Former champions hoping to find the road back to the gold at UFC 200

Posted on | April 19, 2016 | No Comments

UFC 200 takes place at the brand new T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on July 9th and it looks set to be one of the cards of the year. There’s name value, excitement, current champions and former champions all battling it out in unarmed combat. All of those involved are hoping for the win that will bring the bigger paydays and open more doors.

Conor McGregor headlines in the instant rematch against Nate Diaz, who handed the Irishman his first UFC loss at UFC 196. That’s a great story in its own right, but there’s plenty more to be excited about on the supporting card.

There are four former UFC world champions looking to get back to winning ways. To be on the right track in order to retrieve the illustrious titles, wins here are a necessity. Should they fall short, they take another step back in the pecking order and will struggle to be in their respective title races for a long while to come.

Victory would put them right back in contention and every fallen champion has that desire to recapture what they believe should be rightfully theirs.

Jose Aldo and Frankie Edgar do battle for the interim featherweight title, with McGregor in action two weight classes higher in the main event. Aldo was the most dominant champion the 145lbs division has ever seen until McGregor quite literally toppled him, and Edgar won the UFC’s lightweight title before failing on his attempts at the gold when he moved down.

Aldo is 4/5, according to the UFC 200 odds, just edging ahead of Edgar at evens when this article was produced. Aldo has beaten Edgar before, albeit in a very hard-fought contest, but he was emphatically knocked out in his last bout and you have to wonder whether that will have an impact on his ability to do it again.

Edgar is tough and has the gas to make the rounds look easy, whereas Aldo is known to fade. This makes it an extremely intriguing battle, with both men wanting their shot at the real world title held by McGregor if he returns to 145lbs at any point.

Cain Velasquez is also on the bill and the former heavyweight champion is favourite against hard-hitting Travis Browne. Two-time world champion Velasquez was submitted for the first time in his career by Fabricio Werdum, but a victory should make him a top contender once again.

The other former champion is Johny Hendricks, the welterweight wrestler who briefly held the 170lbs title after defeating Robbie Lawler only to have it snatched away in the immediate rematch. Hendricks looked to be back on track when he beat Matt Brown, but he has since suffered the worst defeat of his career, as Stephen Thompson demolished him with superior striking in February.

The nature of the last loss means that this is must-win for Hendricks if he wants his name to be around the title picture at all in the next year.

The mettle of every true champion can be tested in situations like these. There are no easy routes at the highest level of mixed martial arts but if they ever want to be world champions again, Aldo, Edgar, Velasquez and Hendricks will have to do their best to find a way.

Rooney at Risk of Losing England Euro 16 Place

Posted on | March 31, 2016 | No Comments

The 2016 UEFA European Championship is slowly dominating sports news, with only three months until the opening ceremony. As the international event is synonymous with England and them never managing to get past the semi-final stage, all attention is currently on whether they can make this year theirs.

After the success of their friendly played against Germany on March 26th, the question of whether England have learnt anything from Germany’s victory in the 2014 World Cup would appear to have been put to bed. Having been two-nil down for the majority of the match, England’s impressive fight and passion to regain control, despite the mantra of ‘it’s only a friendly’, helped fans catch a glimpse of what Roy Hodgson’s England team is capable of. Which in turn spurred on comments from the likes of renowned Newcastle player Malcolm Macdonald, who believes that England can present themselves as a serious Euro 16 threat.

In his commentary on the England side, Macdonald stated that the club now has strikers that can instill worry into a lot of European teams taking part, something which England had lacked in prior UEFA Championships. He focused his attention on Leicester’s Jamie Vardy and Tottenham’s Harry Kane, however, it was Wayne Rooney who he pinpointed as being key to this pairing. Rooney could take on a kind of puppeteer role and pull all the strings, enabling a strong force to dominate the pitch, or at least that is what Macdonald believes. That being said, while a bet on Euro 2016 at Coral is a must for virtually all fans, pinning hopes on the Manchester United captain might not be wise as it appears that Roy Hodgson has yet to confirm where the former Everton stars places in the team.

There is no doubt that Rooney will be in the final 23 strong team, however, there is mounting pressure as to what role he will assume, and whether Kane could replace him in the starting line up. Due to a knee injury, Rooney was unable to play in the friendly against Germany and Holland, and despite the fact that the Holland match didn’t go in England’s favour, there is still a lot of hope surrounding the current team put forward. This is most apparent in some of the fantasy teams that commentators are putting together after the Holland loss on Tuesday March 29th; not once in the lineup is Rooney mentioned.

