Tipping Point

Pre-season betting madness

Welcome back to fans of sports and shops with flatscreen televisions, sticky floors and the unemployable! It’s a new season of betting tips straight from the horse’s mouth – if that horse were John McCririck, and if John McCririck liked football. It’s been a pre-season full of wagers, as ever, with Robertos Martinez and Mancini using the exchanges to swap their first names: both cunningly came out unscathed due to the ability to shorten as well as lengthen retroactively in due course. As ever, your home is at risk if you do not keep up repayments on your home, but don’t let that discourage you from a little flutter on the gee-gees, or as it’s more usually known – soccer. As we say at ATOP – bet money fast now gambling. Onwards!

There’s only one team in contention for the coveted title of best Premier League team this year, and as ever, it’s Blackburn Rovers. Rovers have set the market literally (but curiously not figuratively) alight with their shrewd acquisitions of untried Scottish defenders and lucrative chicken sponsorship deals. They’re rightly backed strongly for a fourth consecutive year running as a football team. Some lunatics have them priced as generously as £51.40. Get on it while the iron’s hot, but don’t be frightened of an insurance wallet pot stacked towards Leagues One and lower. Our tip there is to look beyond Huddersfield to find a place of perfect calm and tranquillity.

Top scorers now, and if Nemanja Vidic can reverse his position in the market and on the pitch as tipped then we could be seeing tremendous payouts for shrewd punters and clever betters alike. There’s been consternation on this coupon due to the use of American-style odds by most bookies, but it’s a simple system once you’ve made the necessary adjustments for inflation and hyperbole. We’ll use it here for ease: Robin van Persie (GOAL CHANCE:5 SPIRIT: 10), Didier Drogba (NO DICE), Fernando Torres (FEROCIOUS) (50-50) [NAP] and Howard Webb (1000101111).

One ever-popular market is the famous Premier League sack race, the school sports day-style event held annually to raise money for McDonalds branches in deprived boroughs. Last year’s champion Ian Holloway will be on hand to dispense the sacks and quips, as tradition dictates, but as far at the betting concerned it’s hard to look past popular Arsène Wenger, much fancied at 19s. The chasing pack in descending order are McLeish (5), Mancini (4), Villas-Boas (3), Martinez (2), and no winner (1). Owen Coyle remains clear favourite in the two-day Egg and Spoon festival at Lower Loxley, with the best odds available no higher than eight fifths.

Neil Warnock’s a banker for Premier League wanker. BetRichard says 12s, I’m inclined to stay lower at first but bring to boiling point in time for the fourth round of the League Cup, before offloading sharpish as soon as football climbs as low as ambient room temperature. Be aware that all bets on away goals will be refunded as moot here, provided there are no substitutions.

Tip of the week: If having trouble sleeping why not try lying down?

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