including three last weekend.

If this is a match up where momentum counts, Carolina have it and could well be a dangerous team in the play-offs. The defense in particular has improved dramatically through the season, returning to its 2013 form. It was ranked 24th in Weeks 1-9, then 5th in Weeks 10-17.

Opposing quarterbacks against the Panthers defense over final 4 regular season games finished: 81-of-145 (55.9%) for 815 yards (5.62 YPA) with only 3 Touchdowns & 5 Interceptions.

At the same time the Carolina offensive line, suspect all year, has been performing better and the offense has been heating up as a result. Against Atlanta last weekend Four Carolina rushers, including the quarterback, gained 40 yards or more running the ball too.

Arizona are likely to struggle to score points. We have the combination of a third choice quarterback and facing an in-form defense. This weights it quite strongly against Arizona scoring the first touchdown in my opinion, and therein lies the opportunity.

Looking at Carolina, they will try to run on Arizona and the once reliable Arizona run defense has allowed 473 rushing yards in the last two weeks. In part they will attempt to establish the run because moving the ball through the air on Arizona is difficult, they have one of the best cornerback tandems in the league in Patrick Peterson and Antonio Cromartie.

So which running back? Well the most likely is Johnathan Stewart with 175 carries, and 806 yards in the regular season. Carolina do have Cam Newton at quarterback though, one of the best "dual threat" quarterbacks in the game with over 100 runs this season, over 500 yards rushing and five rushing touchdowns. As long as the offensive line protects him well, and defenses look to account for Stewart first on rushing downs, Newton is a threat every game.

The market prices up Stewart and Newton both at 10-1+ for first touchdown scorer for the game, depending where you can get on.

I'm having 10 points each:

Johnathan Stewart first touchdown scorer - at BetVictor at 10-1

Cam Newton - first touchdown scorer at BetVictor or William Hill at 12-1

 Bookmaker reviews and advice

Getting the best price available is very important for all those who take their betting seriously.

Please open an account with all those bookmakers on the page on this link that you do not already have an account with using the links provided.

Matchbook

Matchbook are a genuine bookmaking alternative for UK punters who are missing the likes of innacle and SBOBet. Matchbook are an exchange with good market liquidity and low commission rates (they charge 1.15% commission on all bets). They are very competitive on soccer and tennis and particularly NFL - especially closer to kick off with very thin margins. They also plan to add horse racing in early 2015. Matchbook are a must have for BettingEmporium.com customers. Open your Matchbook account here and get a £25 FREE bet.

A New year. Some betting New Year resolutions (well, it makes a change from joining a gym. Again.)

- Sign up to Brodders' tips

Make a Brodders subscription. +£6,535 in 2014 to £10 a point stakes and a 7.65% ROI. Subscription to Brodders write ups, analysis and bets is £50 a month

Subscribe here

- Don’t be results orientated

It is easy to get in the mindset that every winning bet is a good one and every losing bet is a bad one. This is simply not the case. There’ll be many occasions when the opposite applies – some of your best bets will indeed be losing ones. Try and look objectively at a bet after the event, to see if the bet truly was value (win or lose).

- Adaptability

There’ll be many times when you decide upon a bet where you’ll be completely steadfast in your decision, and this is a normally a good place to be, as you’ll be completely confident. However, there will be times when that can be a problem, especially if you come across information that could or even should change your mind. Being adaptable and keeping on top of changing situations will only be a good thing

- Keep Records/ keep better records

There is no single thing that can improve your sports betting more than improving your record keeping. A few minutes every day to write down the bets you made and how they turned out gives so much powerful information. A surprising number of people just guess about how they are doing, and make overly optimistic assumptions and decisions based on those assumptions. It allows you to go back and look at the bets you make that win regularly and those that lose more often than they should. Once you know that you can avoid costly mistakes (cutting out some types of bets and sports entirely if neccesary) and edges that you may have.

There are standard stats that people know and embrace for every sport – In US Sports for example, which lead the way for depth of stats ERA and batting average in baseball, sacks and QB rating in football, points and assists in basketball. These are the tip of the iceberg.  Metric-based analysis is progressing swiftly in the Premier League here for example.

