Making money on the 2006 FIFA Football World Cup.

Excitement has started to build around the 2006 FIFA World Cup in the past couple of weeks with many of the important group deciding games due to be played in the next month or so. Having been involved in numerous conversations about the matches and listened to everybody's opinion on who would win, I realised that some forward planning was required on my behalf. I decided that I was going to get in early this time around and take advantage of some of the great outsider betting opportunities that are starting to become available. Hopefully I'll have made my millions before the event even has chance to reach it's latter stages!

So, less talk more action I thought and so last week I sat down to find some decent betting sites where I could put my hard earned cash to work for me. I know you may think its a bit early seeing as its still 2005 but having seen friends win nice sums of cash on previous World Cups, due to getting better odds earlier on in the tournament, I was keen to do the same myself.

I ended up trawling through so many sites that were out there claiming to have the best odds available I ended up nearly ripping my hair out. Of course the sites promised what i needed but as we all know, things always aren't as they say on the tin!

Obviously there are a number of sites offering what I wanted but trying to find my way around the actual sites proved to be a nightmare - flashing banners, crammed pages and ads aplenty. Now, I'm sure that a few of you out there are thinking along the same lines as me in the build up to the World Cup - especially with a number of the crucial games coming up over the next couple of weeks, so I'm going to make it all a little easier and let you in on a site that I found during my searches.

I came across www.worldcup-2006-betting.co.uk and thought I would save a few people the hassle I had to endure by passing it on. It has a number of links to the main betting sites, including the usual forerunners, Ladbrokes, Coral, Blue Square etc. but it also has a range of information on all of the teams (just in case you are like me and want to get an overview on some of the less talked about and tipped teams). I could actually find my way around the site pretty easily with none of the inconvenience of the aforementioned flashing banners offering me virtually anything if only I'd click getting in my way!

It's an extremely easy to use site and you don't have to have a degree in web design to follow the navigation logic allowing you to get the information you want in seconds. The sites not too image heavy and so the pages load up pretty quickly even on my slow dial-up connection! I reckon that the designer of the site must have come across the same problems as me when trying to find the info they needed and decided to do something about it. The bookies review page is a handy section as not many of the other sites give reviews and ratings on where they're suggesting you spend your money - its always handy when someone else does all the hard work and researches reputable bookies and what they have to offer.

All of the fixtures are up to date on the site so no more checking teletext or the papers to see when and where the games are being played during the tournament. For those of you who may be luckier than me and actually get to go to Germany next year and see the matches live there is even information and fixture guides for all of the stadiums where World Cup games will be held. Most of the other sites simply led through to the bookies but this one covers all of the areas of the World Cup, so you can get all the information you need in one place which is always an added bonus in my books.

One of the many things that really appeals to me with worldcup-2006-betting is the countdown calendar on every page of the site, it even counts down the days for me until I hopefully get the return of my early planning! I also managed to bag myself a free