But looking at the trends for past Grand National winners – and a bit of my own moderately successful Grand National betting experience – we’ve boiled down our top five betting tips for the big race:

1. Pick at least four horses

   Any serious punter will tell you that the National is more a raffle than a test of skill, judgement and knowledge – and everyone knows that if you buy more tickets you’ve got more chance of winning the raffle.

   Get on four horses and you’ve basically cut your chances of picking a winner from 39/1 to 9/1 (having 10 per cent of the 40 total runners).

   Even better, because the National is a big handicap, each-way bets pay on the first four places – five, if you bet with Paddy Power – so you could have all four of your bets pay out!

2. Don’t bet on the favourite

   Favourites have a shocking record in the Grand National. Hedgehunter and Comply or Die are recent exceptions but until just before the off the latter wasn’t a favourite and the former was an exceptional horse.

   If you bet each-way on at least four horses – which you should, according to tip number 1, above – you probably want to be looking for horses with odds of 16/1 or higher so that if one finishes in the places you’ll get at least half your total stakes back.

3. Ignore all horses carrying more than 11 stone

   Hedgehunter is the only Grand National winner since 1982 to win carrying more than 11 stone – and, as we’ve said, he was an exceptional horse. Furthermore, he was only carrying one pound over 11 stone!

4. Bet on the luck of the Irish

   Ignoring the French-trained Mon Mome, recent winners of the Grand National have more often than not been trained in Ireland. It’s well worth giving a special look at the Irish runners before betting on the National.

5. Remember the saying “Horses for courses”

   The four-odd miles of Aintree makes the Grand National a gruelling test of a horse’s stamina and jumping ability. It’s a fact that no horse since 1970 has won the National that hadn’t previously won over three miles or more, so it’s worth checking a horse’s form to see whether they’d done that. If they haven’t, rule ‘em out!

   I personally prefer horses that have showed the ability to get round the National course itself, no matter how quickly or slowly, so I back horses that ran in last year’s National that didn’t fall or unseat their rider. After all, if your horse gets over the last fence with its jockey still onboard, the chances are you’re in with a shout of it grabbing a place and winning you some cash.

You can check all this by using an online bookmaker like William Hill, who have all the Racing Post form right on their website – very helpful for doing your research.

So who’s going to win? Well, have a punt – preferably following one of the links to the right if you think these tips have helped you pick the Grand National winner – and sit back and find out!

United are favourites in a match for reasons that would be inexplicable but for the phenomenon of the patriotic punter. Yes, they’re within a point of the top of England’s Premier League; yes, they were the Champions League’s beaten finalists in 2009 and yes, they won the competition in 2010.

But those stark facts hide the reality that without certain key players this Manchester United team is all too frequently found wanting at the highest levels. And while Wayne Rooney is almost single-handedly doing the business in the League, without Cristiano Ronaldo the team lacks the out-and-out match-winner that would give them a real chance of getting a result at somewhere like the San Siro.

In contrast, Milan have them in spades, with Ronaldinho back to goalscoring form and the mercurial Pato banging them in for fun in Serie A. Like United, Milan are second in their domestic league but unlike Man U their recent form is testament to their quality throughout the team rather than wrapped up in the form of one player.

Milan’s defence may not be the impenetrable shield that it once was, but it’s hard to see players like Darren Fletcher and Nani unlocking it too often. Meanwhile, without Vidic United’s could be woefully exposed by Milan’s brilliant Brazilians, or the highly rated Dutchman Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, or even David Beckham, a former Old Trafford hero.

With all this in mind its incredible that odds of almost 2/1 are available on a Milan win. Bet365 are offering 15/8, which looks huge and simply must be snapped up.

Champions League betting tip

• 10 points Milan (15/8, Bet365) to beat Manchester United

In a match between the best two teams in the NFL the Colts have everything they need to penetrate the New Orleans Saints’ defense – and a championship-winning quarterback.

This year’s Super Bowl is being billed, as the NFL showpiece so often is, as offence v defense, with the Colts and Peyton Manning expected to play the role of the swashbuckling irresistible force against the immovable object of the Saints’ defense.

That simplistic view of Sunday’s game may tempt you to bet on the Saints at odds of 37/20, available at Bet365 (and if you’re going to bet with Bet365, remember to take advantage of their £200 in free bets offer.

But it ignores the fact that the Colts can play defense too. They’ll give the Saints strong running game and another good quarterback in Drew Brees few chances to score.

Meanwhile, Manning will be given much more protection by his offensive line than Brett Favre and Kurt Warner got in the Saints’ playoff games.

However the biggest reason I can see for the Colts beating this year’s Super Bowl spread is that they’ve been there and done it before. In 2007 they beat the Chicago Bears by 12 points in the same Miami stadium.

That experience will count for a lot. The Super Bowl is no ordinary NFL game, and 99 per cent of the Saints staff, including all their key players, will be experiencing it for the first time.

Peyton Manning won MVP in the 2007 Super Bowl game, and is favourite to win again this year (10/11, again at Bet365).

But this year’s best Super Bowl bet has to be his Colts team to beat the 5.5 spread being offered by a host of bookies including Ladbrokes, William Hill, Coral, Paddy Power and Blue Square.

