A Few Daft Novelty Bets...

How do the bookies rate the chances of the Yeti or aliens being discovered?

As there seems to be very little happening in the transfer market at the moment, I've been amusing myself by checking out some of the more unusual bets available from various bookies.

One which caught my eye is for 'the Yeti to be discovered before 2015' which is currently offered at 10.0 by Paddy Power.  Of course that's a fairly ridiculous bet so the odds of 10.0 might not be very tempting.

If you're therefore looking for a longer priced bet then how about a bet on aliens to be proven to exist?  That's available from Paddy Power at a slightly more generous 26.0, so the bookies apparently reckon that aliens are even less likely than Bigfoot to be discovered.

Reasons To Be Cheerful...

Miscellaneous Toon Bets For 2013/14

I think it's fair to say that so far this summer hasn't gone the way most of us would have liked, with the appointment of Joe Kinnear and the lack of signings being the two most obvious disappointments.

However, the optimist in me always wants to find reasons to be cheerful and so I've been looking at the odds involving the Toon for the coming season in various betting markets to see if we can take encouragement from the bookies' level of confidence in us.

I have to admit there aren't overwhelming reasons to be confident, but here are a few odds to take slight encouragement from...

1) Top North East Club

Despite Sunderland making several signings, every bookie offering odds on the 'Top North East Club' have us as favourites to finish above Sunderland.  That's SkyBet, William Hill, Paddy Power, Totesport, YouWin, BoyleSports, BetFred and Ladbrokes who all think we'll finish above Sunderland.

If you fancy a bet on Newcastle to be the Top North East Club then the best odds are currently offered by SkyBet who have us priced at 1.8.*

* Please note, SkyBet also include Hull in their 'Top North East Club' market.

Who Will Leave Newcastle First?

Pardew V Kinnear

You can bet on pretty much everything nowadays and Paddy Power were recently offering a market on who will be the first to leave Newcastle United, Alan Pardew or Joe Kinnear?

A recent poll on The Mag suggested that fans think Pardew will leave the club before Kinnear and the bookies seem to agree with the odds as follows:

Alan Pardew - 1.5
Joe Kinnear - 2.5

Joe Kinnear's appointment was initially greeted with silence from Alan Pardew, and when he did eventually comment, he wasn't exactly overwhelming in his support of Kinnear with Pardew declaring himself to be 'open-minded' about the appointment.  Given that Pardew generally toes the party line, that's a pretty damning criticism of Kinnear.

Maybe Graham Carr should take a look at Plateau United Feeders as we search for our next goal scorer?

With goal difference at stake, it was important to get as many goals as possible...

Police Machine FC only have themselves to blame for missing
out on promotion after such a disappointingly narrow victory.

Slightly off topic here, but this is a story which made me laugh so I thought I would mention it anyway.

In a lower division of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) two teams, Plateau United Feeders and Police Machine FC, were battling for promotion and as they were level on points it looked like it could all potentially come down to goal difference.  It was therefore vitally important to approach their final games with an attacking mentality and go looking for goals.

As it turned out both teams managed to get the big victories they were hoping for with the scores as follows:

Premier League Match Bets Featuring The Toon

Newcastle United Versus...

SkyBet are currently offering a variety of Premier League match bets on which of two teams will finish higher in the Premier League next season and The Toon feature in four match bets.

Specifically, SkyBet offer prices for us against Everton, West Brom, the mackems and Southampton.  According to SkyBet, we're favourites against the mackems, West Brom and Southampton and only Everton are regarded as more likely to finish above us in the Premier League next season.

Here are the odds for each of the match bets:

Newcastle V the mackems
Newcastle - 1.4
the mackems - 3.0

Newcastle V Everton:
Newcastle - 2.63
Everton - 1.5

Month Of The First Premier League Managerial Departure

When will we see the first Premier League managerial casualty?

A couple of days ago I took a look at the 'First Premier League Manager To Leave His Position' betting market and rather worryingly for Alan Pardew he's currently the favourite with all bookies to be the first manager to either get the sack or resign.

A related betting market worth a look is 'Month of the 1st Premier League Managerial Departure' being offered by Stan James.  December 2013 is the favourite to see the first managerial casualty at odds of 2.75, closely followed by November 2013 at 2.88.

If you fancy a longer priced speculative bet then you can get 21.0 on August 2013 or 11.0 on September 2013.  You would expect most managers to last at least a little longer than that, but given the unpredictable and sometimes bizarre behaviour of Mike Ashley*, who knows what strange events the forthcoming season will throw up?

* That's the polite way of wording it!

The full list of odds are as follows:

First Premier League Manager To Leave?

The bookies don't rate Alan Pardew's chances of staying in his job...

The internet has unquestionably brought many positive benefits to the world, but it has also brought with it some negatives.  For example, because of the internet, last week while I was enjoying myself on holiday in Magalluf, I was unfortunately still able to discover the depressing news of Joe Kinnear's return to Newcastle.

Joe Kinnear's appointment has led to various theories among fans as to why Mike Ashley would ever consider making such a ludicrous appointment.

Perhaps Ashley appointed Kinnear because of his alleged excellent record as a manager which Joe has been telling everyone about.  It's an excellent CV, and if not for the fact that it's a complete work of fiction then you would possibly be impressed.  So maybe Mike Ashley is the only football fan in the country who isn't aware of Joe Kinnear's problem with differentiating the truth and reality from the fictitious version of history he seems to have dreamt up for himself.