I had not planned to watch much rugby this past weekend as I was playing in the Emerald Poker Series and all going well would be staring at a couple of Aces in the hole rather than the hotel TV screen.

It was not to be though and come Saturday morning I had already been dumped from the poker and with time now on my hands I decided to have a go at the rugby. It turned out to be an expensive early exit from the tables.

First up I went for a high scoring game in the Chiefs v Highlanders clash. There was plenty of intent early but very few tries and points and I had very quickly given the previous days profits (I had backed the Reds to beat the Rebels by 13 or more) back to the bookmakers, interest and all.

My confidence shot I left the next game alone having been planning to go for a low scoring encounter and as I walked around the resort with my wife I paused for an occasional look at my phone which was usually followed by a grimace as points were few and far between and a winning bet not placed is almost as bad as a losing one placed.

The fact that it was not to be my weekend really hit home in the Stormers game though. I was leaning towards the Crusaders but decided to go high on their try scorer shirt numbers instead of having a straight bet. The loose head prop scored their only two tries (finishing off a flowing backline move in the one) and I was now against the ropes. More bad news though, as having seen four Crusaders backline players limp off in the first half I climbed into the Stormers in running only for them to badly fluff their lines.

A weekend badly played and costly on all fronts was at least brightened by some news around the Royal Wedding. There had been plenty of controversy over the settling of bets placed on the BBC Viewership markets with different sources throwing up different figures. It initially looked as though punters were set to take the hit but full marks to local bookmakers Voltbet and Sportsbet who decided to pay out all bets in those markets as winners. A generous move and for a punch drunk punter like me, it was very welcome indeed.

  This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was first published on the 12th of May 2011.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and presents a sports betting radio show every Thursday night from 22h00 – 22h30 on 1485AM Radio Today or Channel 169 of the DSTV Audio Bouquet and to get on his free weekly e-mail list just send a message to brent@goodforthegame.co.za titled “Best Bets”.

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