Odds of 10/11 are what bookies often offer on a 50/50 shot, and I make this a lot more likely than the outcome of a coin toss.

Of course, the more confident bettors will be buying Indianapolis supremacy at 6 points on Sporting Index, and if you fancy making (or losing) some real money that’s the way to go.

But for me eleven points on the Colts to beat the 5.5-point Super Bowl spread will do for starters.

Bet on the Super Bowl then watch it live on BBC1 from 11.00pm (UK time) on Sunday, 7 February.

Super Bowl betting tip

• Indianapolis Colts (10/11, Ladbrokes, William Hill, Coral, Paddy Power and Blue Square) to beat the betting spread in Super Bowl XLIV

Basically, this piece of advice gives you an insight into the competitive world of online bookmaking. It’s a mature, cut-throat market where – occasionally – there’s a price war going on.

Price wars inevitably benefit consumers. But the bookies are wary of being stung by shrewdies and cunning punters – so they really limit the times when they extend their rare generosity.

When they do, that’s when it’s time to steam in with your cash.

Betting tip #4: wait until Saturday morning
You may not have noticed, but there’s a short period on a Saturday morning where, across the board, bookies will lengthen their prices. Not by much – a 1/3 shot will be eased to 4/9 or something similar – but enough to make it worth waiting until Saturday morning to place your bets.

The reason is simple. There’s a whole lot of punters out there on a Saturday, and the bookies are fighting to get their business. So they bring in their margins, accepting that it’s better to win a little bit of money off a lot of people than a lot of money off a few people.

They’re especially generous on England’s Big Four and the top two clubs in Scotland and Spain. Basically, they know that a lot of accumulators are based around Arsenal, Barca, Celtic, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man U, Rangers and Real Madrid. But it’s a rare week where all eight of them win.

If you’re a bookie, you can tempt the punters with a few juicy prices and you’ll probably scoop the lot.

Of course, if you follow our tips, you won’t be backing such extravagant accas. But the overall theory extends throughout the coupon. Price up a few games this Friday, and check their odds again on Saturday morning, if you don’t believe me.

This also happens in racing, where there’s a similar battle to get the punter’s cash. Although don’t expect to see it on minor sports like Rugby League where there isn’t the same pot of gold on offer for the bookies.

And as the day goes on, you’ll find the best odds disappear as the layers mount up liabilities and adjust their books to cover any potential losses.

The equivalent of this when it comes to World Cup betting will probably be Friday, 11 June – the first day of the World Cup. This tournament is expected to be the biggest betting event ever, so the scramble for your cash will be huge. Expect massive prices on South Africa v Mexico and Uruguay v France – and then again, wait until Saturday, 12 June, to bet on England v USA, which will be another betting bonanza.

Until then, if you’re betting on football, and you want to win more money, then Saturday morning is the time to do it!

This week’s tip takes last week and adds another level. Hopefully, what we’ve learned about betting on football is that no-one can be relied on. Not even the Manchester Uniteds of this world, as the Red Devils proved when they lost at home to Leeds United in the FA Cup recently.

The road to profit, we believe, therefore lies in allowing for this unreliability and factoring it into our calculations. We do this with permutations, or “perms”.

Football betting tip #2: the Trixie
Combining the perm and the short accumulator finds its sweet spot in the Trixie in my eyes. What is a Trixie? It’s effectively four bets on three selections: three doubles and one treble.

Therefore, if one of the three selection loses, one of the doubles still wins. The other two doubles and the treble lose, so the trick is to find three decent-price selections where a double pays more than 3/1, thus covering your losing bets and giving you a small profit.

Every now and again, all three will come in – guaranteeing a bumper payday.

I’ve had some big wins with Trixies in recent years, most recently on December 19th when I backed Fulham to beat Manchester United at odds of 11/2, Swindon to beat Brighton at even money and Nottingham Forest to beat Preston at 8/11.

A five-point Trixie cost 20 points and returned just over 250 points.

Note the inclusion of a short-priced Forest. A single on Forest could be had at odds of 4/5 but the other prices made it worthwhile to go with Betfred, who were best priced on Fulham and the Robins. Sometimes it’s worth including a short-priced banker as long as you don’t go daft: any shorter than 8/11 and I wouldn’t have got my money back if, say, Brighton had scrambled a draw at the County Ground.

If you’re going to include a banker, I’d almost certainly suggest a more speculative punt as one of your three selections. What I was basically banking on was Swindon and Forest winning, effectively giving me a free big-money bet on Fulham.

A word of caution here: I never bet on multiples in horse racing, and I’m not going to recommend anyone starts here. Horses have odds that justify betting in singles. And if you go bigger than a Trixie, you’re increasing your risk in my eyes. A Lucky 15 is a mugs bet on the nags, in my book, and it’s barely more sensible on the football. Anything bigger is just plain daft.

And don’t expect to win every week, but a steady stream of doubles and the odd three-timer coming in should ensure a healthy overall return on your investments.

So give a Trixie a try with this weekend’s football – one of the bookmakers advertised opposite will almost certainly want to make it worth your while!