Two down, five to go... on Sudnay Man Utd defeated Spurs 4-1 on penalties, after 120 minutes of goalless football, to win the Carling Cup. In addition to the World Club Cup they won earlier in the season, that sets them up for an unprecedented quintruple of World Club Cup, Carling Cup, FA Cup, Premiership, [.

On Monday May 11th Middlesbrough make the short journey to St James' Park to take on Newcastle United in what should be an ethralling relegation battle. Both sides desperately need three points if they are to put together a run and make a last dash towards survival and the game should be appraoched by the players like a cup-final.

Did you know Josep Guardiola has Mars in Scorpio, conjunct Jupiter?
Up-to-date on the fact that Mars was in Aries when Alex Ferguson was born?
Sir Alex has a lot of Capricorn in his chart, did you know? Ferguson currently has Saturn conjunct the north node of his moon. Both the charts of Manchester United and Sir Alex Ferguson have a lot of Jupiter and Mars activity in them at the moment.

The guys over at 888 are covering all the latest sports and online gaming events. And they are currently putting a bit of focus on the Down Under market: the home of Tim Cahill, Mark Viduka and, erm, Mark Bosnich. 888's sports betting Australia section features many sports options, including football.

Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal. If you ever needed a tip for picking a winner for the Champions League this year, you don't need to look any farther than these four clubs. Out of the final eight teams left, four of them come from the English Premier League; no matter how you look at that stat, [.

When it comes to publicity stunts to create fan loyalty, this has to be one of the best we've seen. Paddy Power, the quirky Irish bookmakers, are refunding Chelsea fans' bets on Wednesday's controversial Champions League loss against Barcelona. The statement read, "We're guessing most Chelsea fans are about as happy about last [.

It's all change at Old Trafford as one winger leaves and another is brought in to take his place. As Cristiano Ronaldo completed his world record £80million transfer to Real Madrid, Sir Alex Ferguson wasted no time licking his wounds and has instead snapped up Ecuador star Antonio Valencia.
The former Wigan Athletic winger put pen to paper on a four-year deal on Tuesday night, in a transfer believed to have cost United around £16million.

Paddy Power are offering a money back special on the Liverpool v Chelsea tie this weekend.

read more

Time to do a SAF and bring on Rooney It is getting towards the business end of the season where trophies, relegation and promotion are going to be decided. With this in mind, let's take a look at this weekend's football fixtures and some of the less obvious ways you can spend your money in the [...]

OTP's fortnightly betting round-up With so much football on over the last couple of weeks, it is hard to believe that it is time for The Daft Punt column to take a look at some of the more original football bets once again. Time flies when you are having fun. With every single Premier League team in [.

Better hope he doesn#8217;t end up being your best customer Bookmakers Better has made gambling addict Paul Merson its new commercial face. The ex-Arsenal and England star has battled his addiction for more than 20 years and claims to have lost more than £7 million at the bookies. But he has still agreed to front Better#8217;s [.

OTP#8217;s fortnightly betting column As a rule, Premier League football is more important than international football to a lot of people. But that is just an excuse to be even more inventive with your bets. If you don't really care about the results, what is there to lose? The fact that England are playing in a ridiculously [.

Off The Post's betting column There are plenty of Premier League matches on this weekend and we all know what that means – football betting time! There aren't many games left and there isn't any competitive football this summer, so unless you want to wait until August you better get your money on some fixtures this [.

OTP's fortnightly betting column This is possibly one of the most exciting times for football betting. Not only is every single game significant as the Premier League season draws to close, but the Football League play-offs are under way as well. A cheeky fiver on who is going to come up from League Two?

There isn't much in football that can be as exciting or as unpredictable as play-off final weekend. After a long season full of hard work, it all comes down to one game at Wembley to see who is going to win promotion from League Two, League One and the Championship. No matter what happens, there will [.

The year-round nature of football and the assortment of betting options available makes it a non-stop thrilling exercise that should not be missed. But many sports punters are intimidated by the many different teams, soccer leagues and competitions available. They simply do not know where or how to start.

