The Nigeria Football Team

Gernot Rohr was thrown up again and again. After the decisive 1-0 win over Zambia, the 64-year-old coach’s players rejoiced. With a big smile on his face and a small Nigeria flag in his right hand, Rohr was happily walking over the tartan track at Godswill Akpabio Stadium in Uyo. The globetrotter had just led the 1996 Olympic champion to his sixth World Cup participation.

No wonder that his contract was extended until 2020 at the end of November. “He has done his job very well and now doesn’t have to go to the World Cup in uncertainty about his future,” said association president Amaju Pinnick.

Super Eagles are permanent guests of the World Cup

The Super Eagles, who failed France 2-0 in the Round of 16 in Brazil, are permanent guests at the World Cup. Since 1994, the Super Eagles have only been missing at the 2006 finals in Germany. Nigeria made it to the round of 16 three times.

But this success could not be foreseen. When Rohr took up his fourth engagement as national coach in Africa in August 2016 (after Gabon, Niger and Burkina Faso), he had a huge mountain of work ahead of him. Five months earlier, Nigeria surprisingly missed qualifying for the 2017 Africa Cup as 2013 Champion. The proven Africa expert, who lives in France and owns a hotel in Lege-Cap-Ferret, had to create new structures, establish a suitable game philosophy and act as a mediator between the association, the Ministry of Sport and the stars working abroad.

Rohr rewarded himself with his first World Cup participation and is the second German head coach at the tournament in Russia, alongside national coach Joachim Löw. Nigeria were the first African team to qualify for the World Cup confidently and without defeat. Rohr lost only one of eleven games as Nigerian national coach: The already insignificant last game of the messed up Africa Cup qualification against South Africa (0:2).

For game designer John Obi Mikel, who has already played in Brazil and currently works for Tianjin Teda in China, the tournament in Russia is something special: “I am proud to be captain of this team. My wife is Russian. “You and our children will be cheering for us at the World Cup.” In addition to Mikel, Alex Iwobi (Arsenal FC), Kelechi Iheanacho (Manchester City) and Victor Moses (Chelsea FC) are top performers. Mainz central defender Leon Balogun is an undisputed regular under the gun. The odds are good for the” Super Egales” to reach the second round means bettingsites.ng.

African champions Cameroon were beaten 4-0 in World Cup qualifying. In mid-November, captain Mikel’s team, the former Chelsea midfielder, turned a 2-0 deficit into a 4-2 victory in a test match against runners-up Argentina. With the exception of their missing superstar Lionel Messi, the South Americans played in their strongest line-up.

During this match, the Nigerian football association NFF announced the agreement in the discussion about the player bonuses due for qualifying for the World Cup. At the 2014 World Cup, there had still been fierce disagreements about the premium payments. These culminated in a training strike of the players. After all, the Nigerian sports minister had to come to Brazil and distribute four million US dollars in cash among the players. At the insistence of Rohr, this problem was also solved in time this time. 2.4 million dollars were set as a premium for qualifying for Russia. Further funds are still to flow. More details about the world cup you can find under www.russland-wm2018.de.

eSport in Europa – Still behind?

After looking at Korea, we now look into our realms. Because where can we better understand the culture than in our own region? This time we look at the whole thing – in which country which eSport title is played most often and where do the players earn the most money. In the first part we dedicate ourselves to the history of European eSports and this will amaze many of you.

In contrast to typical German sports, eSports continue to play a very small role in our society. But Europe has also produced one of the best-known companies in eSports.

The early years

The history of European and predominantly German eSports is very difficult to reconstruct. While the first offline tournaments were held in America in 1972 with the game “Pong”, eSports in Germany began relatively late. There were always a few smaller clans, but it wasn’t until 1996 that the first clans were founded, and their success can still be seen today.

At that time, “Orcana”, “SK Gaming” and “pod virtual gaming” were the first teams in Germany to play Quake professionally. All this happened in the years 1996-98, when the games “Quake” and “Doom” were the titles par excellence to run eSport. Even greater importance was attached to eSport in Germany with the release of the online shooter “Counter-Strike“. The game from Valve was one of the main reasons why eSport became so big in Europe and other games managed to inspire so many people.

The various leagues also played a major role in the history of Europe: towards the end of the 1990s, the first major leagues were founded, most of which were not only active at national level. This included, for example, the German Clan League.

