Fine wine gamble

A betting service for fine wine has been launched by wine exchange Liv-ex and Matchbet, a new online betting provider which allows speculators to place bets on the performance of the fine wine industry.

Matchbet works by letting punters to place bets on the level of the Liv-ex 100 Fine Wine Index at month-end. Bets can be placed on a number of possible ranges for the level of the index, which can either be backed (betting that it will happen) or laid (betting that it will not happen).