Tragedy in Australia - please donate

The Australian state of Victoria has been scorched with several days of temperatures over 40C in recent weeks, and combined with a record drought and strong northerly winds, the fires everyone feared have arrived. But these are worse than any in Australia's history, surpassing the terrible fires in 1983 and 1939 which killed dozens.

I'm from country Australia. The Ash Wednesday fires of 1983 would have taken our home and community if the wind hadn't changed. When it's over 40 degrees and the north wind is blowing, you just pray a fire doesn't start. Thankfully this time, no fires are within 50km of my relatives but thoughts are with everyone affected by it, those who have lost loved ones or homes, and to the brave firefighters.

Entire towns have been destroyed, hundreds of homes and worst of all, over 100 lives have been lost, mostly people trapped in their cars as they tried to escape. To the right is a button linking to the Australian Red Cross. Please donate if you can. I'm donating all of last week's profits, and it was my best week in a long while. Please be patient if the site is overloaded.

For news updates, visit the HeraldSun. Photo from News Ltd.

Comments

It's all gone Pete Tong at Betfair!

The Christmas Hurdle from Leopardstown, a good Grade 2 race during the holiday period. But now it will go into history as the race which brought Betfair down. Over £21m at odds of 29 available on Voler La Vedette in-running - that's a potential liability of over £500m. You might think that's a bit suspicious, something's fishy, especially with the horse starting at a Betfair SP of 2.96. Well, this wasn't a horse being stopped by a jockey either - the bloody horse won! Look at what was matched at 29. Split that in half and multiply by 28 for the actual liability for the layer(s). (Matched amounts always shown as double the backers' stake, never counts the layers' risk). There's no way a Betfair client would have £600m+ in their account. Maybe £20 or even £50m from the massive syndicates who regard(ed) Betfair as safer than any bank, but not £600m. So the error has to be something technical. However, rumour has it, a helpdesk reply (not gospel, natur

lay the field - my favourite racing strategy

Dabbling with laying the field in-running at various prices today, not just one price, but several in the same race. Got several matched in the previous race at Brighton, then this race came along at Nottingham. Such a long straight at Nottingham makes punters often over-react and think the finish line is closer than it actually is. As you can see by the number of bets matched, there was plenty of volatility in this in-play market. It's rare you'll get a complete wipe-out with one horse getting matched at all levels, but it can happen, so don't give yourself too much risk...

What shits me about match-fixing 'journalism'.

The anti-wagering media bandwagon has dozens of new members this week, all weighing in an industry they have absolutely no idea about. I'm all for getting the betting industry into the mainstream but it shits me no end when they roll out reports and celebrities who simply don't have a clue what they are talking about and don't bother to check basic facts which key arguments in their story. If this was the financial industry, making errors like this would have them in all sorts of trouble, but the same level of regulation doesn't apply because finance stock markets are supposedly all legitimate and serious, whereas sports betting is just a bit of fun for people who can never win in the long-term... according to the media. This week we have seen the sting by the Telegraph which, on the face of it, looks to be a tremendous piece of investigative work into fixing in English football. But the headlines around it are over-sensationalised yet again. Delroy Facey, a former pla

Sport is made for betting

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