Even Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be watching England as they take their place in the rugby world cup final this Saturday against South Africa, in Paris’ Stade de France.

With tickets up to £3,000 a pair, most fans will have to make do with watching the game on the small screen.

Brown said that since his native Scotland had already been knocked out, he had no qualms about accepting the invitation to support England from the sidelines.

Despite England’s rather poor track record against the Springboks in previous games, topped off by a humiliating 36-0 defeat last month, things are looking up.

Spirits still high from last week’s win against France, rugby fever has taken over the country as the national squad are within spitting distance of the cup. Although they face tough competition, hopes are high that England can do it again, and win back the trophy they held in the last tournament in 2003.

One of the biggest events in sports betting history, bookies are expecting half a billion pounds’ worth of bets for Saturday’s final.

Storming in from an outside chance to reach the final, the England team have seen a dramatic few weeks and many bookies are now offering 2/1 for an England win. Odds with Ladbrokes are 4/11 for favourites South Africa to win and 2/1 for an England victory.

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Could American football ever take off in the UK? Yesterday saw an NFL match between the New York Giants and the Miami Dolphins staged at London’s Wembley stadium - the first regular-season game ever to be held outside the US.

In a bid to increase popularity for the game overseas, National Football League owners voted last year to play 1 or 2 games outside the US every season for the next few years. Judging by ticket sales, which sold out in a matter of hours, they could be on to something.

As predicted, the Giants won 13-10, little surprise since the Dolphins seem to be on a losing streak, having lost their last seven games.

Explaining the game to unfamiliar Brits, one player described it like this, “Expect a lot of organised confusion with violent collisions”.

The pre-match entertainment wowed the crowd, with stunning cheerleaders and rock music pumping up the stands – you certainly don’t get that in Premier League football.

Long ridiculed by Brits for their shoulderpads and WWF style bust-ups, it will take some marketing for American football to get off the ground here, in a country with such a strong football tradition. But as a novelty event, it was a huge success.

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The owners of a popular online gambling website, based in Great Britain, have agreed to help Belgian police investigators and soccer authorities in their inquiry into alleged match- fixing by certain Belgian soccer players and coaches.

Representatives of the popular online gambling website claim that they are able to, by reviewing information on wagers and winnings, identify suspicious betting activity. They are willing and able, they said, to pass this knowledge on to the proper authorities.
Belgian officials said that they were pleased by the cooperation of the popular online gambling website. If the website had not been so keen on helping the investigation, they said, the process would take much more time. It is in the interest of the popular online gambling site to help the authorities, in order to recover ill- gotten winnings from customers.

The Belgian soccer team Sint-Truiden aroused suspicion after losing two games against lower- ranked teams La Louviere and Cercle Brugge in late October and early November of last year, respectively. The popular gambling website alerted Belgian soccer and police authorities at the same time as the chairman of Sint-Truiden, Roland Duchatelet.

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• UK Hilton Group Divests of all But net Gambling Assets (0)

The UK Hilton group has announced that it is now wrapping up the sale of its hotels, and will soon concentrate solely on the net gambling site aspect of its multi- national business. It has sold its hotel assets to its American cousin, the Hilton Hotels Corporation.

The Hilton company had annual profits of 400- 405 million British pounds last year, and will sell its non- net gambling assets for an expected 3.3 billion pounds. It expects to return the equivalent of around 240% per share to its public owners, although the board is still in discussions on the precise form the payment will take.

The Hilton group, after it discards everything except its net gambling assets, will change its name to Ladbrokes. It is on the market for a bidder to buy the chain, although it rejected a 3.6 billion pound proposal by the company CVC to purchase the net gambling company. The Hilton group rejected the proposal because it “included a number of pre-conditions and failed to recognise the long-term strategic value of Ladbrokes.”

Analysts say that the Hilton group is very unlikely to accept any offer that is lower than 4 billion pounds.

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• British Gambling Site Agrees to Hand off Information (0)