World Snooker Championships
With the breadth of markets made available by Sporting Index, a spread bet must be the best way to wager on snooker. And there's no better event in snooker than the World Championships on which to bet, making the sixteen days between 17th April and 3rd May prime snooker spread betting time.
The hallowed Crucible Theatre welcomes the world's 16 best players and a further 16 qualifiers who will all compete for the sport's most coveted trophy and a GBP250,000 first prize. John Higgins starts as spread favourite at 45-50 ahead of Ronnie O'Sullivan with a spread of 38-43 (100pts to winner, runner-up 70pts, losing semi-finalist 50pts etc.) and spread buyers of either player will hope to see their charge at least win their quarter.
The draw has thrown up some interesting opening matches, for which hundreds of Sporting Index's spreads are already open. The most interesting - but not necessarily most profitable - for spread punters is arguably O'Sullivan's clash against Liang Wenbo. The Rocket's match supremacy (where 10pts are awarded for the win, plus 3 per frame won by) spread is set at 12-15pts. Buyers of Liang's match win index at 6.5pts (25pts for win) will hope that the young Chinaman can cause an upset, and will be encouraged by his provisional ranking of 15 - significantly higher than his official ranking of 27.
The speculation, particularly among spread bettors, over the highest tournament breaks and the number of centuries raises almost as much interest as who could win the title. Sporting Index cater for this with their tournament specials which include the total tournament centuries spread at 69.5-71. There were an unprecedented 83 centuries last year, smashing the previous record of 69 from 2002 and 2007, so spread buyers will hope for a similarly fruitful scoring fortnight. Same goes for buyers of tournament ton-ups this year at 1140. There's not much to be made by buying the highest tournament break spread at 145.5, but spread sellers may be concerned that we've seen a 147 in three of the past five years.
Looking towards the final and there are plenty of opportunities to consider buying or selling decisions even without knowledge of who will be there on May Day. Spread buyers of total centuries in the final should know that there has been an average of 2.16 centuries in the six most recent finals, with even two of snooker's best break-builders, Higgins and Murphy, only managing three between them in last year's climax. When Graeme Dott beat Peter Ebdon to the title in 2006, only one 100-plus break was put on the board, but buyers of the spread the following year were much happier with five century breaks in the final.
The frame supremacy and match supremacy spreads, popular throughout the tournament, attract plenty more spread punters for the final. Ebdon beating Hendry 18-17 in 2002 was the closest final since the turn of the millennium, but winning margins have been much greater in the last six years. In the last two years, we've seen an 18-9 victory and an 18-8. The favourites, Higgins and O'Sullivan, won in each case to the delight of supremacy spread buyers.
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