Bookmaker and Liverpool FC partner Paddy Power caused a predictable outrage when they opened betting on "the next Liverpool player burglary whilst they are playing".

Take a minute to soak in what a stupid, yet tastelessly hilarious idea that was.

As you can probably guess, betting was quickly shut down after the club found out about it and some fans contacted Merseyside Police, who probably weren't too keen on the idea of giving burglars even more financial incentive to rob players, considering it's already happened more than a dozen times, including the 2007 incident where Steven Gerrard's wife was held at gunpoint during a burglary while he was away for a Champions League match.

The Front Room

Sponsored post After a short break (we were waiting for Alan Wiley to get his breath back), www.FootieGamble.com is back for its second competition of the 2009-10 season. For the next eight weeks, all users can place bets on Premier League results without risking the mortgage or the wrath of the missus.

Betfair, Manchester United's official betting partner, has offered ROM readers a free £25 bet when you register with Betfair through us and place a bet on a United game or any other game. Bet with Betfair and claim your free £25 bet.

Saturday's defeat wasn't in the script for United backers but if we don't lose to Villa for another 26 years we can probably afford to let them have that one – especially after Chelsea dropped points again.

If you're a fan of any other Spanish side, something says all this "Barca, Barca, Barca" is beginning to sound an awful lot like "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha". But this can't last forever, so weather the storm 'til they come back down to earth. Or to the clouds, at least, as they'll need to fall from [...

Welcome to The Daft Punt, our new fortnightly betting column. Thomas Rooney, a professional sports writer who blogs about football betting, will give you a run-down of the flutters the straight-laced betting sites didn't tell you about. It's a bit of fun, but it doesn't mean you can't make some money out of it!

Unlike England, we have Rooney available so here's The Daft Punt We have an action packed weekend of football ahead of us. Despite there being only one Premier League game, there is the FA Cup to look forward to as well as a number of football league fixtures. It is time to look at where to [...]

Steven Gerrard has hailed Liverpool's demolition of Real Madrid as 'Fantastic' after the Reds won 4-0 at Anfield.

read more

Steven Gerrard has hailed Liverpool's demolition of Real Madrid as 'Fantastic' after the Reds won 4-0 at Anfield.

read more

Some would suggest that Manchester City were lucky to even qualify for the Uefa Cup this season after a penalty shoot-out victory over FC Midtjylland in the final qualifying round of this seasons competition. Well after sneaking through against Aalborg on Thursday night thanks to another spot kicks victory there can be no doubt that Mark Hughes' side are riding their luck.

Reports today suggest bookmakers William Hill, is considering abandon betting on certain matches as of next season.

This follows activity by Irish bookmakers, Paddy Power, who back in April, also took to suspending betting on a certain type of match.

The type of match appears to be the typical end-of-season matches where little or nothing is at stake.

To add to the In-Play excitement, bet365 streams over 4,000 events live to your PC every year - so you can bet as the action unfolds. Highlights include 5 matches from Serie A every week along with Masters Series tennis.
Tags
Soccer Betting football betting

All the stuff being covered outside the unfriendly confines of the award winning Dirty Tackle...

A puddle of mud proves to be Notts County goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel's best friend. [Extra Footie]

It was inevitable: the Elizabeth Lambert dating video parody. [Tauntr]

Bookmaker stops taking bets on new Scotland manager because their chief executive is on the SFA board.

Group H with Honduras, Chile, and Switzerland should be a cakewalk for Spain.

As a result bookies have pushed them to the top as 4:1 odds on favourite to win the World Cup. Second on the list England with a 5:1 shot at the title after drawing the USA, Slovenia, and Algeria. Behind them Brazil, five times champion in Group G the "Group of Death " with Portugal, North Korea, and Cote D'Ivoire with a 11:2 chance of winning their sixth title.

Betfair, Manchester United's official betting partner, has offered Republik of Mancunia readers a free £25 bet when you register with Betfair through us and place a bet on a United game or any other game. Bet with Betfair and claim your free £25 bet.

Injury problems continue to dog United and this Saturday's trip to Fulham could be trickier than Betfair layers predict – the champions trade at 1.