We were pleased to see more than £2m matched on the Betconnect platform in October, a new monthly record! So how did we get there? This blog sums up the key highlights as Pros stacked up their Bet Requests and Punters rushed to match them.
An early rugby league focus
The first major sporting event to take place in October was the NRL final (Australian rugby league) between the Sydney Roosters and the Canberra Raiders. The Roosters were strong favourites to win back-to-back premierships, and mwheels2 certainly agreed. A big bet at 2/5 was matched and Sydney duly won 14-8. But rival Pro gamble365 read the match completely wrong, with a £2.5k bet matched on over 34.5 points at 10/11. Hopefully plenty of layers got involved!
The second major rugby league fixture of the month was the Super League final in England, contested between St Helens and Salford. St Helens were looking to win their 14th title, and were 12-point favourites according to the bookies. Again gamble365 got stuck in, backing Salford (+12) at even money and 10/11 for over £6k. The final score was 23-6 to St Helens. Once again, the layers were laughing.
Commission-free rugby union
The main rugby focus was on the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan however, where the Pros were out in force to take advantage of the 0% commission offer for the whole of October. jr78239 had an excellent tournament, landing 13 of 21 bets placed, and securing a lovely profit of £1,500 after the Tongans covered the handicap against the French in their Pool C tie. The overall ROI of all rugby union bets in October was a solid 7.4%.
The 2019 Darts World Grand Prix was held in Dublin, and just like the winner, ‘Green Machine’ Michael van Gerwen, IBZHANE had a great tournament, landing all four bets placed on the event. The largest bet we saw came from Alfonso, who staked £1,500 on Vincent van der Voort to beat Nathan Aspinall in the first round. Van der Voort lost 2-0 to the World Championship semi-finalist.
Horse racing: Big prices, big punts
With big meetings on the flat, and the start of the 2019/20 jump season, there were bound to be plenty of impressive winners in October. We saw a rare 100/1 winner when Wadi Al Salaam came good at Newcastle for an inspired Spin2win, while CurlyB had a £5,000 win at Newmarket. British Champions Day at Ascot took place on 19th October. This is always a spectacle for any flat racing fans, with the top horses going head to head in what is often their final run of the season.
On October 28, timbo2828 had £650 each-way matched on Jaariyah at 4/1 at Kempton. The Roger Varian-trained filly did not attract much market support, drifting out to 7/1 at the off. A one-and-a-quarter length victory meant that any of the punters following the bet with a bookmaker offering best odds guaranteed landed a nice extra profit. The three-point drift equated to £2,340 extra to be made at the bookies.
On heavy ground, it proved to be a pretty tricky betting meeting however. One of the few Betconnect Pros who did make a profit on the day was PROFSMS who landed a big bet on Magical at 5/4 in the Group 1 Champion Stakes. One week earlier at Newmarket, PROFSMS backed the extremely exciting two-year-old Pinatubo (pictured above) in the Dewhurst Stakes. A £10,000 bet, one of the biggest racing bets we’ve seen on the platform, returned a cool £3,000 profit. The 8/1 shot Max Vega was also a winner for PROFSMS on the day.
A Stateside stampede for cash
Over in America, sport tends to hot up during October. An absorbing MLB 2019 World Series took place between 22nd and 30th, with the Washington Nationals winning a game seven decider against the Houston Astros. In game three, worldcup1 successfully backed under 8.5 and under 6.5 total runs at 22/25 and 2/1 respectively. The same Pro also had some winners on the NBA, which kicked off on the 23rd. Bets on the Celtics against the Raptors, and under 222.5 points in the Grizzlies v Bulls game led to even more profit.
But it’s NFL that has generally been the most popular of our US markets. The first and anytime touchdown scorer markets have seen plenty of interest, with lyndarnio, bradNFL and zcfae68 some of the Pros who have landed some tasty wins. lyndarnio came up with a £2,000 bet on Kerryon Johnson to be the first touchdown scorer in the Packers v Lions game on the 15th, which returned an impressive £16,000. That was one of the biggest single wins across all sport in the month.
Some football fancies
But lyndarnio is also a dab hand at finding winners in association football. In gameweek three of the Champions League, lyndarnio backed the Olympiacos striker El Arabi to score the first goal in their home tie against Bayern Munich. A 23rd minute header, which needed the intervention of goal-line technology, landed an 11/1 winner and a £5,500 profit.
Meanwhile, Stamford, who had a pretty good October as a whole, had a shocker in gameweek nine of the Premier League. A couple of £10k bets on the two North London sides, both fully matched, were both losers! Spurs drew 1-1 at home to Watford, while Arsenal lost 1-0 away in Sheffield on Monday night. A juicy profit was there to be made for the layers. In summary, the combined ROI on the footy bets in October was -6%.
An unusual story in the tennis
At the end of the month, three separate tennis tournaments took the eye of the Betconnect Pros. The WTA Finals plus the Paris Masters and Charlottesville Challenger all attracted interesting money. We saw eight £5k+ bets matched on the three events combined, four winners and four losers. plyo711, who finished the month with a tennis ROI of 1%, had 17 winners across the tournaments.
This Pro’s biggest priced winner came on day three of the Charlottesville Challenger, and it came in bizarre fashion. Michael Mmoh, who was 6-4 4-1 down at the time, threw his racket against the wall in frustration! Mmoh’s racket hit a line judge, and he was subsequently disqualified! Darian King was therefore awarded the win, and plyo711 walked away with a 15/8 winner.
About the writer:
James Dalton joined the trading team at Betconnect in December 2018, after graduating from the University of East Anglia with a 2.1 in Maths earlier that year. He is a big racing and football fan and says: “My grandad used to take my bets when I went racing as a kid, acting as the world’s worst bookie, offering me prices at almost half the odds! Liverpool are my football team, and I really do believe that finally this is our year. I promise I didn’t say that last season.”
BIG-PRICED WINNERS
| Pro | Sport | Fixture | Market | Selection | Price |
| Spin2win | Racing | Newc 18:05 (18 Oct) |
Race Winner | Wadi Al Salaam | 100/1 |
| zcfae68 | NFL | Dolphins @ Bills | Anytime TD Scorer | K. Ballage | 16/1 |
| lyndarnio | Football | Olympiacos v Bayern | First Goalscorer | Y. El Arabi | 11/1 |
LARGE MATCHED STAKES
(at least 20 bets placed)
| Pro | Matched | Fixture | Market | Selection | Price |
| LPouille | £22,000 | Hellas Verona v Sassuolo | Asian Handicap | Sassuolo (+0) | 28/25 |
| gamble365 | £10,000 | Chardy v Kecmanovic | Match Result | Kecmanovic | 13/10 |
| PROFSMS | £10,000 | Newm 3:30 (12 Oct) | Race Winner | Pinatubo | 3/10 |
BEST-PERFORMING PROS
| Pro | Bets | ROI | Sports | Best Bet |
| Birkdale | 26 | 131% | Racing, Rugby Union | Wolves 5:45 (24th Oct) Robin Gold 50/1 |
| Capricorn | 20 | 79% | Racing, Football | Wolves 7:25 (14th Oct) Lethal Talent 11/1 |
| HCoSyndic | 30 | 56% | Racing, Football | Ayr 1:35 (28 Oct) Corrieban Reiver 14/1 |
| timbo2828 | 128 | 52% | Racing, Boxing, Darts Football, Rugby Union Snooker |
Kemp 6:10 (31 Oct) Eevilynn Drew – 16/1 |
| jr78239 | 24 | 43% | Rugby Union, Tennis | France v Tonga (6 Oct) Tonga (+25) Evens |