Guest blog post by Andy, who provides details of spread betting and his trading strategies on his spread trading blog.

I am tempted for a little sports diversity from my normal stock market trading. Sports betting for me is a hobby giving me some light relief from the normal daily chores, but noting that I managed to return 700% on my account last year I'm thinking of starting to take it more seriously.  My friends are pretty good and were on the back page of the telegraph for winning £750,000 on the football spread bets some years back; I think they did it twice, they were ex-stock market lads and led a hell of a life style. They used to bet on anything like number of corners, sponges...etc. They won (and lost) heaps.

Yesterday evening Karamanlis, Prime Minister of Greece, made an announcement regarding the next Greek Elections which will most probably take place in early October.  Thus, rumors that his party will not complete their 4-year incumbency as the ruling party are verified and every poll shows the opposition to be up to 6% ahead in the forthcoming Greek election.  Betfair was quick once again to add a special betting market under their politics section, and for the time being the only available bet is which party will have the most seats in the next parliamentary election. If you trust the election polls, PASOK seems like a sure bet offering 1-10 odds.

Searching in google for a winning tennis betting system didn't help at all. The first 3 pages returned advertising pages and affiliates' links to so-called amazing tennis betting systems that guarantee instant profits. I understand that internet offers great potential for everyone to make money following different routes, but I was just looking for tennis gamblers sharing their knowledge and possibly their experience testing several betting systems. I will keep on searching though for ideas to include in a tennis betting system I am interested in.

Can Chelsea win Everton in the FA Cup Final and justify the favorite football betting odds? The Betfair charts are in favor of Chelsea as well and FA Cup seems to be going to their side. The Betfair bettor though has also got other football betting opportunities in Betfair, while the competent football arbitrageur may find sure bets in the Betfair betting markets. We should not forget the Betfair trader though, who is able to trade in-play during the FA Cup Final and make money by trading the football betting odds.

Applying technical analysis on Betfair graphs can make money by trading even long term football events. Champions League 2008/09 has reached the semi final stage and upon looking at the 4 teams' betting graphs regarding the winner of the competition, we can draw basic trend lines along with support and resistance lines. Technical analysis will help us to prepare our trading strategy and even predict the two teams which will reach the Final. Still, long term trading is all about making money before the event ends and the Betfair graphs offer tremendous help.