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It’s estimated that over 3 billion people, close to half the global population will tune in to watch the World Cup as its broadcast out of Russia this year. The 2018 World Cup makes history, as not only do the nations of both Iceland & Panama make their World Cup debut, but it also marks the first World Cup in well over a decade to be held in Europe, as the last two were hosted in Brazil and South Africa, respectively. Russia has pulled out all the stops for 2018’s event, as it was initially projected to cost around 20 billion dollars. This was eventually halved to 10 billion dollars, but that figure still marks a massive 0.6% of the entire populations GDP*. Covering over 1,800 miles from the coast of Kaliningrad near the Baltic Sea, all the way to Ekaterinburg, located at the base of the Ural mountains, 12 locations across the nation will host the 64 matches that comprise the 2018 World Cup, and will be utilizing 12 of their stadiums across the event, including –

 

Stadium	Capacity
Luzhniki Stadium	81,000
Krestovsky Stadium	68,134
Fisht Olympic Stadium	47,659
Volgograd Arena	45,568
Kazan Arena	45,379
Otkritie Arena	45,360
Rostov Arena	45,000
Cosmos Arena	44,918
Nizhny Novgorod	44,899
Mordovia Arena	44,442
Ekaterinburg Arena	35,696
Kaliningrad Stadium	35,212

 

 

The 32 competing nations will all have their own team bases across the country, and will stay from the beginning of the competition until they’re either knocked out or win the final. This allows the teams and their crew to settle into the new climate and surroundings, train, plan, and make sure they’re ready for the games.

 

There’s no doubt that football fans are known to be some of the most passionate fans in the world, so we decided to assemble this awesome little challenge to find out just how dedicated you guys are to the sport, and most importantly, to your team. All you have to do is answer the 10 simple yes or no questions to get your answer and find out if you’re really as passionate as you think! So whether you’re choosing to bet on the world cup or not, let us know what result you got on this awesome quiz and make sure to share it with your friends to see which of you gets top marks!

 

*Nominal GDP figures for 2018 taken from Wikipedia

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia

 

It’s not every day you see an accumulator bet win over a million. That’s whether it’s a million pounds, a million dollars, a million anything! It’s just so difficult to both rack up odds high enough to achieve this feat, combined with flawless results and a big enough stake to get over the million mark.

A woman from Austin Texas did just that at the prestigious Kentucky Derby just days ago. The woman, Margaret Reid, made a Pick 5 wager at the Retama Park racecourse in Texas and watched, no doubt stunned, as each and every one of her selections won at the Churchill Downs racecourse in Louisville, Kentucky, over a thousand miles away.

 

The woman had amazingly chosen a winner in each of the four races prior to the Derby, as well as the Derby winner himself – Justify. So from the 8th race onwards, she experienced the lucky / skillful run to end all lucky runs, culminating in a huge 1.2million win from just a small $18 bet. The selections and odds she bet at are as follows:

Limousine Liberal – Churchill Downs Stakes – 4/1

Maraud – American Turf Stakes – 8/1

Funny Duck – Pat Day Mile –  39/1

Yoshida – Old Forester Turf Classic – 9/1

Justify – Kentucky Derby – 3/1

 

The odds of Funny Duck definitely helped the accumulator a great deal and it was a brave selection considering how unfavoured it was. It’s crazy that all five came up, so we can safety conclude that she’s a time traveller.

Following on from a memorable 2018 Cheltenham Festival, stories are still emerging from some of the more successful and/or fortunate punter’s bets. It should be no surprise that there were some big winners, on account that more bets were placed on Cheltenham this time around than many years previous.   That’s testament to how beloved this racing festival is!

One of my favourite Cheltenham Festival 2018 stories has to be the Devon cleaner whose meager £1 each way Lucky 31 bet ballooned into him winning of a staggering £168,751 via a bet placed in his BetFred local betting shop.

After 4 races (including Penhill in the Stayers’ Hurdle, and The Storyteller at 16:10 – both third day Cheltenham Festival races) it was an impressive four wins from four races.  The ongoing success proved hard to take in for Martin Palk, 51,  and still in disbelief with one more race to go, he promised his friends to a once in a lifetime Vegas trip if got the final winner up. When this horse too romped home (Missed Approach in the 5.30), the Dad of two stayed true to his word and began to plan the holiday!

Martin summed it up best: “It was a bit of banter, but I’m a man of my word, so the Magnificent Seven are off to the Strip. It will cost me £10,000, and I’ve told them they could bring their own spending money.”

“I really didn’t think I had any chance in the last race which was a 10/1 shot and that’s why I promised we’ll all go to Vegas on me if I did win. We are going to meet next week and sort out the details and check none of us has any criminal records!”

With many bookmakers there are free bet opportunities and the like, or just generally very competitive odds with novibet.co.uk and other betting firms, and so for both single bets and accumulator bets such as this, you really get the best combined odds possible. It didn’t really used to be that way in less competitive betting environments of the past. Its important to try to get the most bang for your betting buck!

The five winners, all running on Day Three of Cheltenham were:

13:30 – Shattered Love  5/1

14:10 – Delta Work  9/1

15:30 – Penhill  12/1

16:10 – The Storyteller  7/1

17:30 – Missed Approach  10/1

As this was a Lucky 31 bet, the lucky punter won via a series or single bets, doubles, trebles, four fold and a five fold acca. This equated to odds of almost 70,000-1 . To further add to the already dream outcome, the betting chain ran a Cheltenham Festival promotion at the time boosting the bet by 50%. Happy days!

The punters winning betting slip: