LiveOddsAndScores.com exclusive interview with William Hill's Graham Sharpe

In the first of a series of question and answer sessions with some of the top movers and shakers in the sports betting industry, LiveOddsAndScores.com presents an exclusive interview with Graham Sharpe, Head of Media at William Hill.

In the following interview Graham dishes out some top tips for the biggest sporting events of 2012 and talks openly about which betting markets punters can potentially hurt William Hill on. Keep reading to find out more!

Hi Graham. I know you're a very busy guy, so thanks for taking the time to speak to LiveOddsAndScores.com. Let's start off with an event that is just around the corner. What are your thoughts on the upcoming BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award?

Hi Matt. Pleasure is all ours. LiveOddsAndScores.com is a great betting resource for punters. SPOTY...my initial thought is that Mark Cavendish is too short. I wouldn’t bet on him at odds-on. He’s obviously got claims, but he’s not as high profile as Chris Hoy when he won it. He’s the only one of the high-ranking cyclists that hasn’t won Olympic gold, so although I think he’s a worthy favourite I don’t think he’s a 4/9 shot, which he is at the moment.  I think the golfers will probably cut each other’s throats, so my suggestion would be that Mo Farah won’t be far away come the end of the night.

That's a great tip for our users. Thanks. Moving onto soccer, who do you think will win the Premier League and what are Hills’ liabilities in the market?

From our point of view we’re keeping an eye on our mounting liabilities on Manchester City to win a four-fold. Obviously that four-fold is not going to include the Champions League now, which could have proved pricy for us, but in a way it’s the multiple trophies that potentially threaten us these days rather than just the outright Premier League title, because it’s effectively, despite what your Spurs and Liverpool supporters will probably tell you, a three, possibly four horse race.

The odds are never going to be huge on the Premier League title, so you’re not going to pick up mega-liabilities. You’re looking for the multiple winners and in that camp probably City are the most likely to damage us, so provided City don’t win three or four of the trophies available to them we shouldn’t come to too much harm. City are now plenty short enough, United have been there and done it and they’re not far behind so it’s still all to play for, but at the same time you’d be fairly brave to back one of the sides that are not United or City.

Of course, we’ve got a without the Manx market and that’s quite intriguing between Chelsea, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool. Who’s going to come out on top, well, I think if I was put up against a wall and told I’d be shot if I got it wrong, I think I would go for… Arsenal.

The Gunners to finish ahead of Chelsea and Spurs eh. Interesting. How about the Champions League? Can you see past the two big Spanish clubs?

Barcelona absolutely clobbered us last season. We decided to take them on in the final last year and that was not the best decision we’ve ever made. Of course your average punter that doesn’t have an allegiance to any other side - any other Premier League side in the Champions League that is - just assumes that Barcelona have got to turn up to win. So we’re probably looking at Mourinho to pull something out of the bag to save us because, again, Barca will be included in most punters’ start-of-the-season multiples. So anyone but Barca for us.

Good luck with that! How about England at Euro 2012 next summer? Do they have a chance and are Spain still the team to beat?

I rate England’s chances as non-existent. But then I’ve done pretty well for the last forty-five years assuming that because that’s how long it is since they've won anything. I can’t see it happening with the squad they’ve got at the moment. In fact, I wouldn’t back them with your money.

Spain quite possibly have jumped the shark, as they say. Yes, they were only friendlies they lost, but they’ve been beaten a few times recently and when you start to get into that habit it does detract from your air of invincibility amongst your opponents. You saw that with Tiger Woods - as soon as people detect a weakness in you, rather than being beaten before they even start, they go in there thinking they’ve got a chance and that’s when the playing field becomes levelled. So I’ve got every belief that Spain are not going to be a good value punt for Euro 2012.

A number of other countries are in transition too. It could be one of those years when Greece or Denmark wins it, as they have in previous Euros. I think the Euro has the potential to throw up a surprise winner more than the World Cup does, and for that reason I would suggest that you hold on until the tournament to see if anyone looks like going into it in decent form or gets off to a good start and you can see that they’ve got a bit about them because injuries are so important as well.

