After a long four-year wait it’s time to gear up for the 2018 Commonwealth Games! It’s always a great spectacle with a smorgasbord of exciting events taking place throughout the two weeks (April 4-15). As usual, we have a lot of Aussie hopefuls who will be doing their best to win a gold medal in the Games, especially on their home soil in 2018. We’ve done some research to provide you with some value tips for you to get behind and make some money off, so take a look below at our 2018 Commonwealth Games preview.
Men’s Hockey
One of the real value bets of this year’s Commonwealth Games comes from the Men’s Hockey. The Aussies come in as favourites at odds of $2.00, which we find very generous, especially since they’ve won the last 5 gold medals, dating back to 1998! Not only are they the strongest team in the competition, but they’ve also been dealt an easy draw. They’ve been pooled with just one (New Zealand $8) of the top 5 most fancied teams, which means they should be able to cruise through their group stage and into the knockout phase without accumulating too much fatigue.
India ($5) and England ($6.50) have brought over stronger squads this year and should make things a little bit tougher for the Aussies, but we still think the boys in green and gold will get the job done in the Gold Coast.
TIP: Australia to win the Gold Medal - $2 at Ladbrokes
Men’s 400m Freestyle
Another competitor we feel is excellent value for a gold medal is Australia’s Mac Horton. Although the $1.72 seems short in an individual event with a lot of competitors, we couldn’t be any more confident that Horton will claim the gold on his home soil. At just 21 years of age, Horton is already a World Championship silver medalist (Budapest, 2017) and an Olympic gold medalist (Rio 2016). With an inferior field to what he’s medalled against in recent times, we believe that Horton will cruise home to victory In the 400m freestyle.
TIP: Mack Horton (AUS) to win the gold medal - $1.72 at Sportsbet
Total Gold Medals
Lastly we have a Commonwealth Games tip that we can all get behind. In 5 of the last 6 Commonwealth Games (dating back to 1994) Australia has tallied at least 74 gold medals, and in four of those Games they tallied at least 80. The 2014 Games (held in Glasgow) is an exception, where they only managed 49 gold medals. However, the Aussies are entering the 2018 edition of the Commonwealth games with over 70 more competitors than our nearest rivals (England) and there’s a lot of optimism surrounding most of the events. With history on our side we feel that the overs on total gold medals for Australia is great value.
TIP: Australia total gold medals over (70.5) - $1.88 at Sportsbet
