Chelsea vs. West Bromwich Betting Preview - Premier League - betxpert.co.uk

Chelsea vs. West Bromwich Betting Preview - Premier League - betxpert.co.uk
José Mourinho and Roberto Martinez are harboring a spell of disappointment. Mourinho for Chelsea’s soft side and Martinez for a “well deserved penalty,” that was not given. - See more at: http://www.betxpert.co.uk/betting-previews/278-chelsea-vs-west-bromwich-albion-betting-preview-premier-league#sthash.vpuGmKrB.dpuf

Crystal Palace vs. Everton Betting Preview - Premier League - betxpert.co.uk

Crystal Palace vs. Everton Betting Preview - Premier League - betxpert.co.uk

Though there are plenty of matches left this season, Crystal Palace’s foresees a bleak future as they suffered their 6 consecutive defeat.

Crystal Palace vs. Everton Betting Preview 
Match Date: 09 November 2013 (local time)
Venue: Selhurst Park

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Real Madrid vs. Real Sociedad Betting Preview La Liga - betxpert.co.uk

Real Madrid vs. Real Sociedad Betting Preview La Liga - betxpert.co.uk
Real Sociedad’s joist against Osasuna was quite predictable, but a clash against a well-organized Real Madrid is definitely a different story. This match will stockpile thrilling maneuvers from both squads, but the home side will still emerge as the one carrying the day (as they did in most of their recent battles). Wagering on spots from 1.75 to 2.17 for Real Madrid would be an intelligent decision. - See more at: http://www.betxpert.co.uk/betting-previews/280-real-madrid-vs-real-sociedad-betting-preview-la-liga#sthash.Pb4f2gIN.dpuf

Everton host Tottenham at Goodison Park

Tottenham take on Everton at Goodison Park on today afternoon looking to climb back into the top four.

Spurs head into the game sitting sixth in the Premier League table but with Chelsea losing to Newcastle and Liverpool losing to Arsenal, they will be hoping to take advantage and move into second with a win today.

Andre Villas-Boas men edged past Hull City in the league last weekend thanks to a controversial late penalty while the Tigers then took them to penalties in the Capital One Cup in midweek before the north Londoners progressed in with an 8-7 shoot-out win.

Everton on the other hand beat Aston Villa 2-0 last Saturday to move up to sixth in the table – just a single point behind tomorrow’s opposition – so can reinforce their top-four credentials with a win on Sunday.

Two late goals from the Toffees secured a 2-1 win in this fixture last season and Spurs have lost on their last three trips to Goodison so will be hoping to end that run this time around.

Roberto Martinez will have to make do without the services of striker Arouna Kone after he was ruled out with a knee injury, so Romelu Lukaku should continue on his own in attack.

Defender John Heitinga is back in contention after recovering from a muscle problem that’s kept him out of the last two games, but he’s expected to be among the subs with Distin and Jagielka continuing their partnership at the back.

Defender Antolin Alcaraz and midfielder Darron Gibson remain on the sidelines through injury.

Tottenham are still without defender Danny Rose, who continues to struggle with a foot injury, so Jan Vertonghen may play at left-back with Kyle Naughton only considered as 50-50 for the game due to a thigh injury.

Winger Nacer Chadli picked up a hamstring problem in midweek so joins Emmanuel Adebayor and Zeki Fryers on the sidelines, but Andros Townsend is expected to be passed fit despite clashing with the advertising boards last weekend.

Younes Kaboul made a successful return to action against Hull but may drop back to the bench today.

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Garcia: Torino-Roma Will Be A Show

Roma coach Rudi Garcia has saluted his record-breaking players ahead of Sunday's Serie A match at Torino.

A 1-0 victory over Chievo on Thursday allowed the capital side to set a league record of 10 successive victories at the start of a season.

"This is a fantastic run of results for us," Garcia said. "I have a magical squad.

"The players give everything and everyone is rowing in the same direction. They all want to win and they give everything on the pitch.

"This is the secret to our success so far."

The latest victory lifted Roma five points clear of nearest rivals Napoli and Juventus at the top of the division.

Frenchman Garcia does not want his players to ease up and has his mind set on extending the run to 11 games.

"We have very little time to celebrate as we have one day less than Torino to prepare for our game," Garcia said. "We have to recover our energy."

