Spring Is in the Air, and April Is a Great Betting Month
The clocks have sprung forward, spring is in the air and mainstream sports have truly woken from their winter hibernation. As an Olympic year, with UEFA Euro 2024 taking place in the early summer, punters will have more betting opportunities than ever during the months ahead.
As many sports will click into top gear during the coming weeks, we have compiled a simple guide to the best sporting events you can bet on during April. It is one of the busiest months of the year for online betting sites, no doubt buoyed by the Grand National, which tops the list of punters’ favourites.
The Grand National meeting will be the most popular betting event in April, but plenty is going on throughout the month. ©GettyImages
The National Is the Greatest Race
There will only be 34 runners in this year’s Grand National, but, as a Great British institution, it will surely be as popular as ever with the betting public. The start time for the world’s most watched horse race moves to a new 4 pm slot on Saturday, April 13 this year, and ITV will broadcast five live races during the afternoon.
Days later, attention will turn to flat racing and the bet365 Craven meeting at Newmarket. Its highlight is the Group-3 Craven Stakes. The contest is the premier trial for the Qipco 2000 Guineas on Saturday, May 4. Winning the race three times in the past five years, William Buick and trainer Charlie Appleby are the combination to follow.
During the remainder of April, there is the two-day Coral Scottish Grand National meeting (April 19-20), the bet365 Jump Finale meeting at Sandown Park (April 26-27) and the first day of Ireland’s Punchestown Festival to look forward to.
On Target with Plenty of Darts
Premier League Darts fixtures, broadcast live on Sky Sports, will continue on Thursday nights throughout April. Winning three nightly finals, Luke Humphries tops the league table. Michael van Gerwen has also won three times. Luke Littler, Nathan Aspinall and Michael Smith have secured a victory apiece.
Players Championship events – staged behind closed doors but available to watch on live streaming betting sites – are scheduled for the 8th and 9th of April. And Europe’s finest will head to Riesa and Sindelfingen, Germany, for the third and fourth European Tour events between April 12-14 and April 19-21.
Audacious 125 checkout from Luke Littler in Premier League darts final in Belfast v Nathan Aspinall
🎯 50 🎯 25 🎯 50#Littler #PremierLeagueDarts
— Francis Keogh (@HonestFrank) March 28, 2024
Big Money in the Golf, and You Can Bet on It
Golf fans have loads to look forward to. The $9.2 million Valero Texas Open begins on April 4 at TPC San Antonio. Rory McIlroy and Ludvig Aberg head the golf betting sites lists for this event. The following weekend, golf’s first major, The Masters, will tee off at Augusta’s National Golf Club.
All eyes – and the bulk of golf bets – will be on 2022 winner Scottie Scheffler in this $18 million competition. Players and punters that do not collect from their Masters exploits will have additional chances in the $20 million RBC Heritage (April 18-21) and Zurich Classic of New Orleans (April 25-28).
The Snooker World Makes Sheffield Its HQ
Snooker’s 2024 Tour Championship, an ITV-televised competition restricted to the top 12 on the sport’s one-year ranking list, concludes on Sunday, April 7. However, for most snooker players, the focus is on the World Snooker Championship. The 17th and final ranking event of the 2023/24 season starts on April 20 in Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre.
Belgian player Luca Brecel is the defending champion. Alongside another 15 of the world’s top 16, he will be fast-tracked into the competition’s first-round stage, consisting of 32 players. Beforehand, qualifying will take place from April 8 to 17 at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield.
The 𝐛𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐬𝐭 win in his entire career 🤩
🇧🇪 Luca Brecel becomes the 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 player from continental Europe to win the World Snooker Championship! 🏆👏@WeAreWST | #WorldSnookerChampionship pic.twitter.com/P0EGsD9C6C
— Eurosport (@eurosport) May 1, 2023
One hundred and twenty-eight hopefuls will battle for one of the remaining 16 spots in the first round. Amongst those are stalwarts like Jimmy White, Stephen Maguire, and Matthew Stevens. Female players Rebecca Kenna and Reanne Evans are in the mix, as are previous champions Ken Doherty, Neil Robertson and Graeme Dott.
Making Ronnie O’Sullivan the favourite, snooker betting sites view this year’s BBC-televised World Championship as follows:
- 5/2 Ronnie O’Sullivan
- 4/1 Judd Trump
- 7/1 Mark Selby
- 14/1 Neil Robertson
- 14/1 Mark Allen
- 18/1 Luca Brecel
- 22/1 John Higgins
- 22/1 Shaun Murphy
It’s a Marathon – In London!
The 15th season of athletics’ Diamond League starts with meetings in China on April 20 and 27. However, betting opportunities on these events will be difficult to find. Likewise, very few firms will compile a market on the Boston Marathon scheduled for April 15.
There will be no such problems for the ever-popular London Marathon. BBC cameras will broadcast the April 21 race, and athletics betting sites are sure to do brisk business in the elite men’s race. The contest will be tinged with a hint of sadness following the passing of Kelvin Kiptum, the 2023 winner, who died in a February car crash.
Lewis Needs to Get the Max Soon
Following the first race of the 2024 season, Formula 1 betting sites reported that bets had been struck on Max Verstappen winning every race of the season. A brake issue led to his retirement from the Australian Grand Prix, so those wagers have been lost. However, the Dutchman will likely return to the winning groove in April.
This month, there are two races: the Japanese Grand Prix on April 7 and the Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit on April 21. It is a race that has been off the calendar since 2019. Lewis Hamilton is a six-time winner of this contest but has not won a race since December 2021.
It’s a Busy Month for Monument Chasers
Professional cycling’s five most prestigious one-day races are known as ‘Monuments’, and two of them, Paris-Roubaix (April 7) and Liège-Bastogne-Liège (April 21), will be raced this month. Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Amstel Gold Race, and the Flèche Wallonne complete the three Ardennes Classics, which will all take place during April.
😱 A huge crash in the leading group has taken down a number of favourites, including Wout van Aert, Mads Pedersen and Biniam Girmay, at Dwars door Vlaanderen 💥🤕
Sending our best wishes to the riders who were involved in the crash. pic.twitter.com/hlfuZwhBZd
— Eurosport (@eurosport) March 27, 2024
Switzerland’s Tour de Romandie, won by Britain’s Adam Yates in 2023, is rounding things out between April 23 and 28. This season, Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel have been outstanding. At the same time, one of the most exciting riders the sport has ever seen, Wout van Aert, has been plagued by misfortune, nasty accidents, and injuries.
In the early betting for the Giro d’Italia – which begins on May 4 – cycling betting sites make Tadej Pogačar their 4/11 favourite. Jonas Vingegaard, seeking a third successive title, is 4/5 to take the Tour de France, which begins in late June. Events in April could see the prices on both riders change dramatically.
