By Samantha Williams

Sports betting is essentially putting your money where your mouth is. In other words, taking a bet on how much you know, or how much you think you know. It is of particular appeal to fans of specific sports as well as punters with insider tips. For example the UEFA Champions League is playing throughout Europe and the UK and football (soccer) fans are betting like mad on who they think will win. There are future bets flying around on which team the overall winner will be; will it be one of the UK Big Four or a Famous European team.

Experts are calling sports betting the new online poker as it is quickly making up the numbers to become the most popular type of gambling to take place online. In particular live action sports betting has helped to grow this sector of the online gambling space, and the growth in the mobile sports betting sector has seen massive growth too. It is highly perceivable that this type of fast-bet activity will more popular than mobile poker because it is a completely different type of gambling game which is far better suited to the smartphone.

Football is by far the most widely wagered-on game in this entire industry, and the reason is simply because it is also the most popularly watched sport world-wide. Other popular sports betting activities include US mens’ basketball, which enjoys a massive audience, even in the UK; ice hockey, horse racing, greyhound racing, cycling, volleyball, cricket, tennis, American football of course and just about every sport one can imagine. The Summer Olympics take place again next year in London (2012), and this is one of the biggest betting events of any other sports gathering. It offers thousand of opportunities to bet on all kinds of sporting outcomes and in the UK proposition bets are a big deal too. Prop bets come with the turf of sports betting but US regulations are much tougher on this type of wager; the most popular prop bets take place with the Superbowl.

Horse racing is a heavily controlled sports arena, and as players bet more now on football than horse racing the sport itself has taken a financial knock. Annual levies are paid to horse racing bodies to help fund a very expensive sector of the gambling industry, but because bookmakers are no longer taking so much in terms of this form of bet, these levies are no longer as lucrative. Drops in levy contributions are very noticeable during the large international football events, and it is very interesting to note that part of the motivation for an online gambling bill for New Jersey (US) was to help the failing horse racing industry in the garden state.

Which ever angle we look at sports betting from, it is extremely popular, it is here to stay and experts predict it will be bigger online than poker has ever been. Enjoy it; a bet on your favorite sport will make the game more exciting for you to watch.

By Samantha Williams

Whenever I give thought to online betting the first thing that springs to my mind is proposition betting – always, I love this subject. In the UK proposition bets are cool and any bookmaker will take them, but US bookies are rather less likely to accept these bets, because the gambling commissions are so strict about proposition bets. Super Bowl online betting is big news, and residents enjoy taking proposition bets such as the outcome of the coin toss, what Bruce Springsteen songs will be played, etcetera.

Sonny Reizner is most often credited for starting this gambling craze which started during the 1930′s, and he got started right next to the “no gambling” signs under the bleachers of Fenway Park. He is the wild child, who in the 1980′s put up the wager for the ultimate question of the day, “who shot JR?” He did not get away with this – regardless of the fact that he attempted to make like this was a sports bet; by intimating the culprit could have been Tom Landry, the Dallas Cowboys coach; the Nevada Gaming Control Board, made him pay all the bets back.

After this US Gambling control boards got really strict about taking anything resembling proposition bets. You can however do proposition online betting with Bodog for example which takes US wagers. So, for US players’ online betting is always “bettor” when it is placed offshore.

In the UK propositions bets are quite normal and bookies such as William Hill take online betting for virtually anything anyone wants to dream up. This happens in much the same way as in 1960; David Threlfall walked into a High Street William Hill and placed £10 Sterling at 1000: 1, that “man would set foot on the moon before 1 January 1970″. Nine years later in July 1969 – Neil Armstrong walked on the moon! Threlfall moon-walked out of William Hill, £10 000 richer! He didn’t get to enjoy this money much however – after using it to purchase a sports car, he promptly crashed it and killed himself. Today all Threlfall would have had to do, was login to his favorite online betting site, which would probably still have been William Hill.

Poker players are mad about placing proposition bets amongst one-another, and at this years’ (2010) WSOP Main Event, there was more money riding on whether Tom “durrr” Dwan would “not” win a bracelet, than there was being played in the chips on the felt. It has been estimated that the money, on him not winning, or winning, whichever way the bet swung, was between $9 and $12 million. This is by no means chump change!

I could go on forever about proposition bets, and in fact I think this is great book material – but for now I will love you and leave you with this thought from Kin Hubbard ~

“The safest way to double your money is to fold it over once and put it in your pocket”.

But it sure ‘aint half as much fun!