The Sporting Drug

Certain sports in the UK have massive fan bases, but what is the cause of this? Could it be that sport is the focal point of all UK interests? Could it be that these sports just completely sell out to make fans happy? Could it be the gambling interest keeping people hooked on the sports with so many different ways of betting including: football spread betting, football betting online, rugby league betting, cricket spread betting and horse racing betting? Could it be due to how we are raised during childhood by our parents and our experiences at school? Or is there some unknown factor?

Football, Cricket, Tennis, Rugby Union, Rugby League, Motor sport (F1 and Rally), Golf and Horse Racing are the top sports in the UK, however Football has a far bigger fans base, but why? Modern football is an old sport but that doesn’t mean it has to be the most popular, as Golf is older but is nowhere near as popular in the UK.
And as for football being a UK sport, so are rugby, golf and cricket. Plus football has many origins including Chinese “kick ball” which ‘FIFA’ has admitted to be the main influence on early versions of football as a sport.
The factor of team sports having more fans is a likely reason for football’s huge fans base in the UK with over 600 league teams, plus more none league teams. But still having a large number of teams is not the reason for it popularity, as it has to be popular for teams to be founded in the first place.

Motor Sports are the most modern sports with technology improving more and more every year, cars getting faster and more hi-tech every year, yet the terrible acting of foreign players in the Premiership draw more attention.
Rugby tends to be the hard mans English game!

Gambling is a big part of the UK sports scene; all sports have bets of some shape or form placed on them every day, from betting on a team or person to win, a certain player to score or the difference in the result (spread betting). Betting on sports such as football, rugby and cricket, gets more people interested in the sport as there is money involved for them personally. But this interest only lasts as long as the money holds out, so it doesn’t really account for the popularity of a certain sport. Horse Racing seems completely built around betting as horse racing events tend to be massive betting shops and money changes hands constantly during the whole event. So if horse racing can be built upon a betting environment could other sports have developed from similar effects? Or is money simply the driving factor for everything?

Does our upbringing and schooling influence our preferences when it comes to sports? At school everyone takes part in sports but certain sports are focused on more others, for example in 1999 over 27% of sporting activity for boys in school was football, followed by Athletics accounting for 20% of the sporting activity, while other sports like rugby and cricket have much lower percentages. Could it be that from childhood our choices are swayed by what we do the most, after all if you do something repeatedly you get used to it. Therefore what would happen if in 2010 over 30% of sporting activity in schools was American Football; would American Football become a far more popular sport in the UK?

So out of all these factors is it possible to determine the root cause of the addiction people have to certain sports, why football more than golf?

Does spread betting or even just football spread betting have more of an affect than we thought? Does a sports history make it more prestigious? Are we brainwashed as children to follow a certain sport in a crazed delirium? Or is it just a combination of all these factors plus a little dumb luck? Or have we just over looked something far simpler? It’s really impossible to tell but all these factors make some difference to the way we think about individual sports and why we stick with them through thick and thin, but whatever it is, it is the true heart and soul of sports fans not just in the UK but worldwide.

Fancy a flutter?

Tomorrow Manchester United face off with Bolton Wanderers in an attempt to gain a three point lead in the title battle ahead of Arsenals game on Sunday against Chelsea. If Man U can take this easy victory and Arsenal struggle against Chelsea they would have a solid lead with them still having a game in hand.

Bolton Wanderers however how to hold off the Priemership gaint that is Man U, take the three points to avoid their current religation fears and take Sunderlands position just outside of the religation zone.

This match is an important game for both teams plus Arsenal and Chelsea, as Arsenal need Man U to lose and Chelsea need to beat Arsenal for a chance at taking second spot from them.

So with all this suspense and an ‘On the edge of your seat’ kind of atmosphere, what bettter opportunity to do some spread betting on this nail biting game.

First off, what can we bet on?

Sporting Index has offered the following terms to bet on:

• Man Utd/Bolton
• Total Goals
• Shirt Numbers
• Shirt Supremacy: Man U/Bolton
• Corners
• Corner Supremacy:Man U/Bolton
• Bookings
• Booking Supremacy:Bolton/Man U (h)
• Man Utd Win Index
• Bolton Win Index
• Hotshots
• Total Goal Minutes
• TGMs Supremacy: Man U/Bolton
• Multi-Corners

This gives you alot to choose from and alot of it isn’t exactly clear so I’ll help you out and give you a quick description of each bet.