Roma, who are still without injured strikers Gervinho and Francesco Totti, will be hoping Marco Borriello can increase his goals tally.

The Italian forward scored his first goal for Roma since May 2011 on Thursday to hand his team their historic win.

Opponents Torino face a stern test as they take on the best defence and attack in Serie A this season. Roma have conceded just one goal while they have found the net 24 times.

Adding to the case against Torino is the fact the home side will have six players unavailable through injury.

"Against Roma we will be in a critical situation," Torino coach Giampiero Ventura said. "We haven't recovered any injured players and to make matters worse, (midfielder Giuseppe) Vives will serve a one-match ban."

Torino go into the game in Turin on the back of Wednesday's 3-3 result at Livorno - a fourth draw in their last six games.

Alessio Cerci converted a late penalty to hand his team a valuable point and lift Torino to 12th place.

Torino have not won since beating Bologna 2-1 on September 22.

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Betting on football is a huge and growing global industry worth billions of pounds per year.

Football betting - the global gambling industry worth billions

Gambling on football is a huge and growing global industry worth billions of pounds per year.

While having a flutter at the bookies has long been associated with horse racing, the growth of online betting could see football challenge that position in Britain.

However, betting on football is now a worldwide phenomenon with much of the trading carried out on illegal markets in Asia, where the huge sums wagered bring with it the threat of match-fixing.

Here we look at the rise in betting, the risks of corruption and the history of cheating in the sport.

How much is the sports betting industry worth?

"The current estimations, which include both the illegal markets and the legal markets, suggest the sports match-betting industry is worth anywhere between $700bn and $1tn (£435bn to £625bn) a year," says Darren Small, director of integrity at betting and sports data analysts Sportradar.

About 70% of that trade has been estimated to come from trading on football.

Sportradar has contracts to monitor betting on some 55,000 matches a year, running algorithms which cover 350 global bookmakers, to spot suspicious betting patterns. Concerns are raised with about 1% of fixtures monitored.

"It doesn't sound a great deal but it is still 500 or so matches that are potentially fixed and we are talking potentially millions of pounds in turnover on these matches which is running through criminal activities," says Small.

International crime investigation body Interpol says its Operation Soga has carried out more than 2,300 raids on properties worldwide as part of its drive to disrupt match fixers.

It has seized over $27m (£16.8m) in cash, and closed down illegal gambling dens which handled bets worth more than $2bn (£1.2bn).

What are people betting on?

While betting in Asia is usually restricted to a limited range, the array of options in Europe are far more than the traditional straightforward choices of win, lose or draw.

Licensed bookies offer upwards of 200 different markets on matches around the globe.

You can bet on the first and last goalscorer, the correct score, the half-time score, number of goals, whether there will be a sending-off, a hat-trick, penalty or the amount of corners.

Some markets are time specific - offering odds on whether there might be a goal, card, corner or penalty in the first five minutes of the match, for example.

Is betting on football a new phenomenon?

The Football Pools started 90 years ago this year. Within months, hundreds of thousands of fans were filling in weekly coupons, attempting to predict Saturday afternoon's results in the hope of winning cash prizes.

In 1961, Viv Nicholson, a factory worker from Castleford, won a £152,000 jackpot,  equivalent to almost £5m today.

More than £3.2bn in winnings has been paid to 61m people over the years and more than 500,000 people still play the pools each week.

What has changed in recent years?

The growth of the internet and mobile devices with quick access to odds has made betting generally much more accessible.

Satellite television channels and increased coverage of live football matches around the world has increased interest and opportunity.

With it has come the widespread use of "in-running" betting, where punters can stake money on the action as it happens - for example, who will score the next goal, with odds fluctuating on the pattern of play.

Online football betting has mushroomed since it first became significant before the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000.

What is illegal betting?

There is a ban on sports betting in some countries, while elsewhere illegal betting syndicates offer better odds, making the potential winnings more attractive.

Laws vary in different countries. In Singapore, for example, it is legal to place a wager on a football match at a "pools store", but online sports betting is banned.

Aside from the concerns over match-fixing, there are other financial issues associated with illegal betting, including transactions that are unaccounted for and cost governments hundreds of millions in lost tax revenue, while they also damage the profits of legal bookmakers.

Gamblers take their own risks. With no records of bets, the arrangement is based on mutual trust.

