Thursday was a busy night of action in the Nations League as we saw fixtures from the A, C and D leagues, including Wales falling to a narrow defeat against Belgium, France grabbing their first victory of the campaign against Austria, and Turkey involved in a crazy 3-3 topsy-turvy match with Luxembourg.

In the cricket, a stunning unbeaten opening partnership between Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan saw Pakistan pull off an unexpected and remarkable run-chase to beat England by 10 wickets and level their T20I series at 1-1. Who will win the third match of the series?

In other sport, the NFL action continued as the Cleveland Browns defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in the early hours of the morning, while in the tennis action there was a surprise result as 37-year-old Stan Wawrinka rediscovered some of his old form in defeating Daniil Medvedev at ATP Metz.

As usual, we look at three big winning spread bets bringing savvy punters joy.

Please remember that unlike fixed odds betting, when spread betting losses can exceed deposits.

TURKEY V LUXEMBOURG – GOALS X SHIRTS (SETTLED AT 396)

Coming into the match with the knowledge that promotion to league B was likely already secured, the home side still wanted to secure that fact here, but it turned out being a much more eventful and difficult assignment than what may have been expected. However, this led to a goal-fest which would surely have pleased punters.

After a first half seeing four goals in which the visitors twice took the lead (2-2), they grabbed the initiative once again as Gerson Rodrigues put them into a 3-2 lead midway through the second half. However, the Turks were not to be upstaged on their home patch and came back for a third time with a late equaliser.

In terms of the Goals x Shirts market, a makeup of 396 meant that punters who bought at the pre-match spread of 139 – 158 would have been left with 238x their opening wager!

PAKISTAN V ENGLAND  – LAUNCH! (SETTLED AT 2310)

In the cricket T20 action, Pakistan pulled off something of a miracle as Babar Azam hit 110 not out and Mohammad Rizwan an unbeaten 88 for a remarkable 10-wicket victory over England to level the sides' Twenty20 series at 1-1.

Chasing 200, Pakistan's opening pair produced a batting masterclass in Karachi to seal the win with three balls to spare. Babar reached a sublime century from 62 balls, delighting the raucous home crowd, while Rizwan hit four sixes in a whirlwind 51-ball knock. It also meant that Pakistan managed to set a new record for the highest chase in all men's T20s without losing a wicket.

But where was the profit to be found? In terms of the Launch! market, an opening spread of 1400 – 1500 meant that bettors who opted to buy would have been celebrating a huge 810x return on their stake!

MEDVEDEV V WAWRINKA – WAWRINKA POINTS (SETTLED AT 107)

With a golden generation of tennis seemingly coming to an end and put ever more so in the limelight by Roger Federer’s recently announced retirement, it was the turn of his countryman/rival/friend Stan Wawrinka to reclaim some of the Swiss limelight, at least for a couple of hours on Thursday night.

Having only returned from a serious injury earlier this year, the three-time Grand Slam winner Wawrinka would surely have been wondering to himself if he was ever going to regain some of the form which made him be called the ‘Stanimal’ by tennis fans, but he managed something close to that by defeating Daniil Medvedev at the ATP Metz indoor tournament in France.

After winning the first set in dominant fashion against an out of sorts Medvedev, Wawrinka had his chances but ultimately lost the second in a tie-break. At that point, it looked like the younger man would run away with the win, but the ageing Swiss was having none of it, and ultimately got the job done in three sets. Scoring a total of 107 points, this was significantly higher than his pre-match spread of 58 – 62, meaning punters who decided to buy would have been left with 45x their opening stake.

Please note that these are examples of winning bets from the past week, and it is important to remember that spread betting carries a high level of risk to your capital and can result in losses larger than your initial stake/deposit.