Electronic Sports League

It is probably the best-known league in eSports. The DeCl, or all of you better known as ESL. In 1997 Ralf Reichert founded the “DeCl” and thus laid the foundation for the most successful and largest league of its kind. Acer sat down with Ralf Reichert to talk about ESL, SK and eSport in general.

In 2000 the name was changed to ESL – Electronic Sports League. At the end of 2013, it comprised 4 million registered members and 950 thousand teams. Meanwhile ESL has several tournaments on national and international level.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

What casino licenses are available?

Since the advent of online casinos in the late 1990s, some, mostly small states have specialised in the licensing of online casinos. For example, it was possible for an Englishman to play in an online casino licensed in Curacao.

In the meantime, however, a whole series of countries have switched over to granting national gaming licenses for online casinos. In Denmark, for example, online casinos are only legal if they have a Danish gambling licence. The same applies to Online Casinos in Great Britain. German lawmakers have not yet brought about uniform legislation that complies with EU law. This means that casinos with a non-German license are also tolerated in this country. For as long as there is no effective law, the German authorities are not allowed to prosecute either players or casino operators.

Basically one can distinguish between two groups with regard to the game licenses: First of all, there are licenses from non-EU countries. And then there are licenses from EU countries. Let’s look at these two types of licenses in detail.

non-EU licenses

When the first online casinos sought licenses, it was smaller countries outside the EU that actively offered licenses for online casinos. The reason was simple. With a license fee good money could be earned and casinos could usually acquire this license relatively uncomplicatedly. Countries of the first hour are mainly Gibraltar and Curacao. Gibraltar – located in the south of Spain – is actually part of Great Britain, but has its own special tax rights. They took advantage of this and have been granting casino licenses for many years. The Gibraltar gaming authority grants licences if certain conditions are met, especially with regard to deposit and withdrawal security as well as player protection. Due to tax advantages many online casinos have their headquarters in Gibraltar. The Caribbean island of Curacao, which actually belongs to Holland, was the first country that began to grant gaming licenses for online casinos as early as 1996. Many online casinos still operate with a gambling licence from the Caribbean island.

Gibraltar and Curacao are regarded as pioneers of online gaming licensing. Therefore, many casinos have these two licenses. In general, it is cheaper and slightly easier for casinos to obtain a license from Curacao or Gibraltar. Therefore, these two licenses are still very popular. However, it should be noted that both licences are subject to strict conditions, although they are not as rigorous as EU licences.

Online casinos with EU license

Due to the boom in the online gaming industry, more and more EU countries have noticed that taxes on online gaming are lost when profits are taxed outside their own country in countries such as Gibraltar or Curacao. For several years now, there has been increasing regulation of online gambling in the European Union. Casinos with a EU licence ore for example the 888Casino or Dunder, Casumo or Casino.com. A complete list of all sites you can find here.

As already mentioned, many EU countries, including Holland, Denmark and the UK, have fully regulated the gambling market. This means that casinos operating without a state gambling license are de facto illegal. For this reason, many casinos have withdrawn from their respective markets without the appropriate license. In other countries, including Germany, EU casinos are still legal or at least tolerated. For as long as Germany does not offer effective regulation under EU law, the principle of freedom to provide services within the EU applies. This means that a casino with a licence from Malta may not simply be prohibited from offering its services in Germany.

Malta – the pioneer within the EU

The pioneer in the field of EU licences was the island of Malta. Similar to Gibraltar and Curacao, casino licenses were issued long before EU accession. However, with Malta’s accession to the EU, access to these licences has also been greatly increased and it is now quite difficult to obtain a Maltese licence.

Another popular license that speaks for the seriousness of a casino is the casino license from Great Britain. The British Gambling Commission is known for demanding very high standards from online casinos. The Authority shall rigorously examine all applications for seriousness. A British license is therefore very difficult to obtain, especially for small and new casinos.

 

Esports Betting – Overview Of The Esports Gambling Vertical

Why Esports betting is popular?

Electronic sports or better known as Esports happens to be a form of competitive video gaming. This genre of game playing id currently attracting around 5,000,000 online audiences, and the grand prize of a major event can be more than $20,000,000. And so, for the last couple of years the trend of Esports, especially Esports betting has reached a whole new level of popularity.

Does choosing the game play an important part?