Man Utd/Bolton

This is a prediction on the winnng margin, in goals of one team versus aniother.

Total Goals

This is a prediction on the total number of gaols scored by both teams in the match.

Shirt Numbers

A prediction on the aggregate shirt numbers of all the goal scorers in the match, i.e. numbers 11, 7, and 6 score the result would be 24.

Shirt Numbers Supremacy Man U:Bolton

This prediction is the difference in the score shirt numbers between each team, i.e. Man U scoring shirt number total is 20 and Boltons is 17.

Corners

This is the prediction of the number of corners taken by both teams during the game.

Corners Supremacy: Man U/Bolton

This is a prediction of the difference between the number of corners taken by each team.

Bookings

This is the prediction of the total number of points accumulated by both teams based on a yellow card being 10 points and a red card being 25 points.

Bookings Supremacy Man U:Bolton

This is the same as the Shirts Supremacy but for bookings so you prediction hwther the diffence in booking points will be higher or lower.

Man U Win index

This is the prediction on the outcome of the match in Man U’s favor. Based on 25 points for a win, 10 points for a draw and 0 points for a loss.

Bolton Win index

This is the prediction on the outcome of the match in Bolton’s favor. Based on 25 points for a win, 10 points for a draw and 0 points for a loss.

Hotshots

This a prediction on the scoring performance of four selected ‘Hotshot’ players, based on 25 points per goal per player and 8 points are awarded if the player does not participate in the match.

Total Goals Minutes

This prediction adds up the total of the time each goal was scored, so a goal scored in the 8th minute and a goal scored in the 62nd minute would give a result of 70.

TGMs Supemacy: Man U/Bolton

This is similar to the other supremacy bets but based on total goal minutes and the difference between the teams.

Multi-Corners

This is a prediction on the number of 1st half corners multipied by the number of 2nd half corners giving you the result, i.e. 4 corners in the 1st half multiplied by the 7 corners in the 2nd half resulting in score of 28 points.

Well the choice is yours as to what to bet on but check the odds on the Sporting Index website or whoever you want to Spread Bet with.

So enjoy the game and enjoy your football spread betting.

I’ll post again soon another day of spread betting.

Welcome!

Well here is my first blog! Not much I know but I don’t really care it’s my site and it will improve!

So I suppose you’ll want to know who I am? Well Im Jon, How you doing? And as far as I go as a person well, I live in Leeds in the UK (the North of England for those unsure of it’s exact location). I live in a flat with a few friend from college and work in a bar pretty much full time! I’m a big sports nut, I play basketball, football (soccer), rugby, badminton, golf, baseball, cricket (sometimes, i just like bowling) and I’m a damn good swimmer and I’ll watch any sport going!

I must admit though with my massive sports interest I have picked up a few bad habits (i.e. heavy spread betting and heavy drinking), it’s not that betting is immoral as it is fine and no-one gets hurt (unless your betting on boxing lol) but I love sports spread betting to the extent that I feel I have to have a bit of a flutter on a big game, but hey nobody is perfect! And as for drinking, well it’s just a way of life for us brits! lol

In my mind spread betting is the best form of gambling. It’s a true challenge, no throwing money on a horse an just hope it wins or guessing which of two team will win at football ir rugby! Horse Racing Spread betting involved betting whether a horse’s points will be greater and less than the estimated number of points, these points are attained depending on postition the horse finishes in (i.e. 1st place = 25pts, 2nd place = 15pts and 3rd place = 5pts) and then your win or loss depends on the difference between the estimate and the result.

Football Spread Betting is similar but you bet against an estimate based on a team’s current form i.e. Arsenal having an unbeaten run would have an estimate of 2.4 to 2.7 goals in the next game, therefore you would have to choose whether to bet thaty more than 2 goals are scoerd in the next game of less and then your winnings (or losses) would be the different between the estimate and the result times your wager.