CARD KING Gavin Murphy (@GamePlanGavin) shares his expert opinion on a selection of referee specials ahead of Euro 2016.
Euro 2016: Referee Specials
With the European Championships fast approaching it’s wonderful to see a few innovative referee markets around.
One such market is which referee will give out the most cards during the group stages of the tournament. This is a bit of a lottery as, at this point, we don't know the identity of the officials that will be covering the exact fixtures.
What we do know is, there are 18 referees and 36 group-stage matches, so each official will cover two games each.
Carlos Velasco Carballo of Spain is joint-favourite with Romania's Ovidiu Hategan at 7/1 (Unibet) to dish out the most cards.
I can understand the pair being at the top of the betting but then I think the odds compiler has gotten confused because he has a lenient referee like Viktor Kassai of Hungary as fourth favourite. Kassai averaged just 3.30 cards-per-game during the qualification phase, so I can't have him!
You can also stick a line through other lenient officials such as Scandinavian pair Jonas Eriksson and Svein Oddvar Moen. France's Clement Turpin and Englishmen Mark Clattenburg and Martin Atkinson get the boot too.
I'm going to recommend two picks. First up is mad Milorad Mazic of Serbia. He averaged 4.67 cards-per-game in the qualifiers. I trust him more than most to get his cards out and is a great price at 10/1 with Unibet.
My second pick is Scotland's William Collum. Wee Willie averaged 5.40 cards-per-game in the qualifiers, which was the highest of all 18 referees who are covering this tournament.
Given Collum’s profile, he might get some of the lower profile games and accordingly 16/1 with Unibet is too big.
Best Bets
Euro 2016 – Milorad Mazic to show the most cards in the group-stage (10/1 Unibet)
Euro 2016 – William Collum to show the most cards in the group-stage (16/1 Unibet)
Download Euro 2016: The Ultimate Betting Guide for free here.