Is football match-fixing a new issue?

Incidents involving British footballers are relatively isolated, although betting scandals go back as far as 1915 when seven players were banned after Manchester United beat Liverpool 2-0 in a match at Old Trafford where the visitors missed a penalty.

An investigation was launched after complaints from bookmakers following a run of bets on the correct scoreline, with a goal in each half.

Nearly 50 years later, eight players were jailed for offences surrounding match-fixing, including Sheffield Wednesday's 2-0 defeat by Ipswich in 1964.

A series of floodlight failures affected top-flight English matches in 1997 and later saw a businessman convicted of taking part in an Asian betting scam.

The fraudster, who had links to the Chinese Triad underworld, was found guilty of plotting to black out a Charlton-Liverpool game.

Two previous matches - West Ham v Crystal Palace and Wimbledon against Arsenal - saw the floodlights fail when the scores were level, a result favourable to a Far East betting syndicate, but cases of match-fixing in Britain are relatively rare.

In 2006, Italian sides Juventus, Fiorentina and Lazio were relegated for their involvement in a match-fixing scandal - although after appeals, only Juve were actually demoted.

Earlier this year, 58 Chinese football officials were given match-fixing bans and last month police in Singapore arrested 14 people said to be part of a crime gang involved in global football match-fixing.

There have also been cases of cheating in Malaysia and South Korea while last month six people - including four Britons - were charged with betting-related corruption in Australia.

What are the authorities doing to tackle match-fixing?

In February this year, the European Union's law enforcement agency Europol said it was investigating the fixing of 680 matches across the world - in Europe, Asia and South America.

A Europol statement said the conspiracy originated in Asia and involved at least 425 individuals - including match referees, club officials, players and members of organised criminal gangs.

It also said that, in Germany-based matches alone, criminals wagered £13.8m (16m euros) on rigged matches and made £6.9m in profits.

Three months later Michel Platini, president of European football's governing body Uefa, called for the establishment of a European sports police force to deal with match-fixing, hooliganism and doping - something he had first suggested in 2007.

He also asked that if a continent-wide police force was not possible, individual countries could introduce legislation to punish those guilty of corruption.

Meanwhile, in 2011 Interpol and football's governing body Fifa announced a 10-year joint initiative aimed at educating people about the risks with workshops, conferences and online tutorials.

Fifpro, the worldwide professional footballers' union, last year launched Don't Fix It, a prevention and education programme aimed at raising awareness of the dangers of match-fixing and reducing conditions that lead to it occurring.

Dr Andy Harvey of Birkbeck, University of London, is carrying out research for the Don't Fix It programme. He said: "In many cases the players are the victims of match-fixing rather than just the perpetrators of it.

"The main instigators of it, as has been the case in Italy in the past, are when clubs have been infiltrated by criminal gangs, like has happened in eastern European countries, or where players have been groomed by criminal gangs.

"This very often happens because the players are vulnerable. The European bodies, particularly Uefa, have to get to grips with governances at a national level and make sure that clubs are owned by fit and proper people."

How hard is it to fix a football match?

With 22 players on the pitch, substitutes and managers, it would appear on the surface that several people would need to be in on the scam.

However, mistakes in key positions can sometimes be enough to land a gamble.

Reckless tackles leading to penalties, a flawed goalkeeping performance or deliberate own goals have been noted in suspect matches.

Referees can also be targeted as demonstrated by bans handed down by Fifa following matches between Latvia and Bolivia, and Estonia and Bulgaria, in 2011.

The games, which took place as a double-header in Turkey and only attracted about 100 spectators, produced seven goals - all scored from penalties.

Six officials involved in the games were found guilty of "passive corruption" and "unlawfully influencing match results" by Fifa's disciplinary committee.

Mourinho making Blues tick in tune

Mourinho making Blues tick in tune

Chelsea head to Newcastle on Saturday on the back of a six-game winning run and knowing victory would take them top of the Barclays Premier League, for a few hours at least.

Mourinho made 10 changes for Tuesday night's 2-0 Capital One Cup win at Arsenal and will have to disappoint the majority of that team when he picks his starting line-up for the lunchtime kick-off.

But as he tuned up for the trip to Newcastle, Mourinho put their recent fine form down to a squad of players who are all singing from the same hymn sheet.

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