Odds On

First a health warning: If you are under 18, please look away now.

Fine. Let us carry on.

The web is about nothing if not commerce, so it's no surprise that gambling, though perhaps not the oldest profession in the world, has quickly found a large nitch in cyberspace. (So too, for that matter, has the oldest profession, but that's another day's work.)

Every major bookmaker has developed sophisticated sites (bet247.co.uk, for example, is Littlewoods'), but what makes sports- betting.co.uk stand out is that it operates like a class of broker (or indeed search engine) for punters, looking for the best prices on offer from all the bookmakers.

The process is simple enough: register with sports-betting and pay with your credit card (and if you still have reservations about putting your card information on the web, well, you're probably not much of a gambler anyway).

You are then on their weekly emailing list, and among the information they provide is a "form book" on the players to follow.

Not surprisingly, they put a strong case for the quality of their product:

"Our guarantees are simple: "1. If at any time you are not satisfied with our service, we will refund the remaining portion of your subscription fee.

"2. If our bets are not profitable during your subscription period we will continue your subscription free of charge until they are!

"Additionally, our clients now benefit from a new service whereby we search the web and UK bookmakers to find the best odds for the leading players in each tournament, not just our selections. Typically these prices are better than those advertised in the trade press around 75 per cent of the time and they are sent out on Tuesday before the best prices are cut."

That's the talk. Can they walk the walk? Here's how they fared at the K Club:

"Good evening. Last week's bets again fared very well. We were successful with 6 out of 7 match bets. This brings the total over the past month to 22 successful match bets out of 29 selections, all proofed to you at the start of the tournament.

"Our free bet posted on our website on Wednesday morning was again successful. All three of the free bets have been successful, with the player we opposed being eliminated at the 36 hole cut. Three out of three stress free winners! Check our website for this week's bet first thing on Wednesday morning."

Not too impressive with the outright bets, but the match bets had a good strike rate.

Anyway, we're not recommending anything: you're all adults and you can spend your money as you like. We just thought it was interesting.