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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...

The precursor to the Academy Awards movie awards, the Golden Globe Awards, go off on January 17th. Naturally, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association event represents one of the year’s biggest occasions for proposition betting. Below follow the odds on nominees winning in certain categories as provided by Bet 365 online bookmakers, along with gut reactions provided by Live Bets Direct. Read more...

Here’s a good proposition bet for everybody, because we’re all experts on the local weather conditions, right? (Well, except for maybe those academic weasels over at University of East Anglia.) Bet 365 online bookmakers have up their seasonal special entitled simply “Snow on Christmas Day.” Read more...

Tiger's choice: Elin...

Novelty betting fans alert! Online bookmaker Paddy Power has a line that just may be a lightning-in-a-bottle opportunity for punters to cash in on turgid odds for profit. Check out the Irish bookie’s “Tiger Specials,” a table due for adjustment at the end of the day today, December 1.

Whoa, does the Tiger Woods car accident story get weirder daily? In days, reportage has gone from The World’s Greatest Golfer having suffered minor injuries in the wreck that occurred in the wee hours of Friday night/Saturday morning; said injuries were enough to keep him out of a charity tournament on the weekend. Woods released a statement which described “injuries sustained in a one-car accident last week,” more specifically “some cuts, bruising and right now I’m pretty sore.” Read more...

In the opinion of Live Bets Direct, you just can’t have enough beauty contest proposition bets. Not only do such contests of professional pulchritude allow the red-blooded male a more socially-acceptable excuse to partake in, um, online research involving bathing-geared beauties, but this website has managed a 3-0 record since 2008 in playing international pageants.

Though the Miss World 2009 competition won’t be settled in Johannesburg, South Africa, until December 12, bookmakers have naturally released early odds on the contestants’ chances for victory. Unlike the recent Miss Universe 2008 contest, which featured a wide-open field with no individual getting better than a 10/1 chance to win the crown (eventually bestowed upon Miss Venezuela, Stefania Fernandez, a 20/1 shot), Miss World 2009 can be definitively split into haves and have-nots. Read more...

So the bookmakers and popular opinion agree that Gordon Brown and his Labour Party are bulloxed in the next election, no matter when the presumably lame duck prime minister decides to call for one.

In September of this year, the Guardian reported the Conservatives holding a 17-point lead over Labour. Even more disturbing is the Liberals’ closing in to within five points of Labour, thereby further strengthening the third party, which could well post its most successful general election since its re-formation in the late 1980s.

So how badly will Labour fare? The current tabulation of the three major parties’ parliamentarians stands at Labour 213, Conservative 192, and Liberal Democrat 71. The Bet 365 table for each looks as follows: Read more...

Prime minister Gordon Brown has been clinging to the cliff face of Labour Party leadership by his fingernails for forever seemingly and, by the time he ends up finally getting around to calling an election (or the June 3, 2010 deadline, whichever comes first), he could make John Major’s exit from office look like Ronnie Reagan’s.

The latest challenge to Brown’s authority came at last week’s Parliamentary Labour Party meeting, in which backbencher MPs listed grievances plentiful and lengthy, which basically became a litany of threats to the stability of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) chairman’s position; Tony Lloyd, a Brown sympathizer, currently holds the position. Read more...

Come on, even the shameless Obama apologists were a bit embarrassed by the committee naming President Barack the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize: Not only was the man sworn into office some two weeks before the deadline for nomination for the award, not only has he not yet been US president for one year, but he’s actually increased the number of American troops in Afghanistan (plus soon to approve waaaaaay more for duty there, it seems) and shows no sign of closing down Guantanamo as promised on the campaign trail.

So how exactly is Obama worthy of the Pulitzer Prize? Call it a statement against George W. Bush, call it a “gamble” against future returns (yeah, like when Henry Kissinger was bestowed the gift in 1973) of world peace, it all adds up to one thing: A conspiracy against Live Bets Direct. Read more...