What most people fail to grasp that the very first step of this this kind of betting is deciding which games or game you should bet on. For someone who is a fan of MOBA, then they should choose to bet on games like LoL or Dota 2. Whereas, fans of FPS games should go with Overwatch or CS:GO. The reason why everyone should only choose games that they like as in order to bet correctly one needs to watch the games they will be betting on a lot, and at the same time you need to understand or predict the gameplay as well.

What are the different types of markets?

Next the different types of Esports betting will be discussed in brief to provide an idea on how to bet on Esports:

  • Outright Esports betting

Here the person will be betting on the overall result or outcome of a specific event. Generally, more value is offered as the team that you will be betting on over a longer period of time needs to win multiple games. This is also a bit safer than other types as here even after making a mistake or losing a round, the team can still win the whole competition.

  • Money Line

This is considered as one of the easiest types of sport betting. Here all one has to do is bet on a side that you think will win the game.

  • Totals

This type of betting is a bit different and also a bit complicated for the newcomers. Here the bet will be placed on the number of definite events of a game being under or over a figure which is set by a bookmaker.

  • Handicap

Handicap type of betting in Esports is very much same as the traditional sport betting that is practiced. So, here the job of the bookmaker is trying to balance the chances of each side by providing the side that has lower rank an advantage or positive handicap; and providing a disadvantage to higher rank side or negative handicap. So because of this, the bet on the team that has the positive handicap can be considered as a win only if they win the game, draw or lose by less than what the handicap figure is. On the other hand, the bet that has been placed in the team with the negative handicap will be considered as a win if that particular team wins by more than what the set handicap figure.

Choosing the right sportsbook

In Esports betting choosing the right sportsbook also plays an important role as well. There are many helpful online sportsbook websites out there, and finding out one that suits you will not be a problem. Besides making sure that they have a license, you also need to make sure that the sportsbook of your choice offers the benefit of betting on the Esports of your liking. You also need to make sure that they offer different payment methods, has a dedicated customer help/support/service, and also they offer good bonuses in their user-friendly website as well.

Floyd Mayweather vs Conor McGregor

The wait is almost over, one of the most hyped up boxing matches of recent years takes place in Las Vegas on Saturday as Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor face off in the ring. It is the news story that has dominated sports headlines since it was announced and now the talking can finally stop when the two fighters swap the microphones for the gloves on Saturday.

Floyd Mayweather is arguably the greatest pound for pound boxer of all time and is the proud owner of a 49-0 record that he will be expecting to extend to 50-0 on Saturday night. Mayweather, 40, retired from boxing almost two years ago, but the huge pay cheque on offer has tempted him back into the ring one last time.

He will come up against Conor McGregor who is taking part in his first ever professional boxing bout after making the move over from UFC. McGregor, 29, is a larger than life personality and sought to become the first ever UFC Dual Weight Champion when he took on Nate Diaz, but he lost the fight, his first ever loss in UFC. McGregor went on to win the rematch between the two in July of last year, before setting his sights on Mayweather.

Mayweather will start the fight as big favourite, but there has been plenty of money staked on McGregor in recent weeks which has seen his odds cut to 3/1 with most bookies. McGregor has the height, weight and reach advantages on Mayweather as well as being 11 years his junior, but this is his first ever professional boxing fight and it is against one of the greatest boxers ever. McGregor has a chance, he is the stronger man and his unorthodox style could catch Mayweather off guard, but you’ve got to believe that there is no way Mayweather would have taken this fight if he thought there was a chance he was going to lose it.

Stamina could well be an issue for McGregor, with it being reported that he has put on considerable weight since the weigh in. He will have to start fast if he to stand any chance and the switch to twelve, three minute rounds could cause the UFC fighter problems.

In terms of the betting, the smart money is on Mayweather to win by stoppage at 8/11 and 3/1 to win by knockout. Whilst if you fancy McGregor to win by stoppage that is available at a big 7/2 and the knockout is 6/1. The odds on McGregor are far too short considering the advantage Mayweather has in this fight, he was 11/1 to win at the turn of the year and has come right in to 3/1 due to his popularity and the amount of money staked on him.

Mayweather is not well liked by many, but don’t let McGregor’s likeable personality sway you in your betting; Mayweather should win this and I’m backing him to win by stoppage.

Tip – Mayweather to win by Stoppage 8/11 (Bet365). More Conor McGregor betting here:

Las Palmas vs Barcelona

Spanish La Liga

Sunday 14th May 2017 – 7:00pm

La Liga leaders Barcelona look to keep their slender advantage over Real Madrid with a convincing victory as they travel to out-of-form Las Palmas.