The argument for getting rid of Rooney in the first England team is something that is growing in popularity, and as such adds more intensity to the Wayne Rooney Euro 2016 question in general. Currently the player seems to be safe, but for how long is undoubtedly what many fans and backers are asking as they continue to cast their eyes to the fluctuating Euro 2016 odds.

Top – 11 The most popular sport games according revenue 2016

Posted on | March 28, 2016 | No Comments

This article wrote Rick Slot, the owner of the popular website devoted to free slots SlotoZilla, with no download required.

The origins of sport can be traced back to 2000 BC gymnastics. Sports were simple then, based on endurance and skill, and served the purpose of training as well as entertainment for the masses. It retained much of these qualities even today, remaining an indispensable part of our culture with big number of very popular sports and immense fan base. All this of course results also in big media coverage, sports industries and other variations of business thriving and circulating vast amounts of money.

1. Soccer / association football 3.5 Billion Fans. Europe, Africa, Asia, America

Currently most popular sport in the world was introduced with its modern rules in the middle of the 19th century in England. There were various versions of this game prior to it with players kicking balls towards certain targets.

The proof of its popularity for example is that almost every town in your country has at least 1 football team. There are many powerful clubs nowadays present and therefore none are dominant for too long. Premier League (England and Wales) had €8,700 million revenue in 2013-2014 resulting in €290 million per team. More information about football statistics you can find on official Football Association website here.

Russian Premier League had €896 million revenue. Major League Soccer (USA and Canada) had €414.3 million revenue, while South African Premier Division (South Africa) had €111 million revenue.

2. Cricket 2.5 Billion. Asia, Australia, UK.

This sport fully developed in early 18th century in what was then British Empire. It is very popular in its ex-colonies – British Isles, West Indies, Southern Africa, etc.

England and India are the ones dominating the international competitions with Australia and Africa right behind them.
An indicative of its popularity in India for example is that Indian Premier League had a €160 million revenue in 2013, resulting to €17.8 million per club.

3. Field Hockey 2 Billion. Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia.

Interesting fact about this sport is that originated in two places which developed it independently around 3rd century B.C. (Europe and Asia).

However, the form in which we know it today was introduced in the 19th century England. Firstly India and Pakistan were dominant on the international scene (middle of the 20th century), and later the dominant role was earned by Netherlands and Australia.

Even though the sport is male-dominated throughout the world, it is female-dominated in the USA. National Hockey League (USA and Canada) had €3,390 million revenue which amounts to €110 million per club in 2013-14.

4. Tennis 1 Billion. Europe, Asia, America

Tennis was introduced back in 14th century, but it appeared in its modern form and rules at the middle of the 19th century.

The international scene in this sport was never dominated by a single country/player for a too long time (for example, from 2004-2014 14 different players from 8 different countries made it to the first place).

So far Roger Federer has been the highest paid player with $65 million. It is estimated that between 11 and 17 million people in US play tennis according to statistics.

5. Volleyball 900 Million. Europe, Australia, Asia, America

What helped this sport’s popularity is that it only needs a ball and a net to work. Even the surface does not matter much (it can be sand, grass, cement).

It was introduced to Olympic Games in 1964 and no country has since really kept a long dominance in the area of traditional volleyball.

On the other hand, Americans and Brazilians dominated the beach volleyball scene (introduced in 1996).

6. Table Tennis 850 Million. Europe, Africa, Asia, America.

This sport has been gaining in popularity in Europe lately, but its main area of dominance is China (interest in it is also spread over the rest of Asia).

Its rules are easy to understand, and the equipment required is easy to be made which added to its being popular. Chinese dominate the international scene, and what is interesting is that since 1992 only Chinese women won international competitions.

An interesting fact about the rise of popularity is that Stiga, the producer of equipment for table tennis creates about 300,000 in Mexico, 200,000 in Europe (Germany), and 200,000 in China.

7. Baseball 500 Million. America, Japan.

Its current form was developed in England at the beginning of the 20th century. What makes this game unique is a direct competition between its players (batter and pitcher).

It has fans all around the world and Cuba has become powerful in this field winning a lot of Olympic gold medals. Another country that achieved much in this field is Japan, it won 2/3 World baseball classics.
Major League Baseball (USA/Canada) had a €8,700 million revenue in those countries (290 million revenue per club).

