Weekend Review: Bookmakers hail Nations League after low-scoring finale
Kindred sees a stark increase in activity over old-format friendlies as one Betdaq punter loses £30k on England’s third-place play-off win
The first ever Nations League finished this weekend with Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal team crowned champions much to the delight of the bookies after a narrow 1-0 victory.
Portugal were third favourites to win the tournament after making the last four, behind England and the Netherlands, but ahead of Switzerland.
A goal for Goncalo Guedes on the hour mark was enough to beat the Dutch, in what Kindred Group sportsbook analyst Ali Gill described as almost the perfect result.
3 times in a row🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹 pic.twitter.com/y5AcGHNkGu
— Cristiano Ronaldo (@Cristiano) June 10, 2019
Gill said: “A scoreline of 1-0 to Portugal was almost the perfect result for us in the inaugural Nations League final, with our hugely patriotic Dutch players piling in to a Dutch win, we managed a huge margin on that one.”
After England’s 3-1 semi-final defeat to the Netherlands, Gareth Southgate’s side played out a dull 0-0 draw with Switzerland before winning a penalty shootout.
“Although there was significantly less interest in England’s third-place playoff, again a 0-0 draw is always a good one for bookies and overall the final installment of the new tournament went very well for us,” added Gill.
“There’s no doubt either from a bookmaker point of view that it’s a huge improvement on the previous, meaningless friendlies,” he added.
Finishing the season on a high. ⬆️🏴🦁 #sendthemin @England pic.twitter.com/7hHTZqT2im
— Jordan Pickford (@JPickford1) June 9, 2019
One way to avoid a match being meaningless is by wagering a stake of £30,000, just as one Betdaq punter did on England’s third-place match.
The exchange operator’s Mark Harkin said: “One customer wouldn’t have been cheering after losing £30k having backed over 1.5 goals in England’s match against Switzerland.”
Away from football, Betway’s Alan Alger said the operator made some good in-play money after Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel was controversially penalised in the Canadian GP.
Alger said: “Vettel’s penalty was a real blow to in-running punters who had backed him into 1/5 prior to the incident.”
P1 🙌🏾🏆 This weekend hasn’t been easy and I am so thankful of my team. We faced different challenges but we persevered and got the job done. It’s not the way I wanted to win but this is racing. It was tough out there, I really put the pressure on @MercedesAMGF1 📷 @MSI_Images pic.twitter.com/xiOsGafpti
— Lewis Hamilton (@LewisHamilton) June 9, 2019
Rafa Nadal was also priced at 1/5 with Kindred to once again win the French Open and he duly obliged, beating Austria’s Dominic Thiem by three sets to one.
Kindred’s Gill added: “The final itself gave a slight surprise here at Kindred – with Nadal at a very unappealing 1/5 to win, players looked for value elsewhere, and a lot of them found the ‘win in straight sets’ market, meaning we took a surprisingly good margin there.”
In the Betfred Super League, the operator did well to avoid a 33-1 payout after basement club London Broncos pulled off the most unlikely of victories against leaders St Helens.
Broncos scored the winning try after 80 minutes in golden-point territory, which wasn’t included in the Betfred betting market.