Australia Sports Betting

Sportsbet’s million dollar tipping is now open and is free to join.

Th Rugby League season tipping commences on Friday, the 13th of March and the Aussie Rules season tipping commences Thursday, the 26th of March. You can join either or both of these competitions, but given the random prizes they give out each week, I see no reason to sign up for both. I don’t know the first thing about Aussi Rules but that won’t stop me!

I typically join these competitions to simply compete against my friends for pride, but this competition offers over a million dollars in prizes. And I’m not just talking about a million dollars “worth” of prizes, but a million dollars in cash. The prizes schedule is as follows.

Sportsbet is also giving away over $1,000 in monthly cash prizes for the best performers over that particular month.

Sportsbet will also give away $50 weekly cash prizes based on your ranking compared to some random pre-arranged numbers. For example in the first week those ranked 1st, 221st, 8,401st, 12,781st and 41,891st will win a prize.

There is no cost to members to join Sportsbet and play Million Dollar Tipping. You are not obliged to place wagers with Sportsbet.

Hmmmm. Seems like there’s no excuse to not have a go!

Version 1.02 of the Betting Tracker spreadsheet is now available for download.

The new version comes with the following updates

• ‘Half payout’ added as an additional option for the bet result column in the ‘Bets’ worksheet
• Bonus deposits table added to the ‘Deposits’ worksheet

Click here to learn more about the Betting Tracker.

Introduction

The following is a review of the betting agency Centrebet. I will update this review periodically to keep the details up to date. The Betting Agencies section provides information and reviews for other sports betting agencies.

Centrebet is based overseas, with it’s headquarters in the Netherlands Antilles, but it has an office in Australia and is registered in the Northern Territory. Centrebet is currently an official sponsor of the A-League team the Newcastle Jets.

Overview

• New member offers – Centrebet will give you a free bet equal to double the amount of your first bet, up to a value of $100. So if you sign up and your first bet is $50, you will receive a free $100 bet. For a better deal however, use this link to sign up and Centrebet will give you a free bet equal to your first deposit, up to a maximum of $50. This means you won’t have to dive right in with a large bet to get a good deal.
• Deposit options – Credit card, BPay, direct deposit, Moneybookers
• Withdrawal options – Electronic bank transfer, Moneybookers
• Transaction fees – none
• Minimum bet – $1.00
• Sports – A good range of sports, racing, and entertainment betting options are available. You won’t get as many sports and betting options as the likes of Betfair but the selection should be adequate for most casual punters
• Live betting – Live betting during matches is available but over the phone only for Australian residents
• Credit – Not that I’m aware of.
• Upsides
  • The drop down navigation menu is excellent. You can access all betting markets without having to reload the page.
• Downsides
  • Centrebet doesn’t offer as many deposit and withdrawal options as some of its rivals. In particular it doesn’t offer POLi, which enables you to pay by bank deposit instantly.
  • The help section isn’t quite as detailed as some of the competitor sites. This will only really be an issue for beginners, however, as the interface is well laid out.
• Bottom line – Centrebet offers more than enough sports and betting options to keep the average punter happy. The navigation menu is simple and easy to use, although the deposit and withdrawal options are a little disappointing. Overall, Centrebet provides a solid service that I can recommend with confidence.

Introduction

The following is a review of the betting agency Canbet. I will update this review periodically to keep the details up to date. The Betting Agencies section provides information and reviews for other sports betting agencies.

Overview

• New member offers – Use the promotional code BETBONUS during registration. Deposit and bet $40 or more to receive a $40 bonus bet.
• Deposit options – Credit card, BPay, direct deposit, cheque, Moneybookers, NETeller, EntroPay, POLi (enables you to bay by bank transfer instantly)
• Withdrawal options – Credit card, bank deposit, cheque, NETeller, EntroPay, Moneybookers
• Transaction fees – none
• Minimum bet – $1.00
• Sports – A good range of sports, racing, finance and entertainment betting options are available. Most of the popular sporting events are catered for. For the sporting events a solid range of betting options are on offer. Soccer seems to be its strong point point, with more betting options on offer than many of its competitors.
• Live betting – Live betting during matches is available but over the phone only for Australian residents
• Credit – Yes, upon application
• Upsides
  • The Canbet interface is relatively simple to learn and use
  • Soccer lovers will appreciate the solid range of betting options available on soccer matches
• Downsides
  • To be honest, there’s not much to fault, although I do prefer the SportingBet interface because it features a dynamic sports navigation menu, which makes browsing the betting options faster
  • The range of sports on offer doesn’t seem to be quite as large as some of its rivals, in particular, Betfair
• Bottom line – Canbet offers a good selection of sports to bet on as well as a nice range of betting options. The interface is tidy and easy to use, and will take no time at all for experienced sports betters to get their head around. The range of withdrawal and deposit options is very good. Canbet offers a solid all-round service.