Injuries and tiredness at the end of a long season can affect everybody and if you know that your side has got its players, they’re fit, relatively fresh, then that’s the time to pin your colours to the mast. You probably do want a couple of quid on England because you know it will be unbearable if we do win it and you’ll have to sit and listen to it for the next 28 years before we win anything else, but other than that reason I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole.

We wouldn't disagree with you there, Graham. England are always poor value at major tournaments. Talking of next summer, what do you think are the main betting events likely to be at the Olympics and will the fact that they're held in London make a big difference to overall betting interest in the UK?

We suspect that the football or the tennis will be the biggest betting interest events, but it’s a matter of some uncertainty as to just what the level of betting interest will be in the Olympics. We’ve already gone on record as saying we intend to put up odds for every event and it will be intriguing to see what the results are. Even I’m not old enough to remember the last time the Olympics were on home soil!

I think having it in London will make a difference to the overall betting interest because you won’t be able to avoid it. It will be on your front pages, on your back pages and on your telly. If you live in London it will be in your front room, in your garden, and if you’re trying to get to work you’ll be fuming because they’ll have taken all the lanes out to give to the Olympics. You won’t be able to avoid the Olympics unless you’re shrewd enough to go on holiday at that time and then you’ll have a bit more time to sit and have a bet, so personally I think it’ll be very popular.

There are others that are less confident than I am though. Of course in the glamour events you could find that even the 100m is competitive if young master Yohan Blake continues to make his inroads into Usain Bolt’s invincibility, so I think it’s going to be a very lively betting heat, the whole thing.

Yohan Blake has certainly impressed lately. Moving on from athletics to Formula 1, how do you see the F1 season panning out next year?

You wouldn’t want Sebastian Vettel to turn it into another Monopoly situation because obviously that can deter some people from having a bet because they think, well, he’s not going to get beaten but he’s not an attractive betting proposition. So we’d like to see the other drivers getting a bit closer to him. Usually that happens, unless you’re in for a Shumacher era.

It’s always a very popular sport; it’s still one of the glamour sports and we’ve still got a very strong hand in Hamilton and Button and even if you think Vettel’s going to run away with it it’s still going to be a competitive betting heat. There are a lot of aspects of F1 that would keep it in the public eye and you’ve got the interest at the start of the season in the Sky Sports coverage. It’ll be interesting to see what effect, if any, that has on the betting.

Yes, I think most punters don't want another Shumacher era. Changing tack, a lot of our forum members at LiveOddsAndScores.com are regular bettors on the nags. Are Hills afraid of any horses in particular at next year’s Cheltenham Festival or at the Grand National?

You’d be unwise to be too frightened of any horses in the National. Of course a couple of years ago the McCoy bandwagon kicked in with Don’t Push It and he finally won it. It’s a bit like Frankie winning the Derby on Authorized - there’s usually one horse that captures the public imagination. Last year we had The Queen’s horse in the Derby and there’s always something that people lump on in the National, but the great thing in the National is that 39 horses don’t win it each year, so we wouldn’t fear any individual horse in that race.

It’s probably something like the Gold Cup where you might see a Kauto bandwagon if he wins the King George and heads to the Cheltenham Gold Cup looking like the champion of old. With Long Run still there as a contender we could see ourselves with very hefty liabilities on Kauto but I think he’s probably the only horse. Frankel will be going off at too short odds to concern us and he’s a horse that people are going to be watching rather than backing - unless he goes abroad and takes on some foreign superstars on their own ground.

The local punters won’t back him and there may be some value to be had for the Brits there. But the days of those sort of effects being too dramatic are long gone because it’s an international sport now and people are aware of the reputations of even the foreign horses when they come, so you don’t see a huge difference in odds. Although, I was watching some racing from Hong Kong a weekend or two ago and I had a particular interest in one horse in the race because it used to be owned by a friend of mine. It was fascinating to see in Hong Kong this horse was a 5/4 shot and here in the UK it was a 5/1 shot. So there was a dramatic difference with the home fans all looking to back that particular horse, who didn’t look that sort of a price for the punters here. So you can still see it, but it’s an increasingly rare phenomenon. The answer to your question then is if there is one horse that particularly concerns us, it would be Kauto Star.

