Top 5 football, F1, snooker + NFL bets of the weekend

What was the most exciting game of the Premier League weekend?

Chelsea needed an injury time Jorginho penalty, his second of the match, to clinch a 3-2 victory and the three points against plucky Leeds as Thomas Tuchel again was left underwhelmed by his team’s efforts. In his first 33 Premier League games in charge, Chelsea conceded more than one goal in a game just once. Now they’ve done it two games running, and including the midweek 3-3 draw at Zenit, have shipped 8 goals in a week. Still, the Blues remain in third place, two points off top. Leeds went ahead on Saturday through a Raphinha penalty, Chelsea took control thanks to Mason Mount and Jorginho’s first spot kick, were then pegged back by 19-year-old Joe Gelhardt’s first Premier League goal with seven minutes left before they were awarded another penalty for another foul on Antonio Rudiger in stoppage times.

Penalty Goal Minutes (settled at 176)

In a weekend of so many Premier League penalties, this was the game with the most, with three spot kicks. All three were given for pretty unnecessary tackles, by Marcus Alonso for Chelsea on Daniel James, and by Raphinha and Mateusz Klick on Antonio Rudiger, all three when the attacking player wasn’t really threatening to score. Still, buyers thoroughly enjoyed it, with the spread set at 14-17 before the game. That meant those buyers won a tasty 159 times their stake.

Are Manchester City still top of the Premier League?

Manchester City remained top of the table with a hard fought 1-0 defeat of Wolves thanks to Raheem Sterling’s 100th Premier League goal. The England forward slotted home a penalty after Joao Moutinho was adjudged to have handled in the area in a game that probably swung on a moment - or 30 seconds - of madness from striker Raul Jimenez. The Mexican was given a yellow card for a foul on Ruben Dias on the halfway line, and when he deliberately prevented the freekick being taken, he was given a second yellow and his marching orders.

Cross-Bookings (settled at 1650)

While Jimenez’s actions didn’t make sense to Wolves fans, anyone buying bookings markets were loving him losing his cool. Two yellows and a red add the maximum 35 points to these markets which award 10 for a booking and 25 for a dismissal, and Ruben Neves even got himself booked for complaining too. Cross-Bookings multiplies the two teams’ bookings points together, so as Leander Dendoncker also incurred the wrath of the ref, Wolves contributed 55 and City had three players booked, giving a final make-up of 55x30, 1650. The spread was set at 185-225, so buyers won 1425 times their bet.

Who won the F1 World Championship?

Max Verstappen came out on top in the wildest finale to any F1 season in history, winning from behind in a one-lap shootout. With Lewis Hamilton well clear, Red Bull boss Christian Horner said with 10 laps to go they needed a miracle to win it from there, and that came with Nicholas Latifi crashing with 5 laps to go, bringing out the safety car. Suddenly Hamilton was faced with having his rival right behind him and worse still, Verstappen had the opportunity to pit and get some fresh, soft tyres on, while Lewis had to stay out to maintain the lead. Race director Michael Masi controversially decided that the clean up operation was done and there would be time for one lap of racing and Lewis, on hard tyres since lap 14, could not hold off his title rival on fresh soft tyres. Having started the race level on points, Verstappen claimed his first world title, snatching away a record eighth from Hamilton.

Verstappen Race Index (settled at 100)

It always looked likely Verstappen and Hamilton would finish 1^st and 2^nd again in this race, it just depended which order as to who would take the title. There were many different ways of getting with whoever you wanted to side with, be it match bets, Live Index or the Race Index. Verstappen’s spread in the Race Index was set at 70-75, with Hamilton’s 71-76. This market awards points down to 10^th place, with 100 for 1^st and 80 for 2^nd, meaning as long as there was no incident taking out whoever your bought, 2^nd would make a little profit and 1^st a decent was. As it played out, it was buyers of Verstappen at 75 who made 25 times their stake.

Who won the Scottish Open Snooker title?

Just a week after the disappointment of losing the UK Championship final to Zhao Xintong, Luca Brecel beat John Higgins 9-5 to lift the Stephen Hendry trophy and pocket the £70k first prize. The 26-year-old Belgian bounced back from last week in impressive fashion, sealing the win with a 127 clearance, including a no-look black to finish the job! Higgins had thrashed Ronnie O’Sullivan 6-1 in the semis just days after branding his comments on youngsters taking up snooker ‘a disgrace’ but he was the bridesmaid again, now having lost in the final of all three of this year’s Home Nations tournaments and in six of his last seven finals in total.

Points Supremacy Brecel/Higgins (settled at 314)

Despite Brecel’s form from last week, four times world champion Higgins came into this final as favourite, and the spread for his total points supremacy was set at 141-191. To get with Brecel, punters sold that spread and backed the Belgian to be the heavier scorer. As it played out, Brecel scored 314 more points than Higgins, meaning sellers of Higgins’ supremacy made 455 times their bet.

Who are favourites to win the Super Bowl?

Reigning Super Bowl champions Tampa Bay are favourites to win it all again this season, even after an ugly second half performance against the Buffalo Bills that saw them forced to overtime before Tom Brady – who else – spared their blushes. All was going to plan with the Buccaneers 24-3 up at half-time, but they lost the second half by the same score, including losing the 4^th quarter 17-3, to allow the Bills to force overtime at 27-27. However, Brady, who had already taken Drew Brees’ career completion record and recorded his 700^th career touchdown pass, found Breshad Perriman  to seal the 32-27 win to move to 10-3, one win away a playoff position.

Launch! (Settled at 2726)

The Launch! market is made up of the longest completed pass in the match multiplied by the longest run from scrimmage The spread before this game was set at 1470-1670, so buyers pocketed a tidy profit of 1056.