Las Palmas Recent Form

Las Palmas currently sit fourteenth in La Liga and have nothing much but pride to play for.

They have lost six of their last eight games, with just one victory in that time, and have failed to score a single goal in their last three matches. Fifteen goals conceded in their last five games shows how poor they have been defensively and it seems they are just going through the motions until the end of the season.

Barcelona Recent Form

Barcelona are only top of the table on goal difference and know they must win both of their remaining games if they are to stand any chance of winning the title again.

They have won their last five games, scoring twenty goals in the process. A shock defeat at Malaga at the beginning of April is their only defeat in nine league games. In fact, they have only suffered two defeats in La Liga in their last twenty-nine games.

In attack, they have been ruthless all season, scoring 108 goals in 36 games to average three goals per game for the campaign. They have only failed to score twice in the league this season, both times against Malaga.

Head to Head Record

Barcelona won the most recent meeting between these teams 5-0 in January this year.

Overall, they have only met seven times since 2000 with Las Palmas never winning a game. Barcelona have won five and there have been two draws. Both of those draws came in the 2001/02 season, with Barcelona winning the three most recent meetings.

In terms of an aggregate score, Barcelona have scored fifteen goals in the seven meetings while Las Palmas have only found the net four times.

Betting Odds and Predictions

Barcelona must win this game and in our opinion they will, convincingly. The bookmakers agree, with Ladbrokes pricing the visitors as 1/12 favourites. The home side are 20/1 and the draw is priced at 10/1.

So, with such a wide gap between the teams in terms of odds to win the game, you will need to look for the best value in other markets.

We think we have found a great value bet, by betting on both teams not to score at odds of 27/20. It’s 4/7 for both teams to score and Barcelona have only kept one clean sheet in their last six matches. However, Las Palmas haven’t scored in their last three, have only ever scored four goals against Barcelona, and were hammered 5-0 in the previous meeting. Therefore, backing Both Teams to Score (NO) is worth a punt here.

Luis Suarez opened the scoring the last time these teams met and is 5/2 with Ladbrokes (Click here for Review) to score the first goal here. He is also 3/10 to score any time during the match.

Lionel Messi has scored Barcelona’s first goal in three of their last five games and is also 5/2 to score first and 3/10 to score anytime.

Backing either player to score more than one goal should be a solid bet, with both priced at 6/5 to score 2+ goals and 16/5 to net a hat-trick.

It was 5-0 to Barcelona the last time these teams met and that same score in this match is priced at 12/1.

Barcelona to be leading at half time and then winning the match offers decent odds of 2/5. If you think Las Palmas can keep the visitors awesome attack at bay for the first half, it’s 15/4 to be a draw at half time and Barcelona to win.

There isn’t much value to be found by backing Over 2.5 goals in this match but Barcelona to win and Over 3.5 goals is a decent 2/5.

Top Betting Tip

We think Barcelona will win this game by at least a two or three goal margin but there isn’t much value to be had backing them to win. It’s always a bigger risk backing a correct score, so we have looked for value in our top betting tip for mobile betting.

Therefore, our top betting tip in this match is Both Teams to Score (NO) at odds of 27/20 at Ladbrokes. More Betting Tips under: www.online-betting.org/betting-tips

 

 

CE-Ageing Platform

The Central European (CE) Knowledge Platform for an Ageing Society, in short “CE-Ageing Platform”, aims to minimise negative effects and impacts of demographic change in CE. The project idea derived from a cooperation between various partners and their desire to jointly contribute to improved framework conditions in their regions in order to foster economic growth, regional development and social cohesion. It is built on the belief that challenges faced in the cross-cutting issue “ageing” can only be solved in working together.

The CE-Ageing Platform aims to jointly develop a CE-Ageing Strategy enabling partners to adapt to demographic change, thereby integrating lessons learnt from previous activities on the one hand and results and lessons learnt from innovative actions implemented by the CE-Ageing platform on the other.

The innovative actions implemented at the regional levels include the development of four Regional Age Platforms with which two Regional Ageing Strategies as well as two Regional Training Concepts are set up (“Age-Partnership Actions”). In other CE-regions 5 additional pilots, the “Age-SME Interventions”, are implemented in cooperation with SME’s.