Introduction

The following is a review of the betting agency Betfair. I will update this review periodically to keep the details up to date. The Betting Agencies section provides information and reviews for other sports betting agencies.

Betfair is a unique betting environment in that it lets you choose the odds. The service operates as a marketplace where members can set odds for an event and others can take up those odds. Betfair argues that you get 20% better odds with their service than with other bookmakers. Personally, I find that the odds are often better, especially for predicting the winner of a tournament, such as the Football World Cup or a tennis grand slam event.

Overview

• New member offers – I’m aware of the promotion code BTE111 to get a £25 free bet, but I’m not sure if it applies to Australian residents.
• Deposit options – Credit card (1.5% fee applies), BPay, direct deposit, cheque, Moneybookers, NETeller (1.5% fee applies), POLi (enables bank transfers to be acknowledged immediately)
• Withdrawal options – Bank transfer, credit union transfer, NETeller, Moneybookers
• Transaction fees – 1.5% on credit card and NETeller transactions. Commission fees apply to winning bets and are calculated as 5% multiplied by your discount rate, which is dependent on the value of the recent bets you have made. The original odds are typically better than those offered by other agencies, but they even out more once the commission is applied.
• Minimum bet – $5.00 for AUD denominated accounts
• Sports – A huge range of sports, racing, finance and entertainment betting options are available. Betfair offers a wider range of sports and betting options than any other service I have used.
• Live betting – Live betting during matches is available but over the phone only for Australian residents
• Credit – None that I am aware of
• Upsides
  • Betfair tends to offer odds for upcoming events faster than other services
  • Betfair offers odds for more events as well as more betting options than any other service I have used.
  • The ability to ‘lay bets’ is a great way to bet against rather than for an outcome. This isn’t overly exciting when there are only two outcomes, but it enables you to bet against a particular tennis player to win a tournament, or against a particular team to win the Premier League.
  • Betfair odds are typically better than you will get elsewhere, especially for tournament betting.
• Downsides
  • Betfair is the hardest service to learn and use. It has a fantastic array of services, but learning how it all works takes time.
  • Unlike some services, you can’t verify your identity online. You must go to an Australia Post office to do so.
  • Betfair charges a 1.5% fee on credit card deposits.
  • Due to the complicated commission structure, which applies to net winnings, it is harder to monitor your performance and take advantage of arbitrage opportunities. Point in case: “to calculate the commission you pay in a market, you first have to reduce the Market Base Rate (MBR) by your Discount Rate (DR).” The size the DR is “determined by the number of Betfair Points you have accrued on your account…. Once your DR has been calculated, your Betfair Points balance is reduced by 15%. This is known as the Weekly Decay… You are able to prevent the weekly decay of your Betfair Points by using a Betfair Holiday… You earn one Betfair Holiday when you register and one additional Betfair Holiday every three months thereafter.” Got all that?
  • The minimum bet of $5 is far too high for my taste. Most other agencies support minimum bets of $1.00. Please note that if you have a Euro account, your minimum bet is 0.20 Euros.
  • Australian account holders are given two “wallets” for Australian and non-Australian market events. You have to manually transfer funds between these accounts, which can be annoying when you’re trying to make a quick bet.
• Bottom line – Having use the likes of Sportsbet and Sportingbet, which are standard bookmakers, I found that Betfair took much longer to learn than its competitors. There are two reasons for this. First, it operates like a marketplace rather than a standard bookmaker. Second, Betfair offers many more betting options than its competitors. If you are new to betting and simply want the ability to pick winners for sports events, I would recommend a standard bookmaker like Sportsbet. If, however, you already have a few betting accounts and are looking for more exposure to sports betting, I highly recommend you add Betfair to your portfolio of memberships.

The two-outcome and three-outcome arbitrage calculators have been modified so that you now input the total bet amount rather than the bet amount for a particular outcome.

As an example, if you input a total bet amount of $1,000 for a soccer match, the calculator will determine the three individual bets such that they total $1,000.

A ‘Half Ball’ (Handicap) & ‘Draw No Bet’ Calculator is now available in the tools section.

This calculator enables you to calculate the combination of bets that would enable you to emulate ‘Half Ball’ (Handicap) & ‘Draw No Bet’ bets when these options aren’t provided by your betting agency. These bets are typically employed for soccer and other sports where a draw is a strong possibility. A ‘Half Ball’ bet pays out when your selected team wins or draws the match while ‘Draw No Bet’ pays out if the selected team wins while providing a refund (i.e. no profit or loss) if a draw occurs.