8. Golf 450 Million. Europe, Asia, America, Canada

It was introduced in theory in 13th century, but it became a real sport in the 15th century in Scotland.

What is peculiar about this sport is that there is a lack of perceived, direct competitiveness – during the contests, the golfers never face each other, which may be a downside for many fans.

It is currently dominated by American players (Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer). There are about 22 million Americans participating in this sport and 4.39 Europeans according to the statistics. The golf industry had an economic output of $15,000 million in California.

9. Basketball 400 Million. America

This sport originates from 19th century America and it has since spread all around the world. Initially Americans dominated, but with its growth, other countries came into competition such as Argentina, Lithuania, etc.

It is a tendency for players in America who cannot make it to the NBA league to try their luck in other countries these days. NBA had a total of €4,580 revenue in USA and Canada in 2014/2015, while Major League Basketball had €8,700 million revenue in 2015.
More information about basketball you will here on the Basketball Reference website on the link.

10. American Football 400 Million. Europe, Africa, Asia, America, Australia.

American Football, as expected according to its name, has a largest fan base located in United States and Canada (about half of the total number).

This sport evolved from rugby at the end of the 19th century and NFL was established in 1920. In USA it had a €11,900 million revenue in 2015 season which amounts to €372 million revenue per club.

11. Casino Industry

Comparing all above mentioned, gambling have 1.6 billion (in 2005), a lot more now (primarily Australia, Italy, Canada and UK). So, the casino still can not compete with football.

Although Casino Industry with its Slots is not really recognized as a sport, the number of its fans as well as the amount of money being turned over by this industry is pretty comparable to regular sports.

Australia is the leader in this area with $1,200 spent per adult on gambling yearly. As much as 80% percent of adult Australians are considered gamblers. It is followed by Canada and Italy with its adults spending $600 per year on gambling on average.Another interesting statistic is that 75% of UK adults gamble from time to time, and that 85% of all American adults have gambled at least once. UK online gambling market had been worth about £1 billion in 2008, while in 2012 it was worth £2.28 billion.
More information about real money slots you can find on this link.

All these statistics and trends show us that it is expected that more and more money will be infused into these fields. Since sports are so important part of our culture, it is expected that people will remain being interested in either participating or following them via various media thus contributing to this increased influx of money.

Video game tactics shown through video tutorials

Posted on | March 18, 2016 | No Comments

Video tutorials are now available on how to do almost anything. They are an entertaining way to get people to learn how to do something. It has become important to keep a clients attention on a product. This is especially true for digital products such as video games and online casino slots.

There is currently an explosion of video games on the market. Both free to play and games you have to pay for. Game developers and marketers are developing video tutorials to get players up to speed with game play quickly. Online casino games are just like video games in almost all aspects. They are also being taught to players using video tutorials. Failure by the casino operators to quickly show players how to play games will result in the premature exit from the site by gamers. This results in loss of potential revenue.

There are several types of video tutorials that can be used.

• Tutorials which demonstrate how to play the game outside the real game. These are called Tutorials by Exposition. They consist primarily of text but may also have short video demonstrations. Sometimes they appear as pop ups during gameplay.
• The Tutorial Room is the most widely used type of Tutorial. This involves walking the player through a particular section of gameplay. These are divided into thematic and contextual lessons.

Online video slots which are video games turned into gambling machines utilise various versions of tutorials. The value of video tutorials in all types of video games can never be disputed.

Have you tried free betting?

Posted on | March 9, 2016 | No Comments

There are a few sites which offer free betting but usually the user experience is lacking and you are left wanting more. Here is an option you should try if you are new to betting or just want to bet for free.

It’s the free betting game from FanBet. The game is set up to work best on mobile phones and is a social betting challenge. You basically compete against other football fans using fantasy credits, for the chance to win real cash prizes.

The way it works is simple. Each week you are given a fantasy bankroll of £5,000. Use these credits to place free bets with on Premier League games. The top 10 free bettors with the highest returns over the week win cash prizes. The cash prizes are paid into Paypal. Nice and easy.

The betting game environment uses the same odds you would see at big real money bettors, and the scores etc are updated in real time. You can think of FanBet as a free bookie as it functions in the exact same way.

To get started, signup for your free account by visiting FanBet.com. Access is granted instantly and in addition to free betting you can see odds, tips, standings, chat and more.

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