The Dual Player

As we all know, betting advice columns such as this one are supposed to work within certain parameters, golden rules, if you will. One of those is that the margin contained within first goalscorer betting is enough to make any bookmaker salivate with self-satisfaction, and so there would have to be a serious edge in order for any bet to be worthy of recommendation in such a market. That could happen later in the week, when the bookmakers have put up their betting market early but the teams have been either announced late, or word creeps out of a late change and a player who was supposed to line out at midfield or wing forward instead takes his place in the full forward line. This week however, will be utterly fascinating from both a football and a betting point of view. The championship fixtures taking place this weekend in all four provinces will be the first games to take place under the new square ball rules, where attacking players are allowed to contest high possession against the ...

After blowing Cork out of the water in the National League final, Kilkenny have plunged in the antepost betting market for the Liam McCarthy Cup, to the point that 4/5 is now the best priced wager available from any of the betting firms out there. Indeed it's notable that Paddy Power seem to be ducking the Cats entirely, offering 4/6 about a Kilkenny All Ireland success, but going best price on three of the next four counties in the betting. Powers have also gone all the way out to 9/1 Cork, sending the Rebels back to the kind of price that they were earlier this year before the Jimmy Barry bandwagon gathered momentum. Which of course leads us to the crucial question - at 4/5, are Kilkenny a back or a lay? Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Sunday's performance was the way that Kilkenny won so easily despite missing several of their key players. Manager Brian Cody may put on a brave face when it comes to injuries, but it's easy to do so when your reserves step in and perform ...

In a former life, yours truly lived on the other side of the fence - as an employee of several large betting chains. Indeed having served time as the originator of all those betting markets, our view is that all punters should be odds compilers for a while, and all odds compilers should be punters as well. After all, you don't have to study Sun Tzu in depth to realise that in betting, just as in war, mastering the art involves knowing and understanding your enemy. One of the biggest weapons available to both the punter and the compiler is cognitive bias on the part of the other party. Odds compilers know that punters like backing short priced favourites (i.e. 1/2 or shorter) as part of accumulators, but not usually in single bets. As a result, a true odds 4/11 shot might be 2/5 if there is only one or two games available for betting, while the price could be 1/3 or 3/10 if it's just one game on a long bet coupon, where the bulk of the money will be placed in accumulator bets. On ...

This weekend eight counties will bring successful National Football League campaigns to a close with the action spread across two double headers at Croke Park. On Saturday evening Fermanagh face off against Wicklow while Wexford meet Longford, with the blue and gold counties underdogs in the betting in both cases. Then on Sunday, Kildare face Tyrone at Croke Park for the second time this Spring, before Cork meet Mayo in a repeat of the 2011 All Ireland quarter final between the two counties. Here the public are favouring Cork and Tyrone, though wagers on Kildare and Mayo have plenty of justification too. We'll start our rundown with tomorrow evening's game between Fermanagh and Wicklow. Here Powers, Ladbrokes and Hills are the leading bookmakers for those looking to bet on Fermanagh as they offer 8/13 about a win for Peter Canavan's team, while Bet365 go 15/8 about a win for Wicklow. In this fixture, here at betting.com we didn't have to give it a moment's consideration ...

At the time of writing, Galway are on the brink of a very significant victory over Dublin, one that should secure their place in the top flight of the National Hurling League for another year, while condemning the Dubs to games against Antrim and Carlow in 2013. Even more importantly, this game looks like a coming-of-age for the Galway hurlers. They've shown great presence defensively, but crucially, they are working as a team and building their attack around Joe Canning rather than expecting the big Portumna man to do it all by himself. Of course Galway will still need Canning to produce the goods if they are to finally deliver that long sought after All Ireland title. After all very few players could have provided the kind of finish that he produced for Galway's crucial second goal, the one that set the team into real forward momentum. Nonetheless these two games against Dublin have been hugely valuable for Anthony Cunningham and his team. While Galway remain a county prone to ...

