Whilst the 362 players who entered the 2007 World Series of Poker Europe prepared to gamble their stacks to try and win £1,000,000 and a coveted gold bracelet, many punters were preparing to do some gambling of their own.

The amount of luck required to win a poker tournament such as the WSOPE is immense, leading to bookmakers offering generous odds on various poker-related markets. Should you be lucky enough to place a bet on the eventual winner, you could multiply your initial stake by at least forty times!

At the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe, Betfair selected Phil Ivey as the tournament favourite. Ivey is widely accepted as being the best poker player in the world but despite this, Betfair offered long odds of 38:1 of him winning the Main Event.

The second favourite was 11-time bracelet winner, Phil Hellmuth who was priced at 49:1 and would return £500 for a small £10 bet!

Extra value could be found by betting on one of the British contingent to take down the Main Event. By taking a chance on Roland de Wolfe, Dave ‘Devilfish' Ulliott or ‘Hendon Mob' member Ram Vaswani to record a victory, odds of 109:1 could be found through the Betfair betting client.

Obviously, as the players remaining in the tournament reduce in numbers, the odds diminish dramatically. Eventual winner, Annette Obrestad started the tournament as a rank outsider and odds of 200:1 were offered, but as soon at the teenage sensation reached the final table, her odds were slashed to just 6:1.

The stage at which you place your bet on the winner is vital. Bet too early and you risk a big chance your ‘horse' will bust out well before the final table starts. Wait too long and the odds could have dropped to a much less attractive price.

One of the most popular markets on offer was to bet on the number of runners at the WSOPE. Punters could place bets on a range of entrants ranging from under 300 (odds of 26:1) up to over 700 players (odds of 4.5:1). For those of you who are interested in this market, last years total number of entrants of 362 players paid out at healthy odds of 7.6:1

All the betting options above will be available once the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event kicks off at 12:00pm on Saturday 27 September, so make sure you check out all the latest odds at www.betfair.com.