The football highlight of the weekend came at Arsenal as they won 3-2 against Liverpool at the Emirates (there are notable mentions for Wrexham’s 7-5 win over Barnet and Newtown’s 8-1 win over Cardiff Corinthians in the Welsh Cup) to put themselves back above Manchester City at the top of the league.

In rugby league, the warm-up to the World Cup is well underway and England breezed past Fiji at the AJ Bell whilst there were wins elsewhere for Lebanon, Tonga, and New Zealand who defeated an under-strength Leeds Rhinos.

Michael Van Gerwen and Max Verstappen were both Grand Prix winners this weekend, though in vastly contrasting sports and there were wins for New Zealand and England in the T20 World Cup warm-ups yesterday.

With plenty of sport taking place at both domestic and international level, we take a look at three big winning spread bets from the weekend.

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

WREXHAM v BARNET – GOALS CUBED (SETTLED AT 1726)

A wedge of Hollywood cash has been thrown at Wrexham and with famous actors in the stands and documentaries produced by Disney, the Racecourse Ground has never had so many eyeballs on it.

Saturday’s visit of Barnet was expected to be a routine victory but with the hosts scoring at a rate of over 2.5 goals per game before this encounter, it turned out to be anything but routine.

Aaron Hayden put the Welsh outfit 1-0 up after nine minutes, before two goals in three minutes from Harry Pritchard and Nicke Kabamba put Barnet in the lead in the 31^st minute. Not to be outdone, Wrexham scored two goals in two minutes as they took a 3-2 lead into the break.

In just 20 second half minutes, the score had become 7-3 to the hosts, and whilst they couldn’t add any more to their total Kabamba and Idris Kanu both completed braces to reduce Wrexham’s lead to 7-5.

It was a mental game and a great game for buyers who bought Goals Cubed at 103-126. With 12 goals flying in north Wales, this market settled at 1726 as buyers won 1600x their initial stake.

FIJI WOMEN v ENGLAND WOMEN – CLAUDIA MACDONALD SUPER-MEGA MINUTES (SETTLED AT 403)

England are one of the favourites to win the Women’s Rugby Union World Cup in Australia and they laid down a marker on Saturday as they battered Fiji 84-19. At half-time, it was shaping up to be a relatively close affair with the Fijians trailing 24-14, but they couldn’t keep up in the second 40 as England added a whopping 60 points to their scoreline.

Having scored one try in the fifth minute, England’s Claudia MacDonald was one player who cashed in during the try blitz of the second half. She added her second try in the 56^th minute (counting double on the SMM spread) and completed her hat-trick in the 70^th minute (counting treble).

There was still time to score England’s last try in the 76^th minute as a four-try haul capped an impressive afternoon for the Wasps winger. Buyers on her Super-Mega Minutes line will have been in clover as well as they saw the market settle at 403 (5+112+210+76) against a pre-match spread of 79-86, winning 317x their stake in the process.

PETER WRIGHT v MICHAEL VAN GERWEN - PETER WRIGHT TOTAL LEGS (SETTLED AT 1)

The World Grand Prix is one of the most prestigious darts competitions on the PDC circuit and despite being held away from its usual Dublin base for the third consecutive year.

Michael Van Gerwen won the tournament yesterday evening after he resisted a late comeback from Stockport’s Nathan Aspinall, but there were no comeback heroics when he faced Peter Wright in the semi-final.

The Scotsman has now moved to number one in the world following the World Grand Prix, but he was powerless to do anything in the face of an onslaught from Van Gerwen who whitewashed him 4-0 on Saturday night. Despite hitting four 180s to the Dutchman’s single maximum, Wright just couldn’t get himself going when it mattered, winning a solitary leg during the match.

Before an arrow was thrown in anger the spread on Wright Total Legs was 10.90-11.40, but with the market settling at 1.00, Snakebite sellers were left collecting a win of 9.90x their initial 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.