8.55am Saturday 22nd November
 
Well here we are at the final game of a highly profitable season and I'm looking forward to a nice break and a bit of a holiday to re-charge the batteries. That's not to say I won't be busy with trying to cover a whole host of other sports on the exchanges in my life as a professional gambler. I tend to cover the other sports with more of a mathematical edge rather than the form study that I put in to rugby league and my %profit on turnover tends to be only around the 1% mark. Turnover is very high though and I aim to price up virtually every market on the exchanges with a variety of methods but mainly to do with market analysis and odds copying from respected bookmakers who know a particular sport. I have lots of wins and lots of losses and could have as many as 10,000 matched bets per week generating £1million turnover. Obviously there is no way that these bets could be passed on to a tipping site but maybe there's a bit of an insight there to how I conduct my business.
I am currently at 2% commission and my business is such low margin that if this was increased to 3% then I wouldn't be able to operate in the way I do.
 
Anyway, back to the rugby match:
 
My initial thought was how impressed I have been with Australia and the big question is have the Kiwis got back on track with a couple of decent wins versus England. My view is that NZ have been handed the wins with a series of unforced errors giving away vital possession in crucial areas. NZ haven't had to be that great.
In the first game of the tournament Australia had a comfortable 30-6 victory against NZ without them really firing on all cylinders.

To be honest with you all I can expect is a repeat. I handicapped this game with a view of getting with Australia and I thought I may have been on the high side when going NZ +18. Unfortunately, virtually all the bookmakers have shared my opinion having gone around the +12 mark in the opening fixture. If anything I feel that I may have been on the conservative side with my estimate and would feel uncomfortable backing NZ with anything but a start in the mid-twenties. In contrast the -16 for Australia on offer with Skybet isn't the worst bet in the world and if you do want to be with Australia I feel certain that this will be cut. I also feel there will be an arb opportunity with the -16.5 handicap on the exchanges.

In terms of a bet from myself the -16pts is just not enough away from my numbers to induce a wager for the Priceform account.
Back to the exchanges and the match odds are currently at 1.13 and again that isn't the worst bet in the world. As a layer I have priced Australia at 1.05. The odds on offer relate to a handicap around the -15pts mark and that is better than the handicaps on offer. For sure, I feel, the 1.13 won't last and I have been loath to recommend exchange bets on prices that can disappear.
Moving to the spread firms and although they haven't produced any prices yet again I would be looking to get with Australia in some way or other. My particular favourite could well be selling of the NZ pts if I could get a quote around 14pts. Australia have only conceded three tries in the whole tournament and I can't see much changing in the final.

Squads:

Australia: 1. Billy Slater, 2. Joel Monaghan, 3. Greg Inglis, 4. Israel Folau, 5. Brent Tate, 6. Darren Lockyer (c), 7. Johnathan Thurston, 8. Petero Civoniceva, 9. Cameron Smith, 10. Steve Price, 11. Glenn Stewart, 12. Anthony Laffranchi, 13. Paul Gallen. Subs: 14. Karmichael Hunt, 15. Craig Fitzgibbon, 16. Anthony Tupou, 17. Brent Kite.

New Zealand: 1 Lance Hohaia, 2 Sam Perrett, 3 Simon Mannering, 4 Jerome Ropati, 5 Manu Vatuvei, 6 Benji Marshall, 7 Nathan Fien, 8 Nathan Cayless (c), 9 Thomas Leuluai, 10 Adam Blair, 11 David Fa'alogo, 12 Bronson Harrison, 13 Jeremy Smith. Subs: 14 Issac Luke, 15 Greg Eastwood, 16 Sam Rapira, 17 Sika Manu.

	Team	P	W	D	L	For	Agn	Pts	Diff
1	Australia	3	3	0	0	128	16	6	+112
2	New Zealand	3	2	0	1	90	60	4	+30
3	Fiji	2	1	0	1	58	24	2	+34
4	Ireland	2	1	0	1	54	38	2	+16
5	Tonga	2	1	0	1	34	40	2	-6
6	Samoa	2	1	0	1	36	46	2	-10
7	Scotland	2	1	0	1	36	52	2	-16
8	France	2	1	0	1	42	60	2	-18
9	England	3	1	0	2	60	110	2	-50
10	PNG	3	0	0	3	34	126	0	-92

Best of luck however you decide to play this one
 
the man