Rugby league football (often known as just rugby league) is one of the biggest, baddest and meanest forms of rugby. Played with a larger, oval ball by two teams of thirteen (often huge) players on a rectangular grass field, it combines brute force with plenty of mud, as well as some bone-crunching tackles and scrums. If you like placing a bet on contact sports, you can't do much better than rugby league and as the players wear little armour (in comparison to the heavy padding seen in ice hockey) the games are faster, more brutal and much more exciting - making rugby league an excellent sport for a huge range of betting.

Many confuse rugby league with rugby union - it seems an easy mistake to make with just a glance, but the games are very different with many different rules and regulations. As a result, rugby league is much faster than union and makes for a much more open spectator sport. If you are looking for the toughest and most physically demanding team sport to place a bet on, you can trust rugby league will deliver.

There are plenty of rugby league games to place a bet on, with games most popular in England, Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea. Current World Cup holders (as of 2008) are New Zealand, so will you bet they can beat the competition again, or be more patriotic and vouch for England this time? In addition to the World Cup, why not try a flutter on some more local competitions such as the Challenge Cup and the Super League - odds are your local team may even compete!