In every one of those examples above, though, those statistics are far from the best way to understand how a team or player is performing, and how they may perform in the future. There are other, far more useful stats that are widely available, easy to understand, and far more powerful as an indicator and predictor. The new year would be a great time to understand one or more new statistics. Pick a new stat, understand it, and figure out if and how it can help you be a better winner. If nothing else, doing this will help you see what the problems are with the widely used stats.I do a fair amount of baseball betting, and my task this off-season is to learn “WAR” (Wins above replacement value for players) and see if it can help me on a daily basis when looking at match ups particularly for pitchers.  

College Football bowl games started on December 20th and run until January 12th. Stuart is doing write ups and analysis, free to access here

English Football - Leagues and Cups Stuart analyses the week's games in the FA Cup, free to access here

Betting Emporium results

The detailed results page has been updated as have the spreadsheets with the detailed bets. They can be found by clicking RESULTS

£10 per point on every recommended bet since  launch in Feb 2013 would be winning +£13,292.90 (as at 22-12-14)

All bets have an ROI +5.71% and Horse Racing has an ROI +21.50%

There is also a Frequently Asked Questions Section

Coming Up this weekend

- NFL Week 17. For all Neil's Sunday analysis and selections £25 Sign Up Here. The final week of the regular season, with the play-off match-ups being decided in the matches on Sunday night.

- The Premier League Christmas schedule sees plenty of betting opportunities with a full slate of games on both Boxing Day and Sunday 28th

- Racing, with no less than eight National Hunt Meetings across the country on Boxing Day headed by the King George meeting at Kempton followed by the Welsh Grand National fixture at Cepstow on Saturday.

- Darts, the PDC World Championship with second round matches at Alexandra Palace resuming on Saturday 27th.

- Cricket, Test matches ongoing over Christmas in Melbourne (Australia v India), Port Elizabeth (South Africa v West Indies) and Christchurch (New Zealand v Sri Lanka).

PDC World Darts Championship (Dec 18th 2014 - Jan 4th 2015) by Nigel Seeley

A Championship preview was published last week and match by match analysis and write ups by Nigel Seeley are being published during the event, and Nigel has had a good start to the event on Betting Emporium. The full package is £49.99.

Free Tip of the Week   

The Road to Riches features regular free tips from Betting Emporium writers. Today Neil Channing looks at the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day (3.10 Kempton)

 Bookmaker reviews and advice

Getting the best price available is very important for all those who take their betting seriously.

Please open an account with all those bookmakers on the page on this link that you do not already have an account with using the links provided.

Matchbook

Matchbook are a genuine bookmaking alternative for UK punters who are missing the likes of innacle and SBOBet. Matchbook are an exchange with good market liquidity and low commission rates (they charge 1.15% commission on all bets). They are very competitive on soccer and tennis and particularly NFL - especially closer to kick off with very thin margins. They also plan to add horse racing in early 2015. Matchbook are a must have for BettingEmporium.com customers. Open your Matchbook account here and get a £25 FREE bet.

A Quick look at NFL Total Betting

In one of Saturday night's NFL recommendations Neil said "The total here opened 50.5 and it's currently 50. 51 is a massively "key number" in NFL totals, it is twice as likely as 50 so we need to make sure we are the right side of that."

In that game, Eagles at Redskins, the match finished 27-24 for a line of 51 points, and his "overs" bet at 50.5 landed.

This prompted me to have a look at key numbers, and some of the data behind the numbers that Neil uses.

The basics:

Offering lines on NFL totals give the bookmaker a chance to offer another point spread opportunity to collect more vig, as well as give sports bettors another opportunity to beat the house. A betting total is set on the number of points both teams figure to score in one said contest. An average total in the NFL is around 37, in fact about 5% of all NFL games land on this number, making the number 37 a very important number to be around. If you like a game under you will want to try and play it at 37 or 37.5 rather than 36.5, just as if you like a game over you would want to play at 36.5 or 37, rather than 37.5.

The opportunity:

Typically totals are easier to beat than point spreads for a few reasons. First the public is not as interested in totals as betting sides in a game. Second the people that actually do take the time to research betting totals do not break the numbers correctly and do well enough research to consistently win long term. What these means for us astute sports bettors is an even better opportunity to break the houses back while betting the NFL.

The numbers:

There are 10 very common totals in football: 33, 37, 38, 41, 44, 45, 47, 48, 51, and 54.

Almost 40% of all NFL games will land on one of these key numbers. For someone like Neil, assessing games and frequently betting over/under points totals knowing these common totals, and looking at them relative to the spreads on offer, can be the key difference between taking the right or wrong price. On Saturday night, taking 50.5 was crucial.

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