Live, Maybe

In the early days of my second coming as a bettor, having accidentally discovered the betting exchange concept, I found a football (soccer) game that had recently finished, yet Betfair still had it as starting in a few minutes at the original kick off time. I forget the reason why the kick off had been brought forward by a couple of hours at short notice, but I do recall that it was an MLS game and it may have been moved due to the threat of inclement weather, which there can mean death and destruction rather than the UK version of inclement weather which means the rain will be slightly heavier than usual. 

As it was in the early days of being a born again bettor, my account balance at that time wasn't much more than my initial deposit of £98.50, it may even have been a little less, and aware of the popular maxim that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is, my investment was sadly rather modest. In fact I fully expected the bets to be voided, but they never were, and my balance received, in percentage terms at least, a welcome boost.

I was reminded of this anecdote by a story that broke yesterday. I'm personally not interested in betting on mixed martial arts (MMA) events, especially involving little known fighters or organisations which for me included the "Professional Fighters League Challenger Series", but apparently last Friday both fuboTV and the PFL were promoting live fights taking place that same evening:

The only problem was that the fights had been pre-recorded a week earlier and perhaps not at all surprisingly, "suspicious betting activity" was reported. The full story and fall out as reported by ESPN is here. 

As expected, both the Leeds United v Southampton and Wolverhampton Wanderers v Aston Villa games were "official" qualifiers for the EPL Draw System with the former a winner taking the ROI for the season to 17.6%. Both matches kicked-off at the published time, in case you were wondering.

Tonight's Burnley v Everton "Original 12" relegation six-pointer is also a match that looks likely to be a qualifier.  

The NBA Overs have started April strongly with a 10-4 record excluding last night, for which 10 of the 12 matches were qualifiers. Some of you may have noticed that the number of games meeting the criteria have increase quite dramatically during the season, rising from a mere 30 in December, to 78 in January, 82 in a short February, 139 in March and after five days of April, already 24 games. This is because teams are quickly adjusting to the new rules, and the average Total has moved from 215.2 in November to 226.2 in March. The regular season ends on Sunday.

The College basketball season ended on Monday night with Kansas just failing to cover the 4.5 points they were giving to North Carolina, who led by 15 points at half-time. I had the latter to cover and was feeling rather comfortable at the break, but Kansas came back, led by three with a few seconds left and had possession. With North Carolina having to foul, my bet wasn't looking good, but I caught a lucky break with the Kansas player stepping on the line by about a millimeter and North Carolina gained possession missing their Hail Mary at the end. A little early perhaps, but watch out for my Arkansas Razorbacks next season, just 219 days away apparently! 

Slightly closer is the start of baseball which starts tomorrow (Thursday). There's a new name to get used to with the Cleveland franchise becoming the Guardians (formerly Indians) and a few new rules to check out before investing too much. The Designated Hitter Rule will be in effect in both Leagues, and the extra inning rule of starting a runner on second has been restored after earlier reports that it would be discontinued. 

The Los Angeles Dodgers are favourites to win the World Series.