Your one-stop shop for novelty betting

LiveBetsDirect recently checked out the ESPN “30 for 30” Documentary on the old United States Football League (or, as we so fondly referred to it back in the 1980s, the USFL). We children of the 80s of course remember the USFL ultimately as being dominated by and eventually inadvertently (?) snookered by one Donald Trump.

Funny that, in less than 30 years, the Trumpster has gone from front-page news nearly everyday to reality-show star struggling to keep his series “The Apprentice” still interesting and relevant. For those of you who just can’t wait to see the latest batch of would-be moguls trying to construct slightly cracked PR jobs at the behest of Trump, Bet365 has the proposition bet for you, namely its “The Apprentice” special, “Gender of Winner.”

The table looks like so:

Male: 8/11
Female: 1/1

As always in cases like this, a quick review of past history is warranted. Since “The Apprentice” will be begging off the celebrity cast and get back to the “Small Potatoes” of yuppie wannabes, LiveBetsDirect will consider past champions of the amateur show. The results indicate that the boys neatly dominated the show’s run in the first six seasons. Winners and runners-up have been:

Season 1. Bill Rancic over Kwame Jackson
Season 2. Kelly Perdew over Jennifer Massey
Season 3. Kendra Todd over Tana Goertz
Season 4. Randall Pinkett over Rebecca Jarvis
Season 5. Sean Yazbeck over Lee Bienstock
Season 6. Stefani Schaeffer over James Sun

Pretty damning evidence for Trump’s preference for the Y chromosome, it seems. Note that only in season six did a lassie overcome the laddie, and that only in season three did we see a final matchup of girl-on-girl. (Of course, perhaps the most memorable season in series history ended up pitting two ladies in one seriously nasty duel to the finals when Joan Rivers, in a somewhat eccentric decision, overcame poker star Annie Duke in season eight.)

Seems like an open-and-shut case, dunnit? Go with the guys at 8/11 – before the odds sink any further.

And LiveBetsDirect will leave today with the immortal words of Melissa Rivers: “[bleep] [bleep] [bleeping] [bleep].”

Faithful Live Bets Direct readers may recall those halcyon days of April 2009 when tabloid headlines where bogged down with pictures of Mel Gibson and Russian pianist Oksana Grigorieva, followed by very public announcement of separation between Mad Max and his wife of 28 years, Robyn Denise Moore.

This, of course, harkened back to an April 2006 incident in which Gibson was busted by police officers (one of which he rather informally addressed as “Sugar Tits”) in which he ranted about the general wickedness of the Jews, not at all legitimizing claims that Gibson’s o-so-bloody Passion of the Christ was indeed anti-Semitic tripe. Gibson’s little drunken driving mishap and subsequent racist tirade in turn recalled his rants in the late 1990s in Playboy decrying homosexuals. Read more...

On a Fourth of July sports weekend that featured Wimbledon tennis, a UFC unification bout, MLB baseball action and a little tournament called the FIFA World Cup, an eating contest stole the sportspage headlines: The latest “athlete” to be busted in public fashion is former Major League Eating superstar Takeru Kobayashi.

After a much publicized regulations issue, Major League Eating officials disallowed Kobayashi from participating in the 2010 edition of the traditional Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. Live Bets Direct readers may recall that Bet365’s proposition bet on the competition bore the caveat that both Kobayashi and now four-time defending champ Joey “Jaws” Chestnut had to compete for wagers to be valid.” Read more...

As we near July 4th, it’s time for LiveBetsDirect to address wagering on a great American tradition that always goes down on the holiday. No, we’re not talking about the Major League Baseball slate here, but rather the great “Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest.” And, oh yeah, bet365’s got your wagering opportunities. Read more...

“So You Think You Can Dance,” that wacky combination of “American Idol” and “Dancing with the Stars,” is smack dab in the middle of season seven with the first head of the season ready to roll in less than four days.

Does LiveBetsDirect have a SYTYCD proposition bet for you? Sure! Check out bet365’s speak-for-itself “To Win Outright” prop. The table goes like so: Read more...

Here at LiveBetsDirect, the emphasis is on non-sports betting, but who can ignore the overbearing presence of the 2010 FIBA World Cup and the warping effect it’s surely having at bookmakers all over the globe? (Indeed, this event is expected to be the largest wagered-upon event in the history of humanity with over £1 billion in formal, legal betting alone predicted.)

Just as naturally, there’s still plenty of weirdness to be had within bet365’s World Cup proposition lines. Go extreme in considering some of the following props… Read more...

One of LiveBetsDirect’s favorite websites out there on the interwebs? Why, Rotten Tomatoes, of course!

While the Academy Awards, Golden Globes and such are nice (especially to wager on), the awards given at these celebrated events are more about Hollywood’s and film critic land’s, respectively, acceptance of the movies in question. These decisions don’t always sit well with the public, however, unless you’ve got the box office champ also becoming the big Oscar-sweeper. (Hello, Titanic…)

RottenTomatoes.com, by contrast, stands alone among high-profile cinema worshipers in its unique approach to rating movies. By simply compiling hundreds of opinions from professional film reviewers across the fame spectrum, the Tomatometer essentially seeks to derive an objective answer to the once-purely subjective question “Does [movie X] suck? And if so, how much?”

The Tomatometer happily also makes doable that sentiment heretofore only employed in trash-talking: “Wanna bet this movie’s gonna suck?” Read more...