This weekend Mayo meet Kerry in Croke Park in a repeat of last Sunday's round robin fixture between the two Western seaboard counties and the accepted wisdom coming into the fixture is that Kerry had nothing to play for last weekend, so this time around they will be much more motivated and thus should win. Certainly the bookmakers are following that line of thinking with match betting lines of 2/5 or shorter about the Kingdom. Indeed looking at Mayo's league campaign as a whole, there is plenty of validity to that approach. However taking Mayo's league campaign as a whole is not really the right way to assess their campaign so far since it was essentially two seasons split up into one. They started well with good wins over Laois and Armagh, before hitting a terrible slump in mid-March, losing badly to both Down and Donegal. However with relegation very much a concern, they stepped up the intensity over the last three games and delivered three excellent performances, narrowly ...

Dublin and Kerry may be the rivalry that the media love to romanticize, but battles between the capital and the "Real Capital" always feed the imagination too, and this weekend's battle in Páirc Uí Chaoimh has the making of a particularly informative clash. Technically for Dublin, relegation is a possibility, however that would require a lot of things to happen, not least a huge swing in scoring difference. However after what happened in Castlebar, Dublin manager Pat Gilroy will be sure to be on his guard since the last thing he wants is to be playing division 2 football in 2013. Their main aim however will be to secure a place in the top four, but the team that has been picked doesn't exactly inspire confidence. The two Brogan brothers remain absent, as does Eoghan O'Gara, who played some of his best ever football during this league campaign. The upshot of this is a very unfamiliar looking forward line, with four footballers starting who would be more ...

Anyone familiar with the world of betting will know of the phenomenon of meaningless football matches, particularly in Italy, ending in draws at the end of the season. Indeed anyone well versed in Italian football culture will know that in some cases, when you've nothing to play for, it's almost considered bad manners to compete aggressively or a result against an opponent who needs it more. Thus we end up with the weird scenario where the betting for a match can see prices as low as 1/2 or 4/9 about a draw result. Now nobody would argue for a minute that the National Hurling League operates along those lines - such thinking would be anathema to an intercounty hurler - what cannot be disputed is that in an amateur game where so much depends on being physically and mentally ready for a tough battle, it's very hard to trump hunger. That's why the final round of league games, particularly because of the convoluted playoff system, has to be approached with real caution. In division ...

Another fascinating week of under-21 battles lies ahead as GAA punters continue to be spoilt for choice with the range of games out there for betting. It's quarter final stage in Ulster and semi-final time in the other four provinces, with the last of the big guns like Cork, Down, Roscommon, Cavan and 2009 All Ireland minor champions Armagh finally revealing their hand this week. However in Leinster there is a little bit more form to go on and based on that form so far, Westmeath, Offaly and Louth would be as well to give up the ghost since Dublin look simply irresistible. They began their campaign with an away win over champions Wexford and they followed that up with an incredible demolition job on Laois, who offered little or no resistance in Parnell Park. Laois and Dublin drew at minor level three years ago with Laois winning after extra time, so clearly either Dublin had progressed considerably since then, or else Laois simply couldn't get it together at this level this year ...

The All Ireland club finals are a unique occasion, perhaps unparalleled in world sport. After all, where else do teams representing and picked exclusively from villages of as little as 1000 people, play in a national stadium in front of 40,000 spectators and a nationwide television audience? Whatever about Garrycastle and Crossmaglen, both Coolderry and Loughgiel certainly fulfill those criteria and their match in Croke Park represents a once in a lifetime opportunity for the two clubs involved. Birr and St Rynaghs have historically represented Offaly very well on the provincial and national stage but Coolderry, along with the other village clubs like Kinnitty and Seir Kieran, never really made an impact until this year. Of course everything changed when Ken Hogan's men played and beat Birr in the Offaly senior final, the kind of win that they never had to produce in 2010. William Hill head the betting about the favourites with 8/15 on offer about the Offaly champions, while Stan James ...