5/4 in Hong Kong and 5/1 in the UK for the same horse...that's amazing! It just shows how important it is to shop around for the best odds. Moving on to golf, whose year is 2012 going to be in the golfing world and what do you make of the return to winning ways of Tiger Woods?

Well it’s fantastic news that you’ve got so many Brits in prominent positions in the sport at the moment, although most of them are Irish Brits, if that’s what they call themselves. But there’s still the Westwoods of the world and the Donalds. Whether Tiger can ever recapture the dominance that he had before is doubtful, but he’s certainly added another ingredient to what’s already a tempting menu for golf fans. Next year it’s another Ryder Cup which is going to suddenly creep up on us. So only excitement ahead for the golf season.

Absolutely. And we're going to be running an exclusive PGA Tour golf competition on the forum next year, so we expect lots of interests from our members on the topic. Turning to tennis, is it going to be all about the same big four players again and could it finally be Andy Murray’s year?

It had probably better be Murray’s year because he’s not getting any younger. Younger players are emerging behind him, but Murray should take comfort from the fact that Andre Agassi got beaten several times in Grand Slam finals before he finally managed to break through and he ended up winning about half a dozen I think, if I remember correctly. So it’s not too late for Andy. For sure he’s just got to conquer his temperament. He’s got the game for it, he seems to be able to batter everybody over three sets, so maybe it’s just a question of concentration, ultimately, to be able to do it at the very top level for five sets.

His opponents have shown a few frailties this season. Djokovic became a little bit injury-prone at the end of the season, Nadal tends to blow hot and cold, and clearly Federer is not quite the force of old because he’s getting on a bit by tennis standards. My message would be: go out there and do it Andy; it’s yours for the taking. If he can convince himself that he can do it then I’m sure he will, but again it’s a brave man that risks too much on him making that breakthrough.

Sounds like you're hedging your bets there! Murray really does divide opinion though. Let's finish with a sport that is very popular with our users - boxing. After Amir Khan and Carl Froch got embarrassed recently, who’s going to be big in boxing next year and is Pacquiao vs Mayweather going to happen or is it a bit of a dream?

I’m not sure Froch was embarrassed. I think he possibly will look back and think he should have fought differently. He got into the fight into the last two rounds, which was a bit late, and I think time could show that he was up against a truly outstanding opponent. Khan was definitely embarrassed because his main excuse is that he was two points down by fighting in Peterson’s backyard. Well, he was the champion. He should have never gone to his backyard in the first place and all of the complaints afterwards had the sort of aura of David Haye’s big toe about them. Don’t mention it, you got beat, just keep quiet and come back and prove next time out that you’re not as bad as you looked on the night.

I’m a Khan fan, but he’s doing himself no favours complaining in the way he is. I suspect if he gets a rematch he probably will win it because he’ll wind himself up more, but don’t underestimate someone who’s beaten somebody else - it does give him a psychological edge over him. So yes, it’s been a bad year for Brit world titles, but I think Pacquiao vs Mayweather probably will happen, but only because Pacquiao isn’t looking like the fighter he was in his last couple of fights and Mayweather might think, "I might as well get rid of him now because somebody else could beat him first", and as we all know fights make stars and Pacquiao may have one big fight left in him.

Mayweather is always going to be super-confident, sometimes over-confident, so yes it’s the fight we would love to see happen. David Haye coming back? I don’t know if anyone’s going to be very interested, but somebody’s going to be in the right place at the right time to beat one of the Klitschko’s eventually. It just might be Dereck Chisora.

Chisora is an interesting pick! Thank you very much Graham for your words of wisdom about so many different betting markets. We hope our users don't win too much money off William Hill next year. Actually, we hope they do! Thanks again, you've been a great sport.

No problem, LiveOddsAndScores.com. Been a pleasure chatting.

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