Teams from four different countries will line up in the UEFA Champions League semi-finals for the first time in six years, with Italy’s Internazionale Milano against Spain’s Barcelona on April 20 and 28, and France’s Olympique Lyonnaise tackling Germany’s Bayern Munchen on April 21 and 27.

Notable for their absence are teams from England’s Premier League, with the dismissals of Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool in this season’s competition ending a golden era of English dominance.

If any one team has the greatest incentive to reach the final in the Santiago Bernabeau stadium in Madrid on June 22, it must be Barcelona, who could then retain on home soil the trophy they won in last year’s final against Manchester United in Rome.

Not only that but the Bernabeau, capacity 80,354, is the home of Real Madrid, who Barcelona beat 2-0 at the weekend to go six points clear of their great rivals at the top of the Spanish table. After this crucial win in the league, where better to rub Real Madrid’s noses a second time in weeks than on their home turf by winning Europe’s greatest club competition?

Barcelona has a handicap for the semi-final with midfielder Andras Iniesta likely to miss most of his side’s end-of-season run to a second Spanish league/European Champions double in two years. The Spain international suffered an injury in training and underwent tests that showed he had suffered a total rupture of a biceps muscle in his leg.

He will be sidelined for up to a month and is naturally eager to feature in Spain’s first World Cup game against Switzerland on June 16. He may be ready for the European Champions league final on May 22.

Standing in the way is Inter Milan, whose Portuguese coach José Morinho, having overcome former employers Chelsea in the previous round, will again renew old acquaintances in the last four.

Morinho, who has now led three clubs to this stage of the competition – FC Porto, Chelsea and Inter – worked under Sir Bobby Robson at Barcelona’s Camp Nou during the 1990s and has twice pitted his wits against the European champions this season alone.

A 0-0 draw and a 2-0 defeat in this year’s comp mean Inter have yet to score against Barcelona in four UEFA Champions League attempts.

Several players in this semi-final are one booking away from a suspension: Inter quartet Thiago Motta, Maicon, Dejan Stankovic and Javier Zanetti, plus Barcelona’s Carles Puyol.

Lengthy waits have been ended by Bayern Munich’s and Lyon’s appearances in the second semi-final. Not since Bayer 04 Leverkusen’s great 2001/02 adventure has a German side made the last four, while France has been without semi-final representation since AS Monaco FC in 2003/04.

Lyon crashed three times at the quarter-final stage while winning seven French Ligue 1 titles from 2002-2008. This is the first time they have reached the semis. Bayern are appearing for the first time since lifting the Champions League title in 2001. That campaign saw two group-stage clashes with Lyon, the respective hosts prevailing 3-0 in France and 1-0 in Germany.

So, the proverbial stage is set and bet365 bookmakers are joining the action with a Euro Soccer accumulator offer that includes the top domestic leagues in Europe along with the Champions League. So you can now earn a bonus of up to 100% on your returns if you place accumulators on the Premier League (England), Serie A (Italy), Primera Liga (Spain), Budesliga 1 (Germany) or Champions League. Place a pre-match accumulator of three or more selections combining teams in any of these competitions and if successful bet365 will add the following bonuses to your returns:

Trebles, 5% bonus; four-folds, 7.5% bonus; five-folds, 10% bonus; six-folds, 20% bonus; seven-folds, 30% bonus; eight-folds, 40% bonus; nine-folds, 50% bonus; 10-folds, 60% bonus; 11-folds, 70% bonus; 12-folds, 80% bonus; 13-folds, 90% bonus; 14-folds, 100% bonus.

Visit Bet365 online bookmakers for odds, lines, proposition bets and other wagering opportunities on these and other matches.

Cheltenham Festival 2010

Is horse racing a sport? Sure, the jockey’s work is certainly difficult but all the awards, records and history-makers are all equine. And while no one calls greyhound racing a “sport,” the jury for some reason is still out on horse racing.

No matter, for this semiotically uncertain prologue is mere preamble to a discussion of one of the more unique events in horse racing: The Cheltenham Festival, the starting gun of which goes off today, is seven days of solid racing (and betting) action; our friends over at Bet 365 online bookmakers have appropriate measures in place to ensure punters’ fun and satisfaction throughout.

In addition to constantly updating odds, lines and prices throughout the week while also offering live betting, Bet 365 is advancing the proverbial irresistible offer: At this casino, customers will receive a guaranteed best price or joint best price, based on matching the most generous offer from rival bookmaking sites Betfred, BoyleSports, Coral, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Totesport, and William Hill – why shop around when Bet365’ll be posting all the longest odds? Read more...

The Grammy Awards for 2010 go down this weekend with Taylor Swift, Lady Ga Ga, Beyoncé, Kings of Leon and Black-Eyed Peas all looking to hear their names called at least once during the course of the evening, thanks to their nominations in major categories this time out.

Indeed, most of those listed above come together as nominees in the evening’s closest race, at least according to online bookmakers at Bet 365. For “Song of the Year,” it’s a dead heat between Swift’s “You Belong with Me” and Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies,” both at 2/1. Meanwhile, Kings of Leon are a close third on the table (and the Nashville rockers might be in line to swipe an upset Grammy thanks to voters suffering diva overkill). Plus, in the year of GaGa, one can’t help but imagine the Lady has a shot in this category at 11/2 with “Poker Face.”

But hey, judge for yourself. Live Bets Direct presents all five nominees below, with Bet 365 odds. Listen, learn and hedge your bet. Good luck, everyone! Read more...