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.

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!

Watching sport on TV or live is entertainment in itself, and billions of sports fans do this, so extending this natural course of events, we find sports betting too. Virtually everyone who takes a wager on the outcome of a sporting event is doing this for additional entertainment and very few take it too seriously. It is a specialized form of betting and wagers take the shape of very simple, low cost bets to more complex and expensive permutations. But there is a place for all levels of expertise, and you do need to know a little about the sport you are betting on.

I must confess, rather than read all about the horses in the Kentucky Derby before placing a bet, I kind of like to close my eyes and stick a pin in a potential winner. This however is not the technique to use to get an edge on the house. So please “don’t try this at home!”

Because there is no direct competition with the house or casino and odds are published for bettors to take advantage of, this form of betting can be quite lucrative. It is very possible to have an edge on the house if you guess right and the bookies guess wrong. Like for example when an outsider comes in on a horse, or any other race or event you wager on.

Sports betting takes place on any type of sporting event, if there is a demand for players to place wagers a bookie will advance odds. Even novelty bets come under the heading of sports betting even though a wager placed on whether life will be found on Mars or not, may not be very sporting, or paid out to you in this lifetime. You could always will your ticket to future generations; hoping against hope the same betting shop will still be around.

Placing novelty bets is a lot of fun and as we were saying, can be lucrative too. One betting individual who remains unnamed walked into a Welsh betting shop on 1989 and placed a handful of novelty bets, the bookies took him on and gave him some keen odds.

The bet was of long standing duration (11 years) but relevant to the New Millennium. All of them came in, and paid odds of between 3 to1, to 8 to 1. He bet on three specific British TV shows still being active, that singer Cliff Richards would be knighted, and that Irish pop band U2 would still be together as a group. The odds of all of these specifics being correct were 6,479 to 1. A few days into the year 2000, this betting gent walked into his local Ladbrokes bookmaker and picked up a check for £194,400. This is the largest novelty bet won in history, although we know for a fact a few private proposition bets have been bigger.

Sports betting is a whole new adventure of its own, and a natural progression from the bookie shops to an online presence has taken place, as every conceivable form of gambling becomes more widely available online. Sports betting entails some skill, and to be successful it generally means you have to know about the sports you are betting on.

If you fancy a name in the Grand National and take a stab at it, this is all in the name of good fun where luck counts. But real horse race betting is a true and pure adventure. This applies to betting on football, golf, baseball, cricket and even the name or sex of the next new member of the Royal Family will take some research. Conducting research into past and present form, historical outcomes and all kinds of other factors is for many people the learning aspect which makes this betting game so exciting.

“Was I right in my prediction based on the empirical knowledge I gained by learning about the subject I placed money on?”

Betting on horses is completely different to any other kind of betting, you have to consider, horse, breeding, jockey, trainer, track, weather and manager as well as many other factors, but this is truly the sport of Kings. All these factors come into play before you even look at the kind of wager you want to place, and before you know it the race is run and over with, while you are still trying to understand what a trifecta is.

People have been racing horses since time immemorial; in fact it is one of our most ancient sports. It dates back to as far as 4 500 BC when prehistoric Central Asian nomadic tribesmen were very competitive. But it was reserved for royalty! So horse racing is ancient, exotic, wild and betting on it can also be very confusing.

It is a professional sport and the second most attended spectator sport in the US after baseball (which you can also bet on). People of the US wager over $10 billion annually on this sport, so it is a major industry. It is popular all over the world including Canada, UK, Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and South America.

Humankind has a naturally competitive and challenging spirit and they will place bets on anything that races – even hamsters and frogs. Modern horse racing has only grown in popularity to the extent that it has, as a result of widely legalized gambling, and venues for the provision of this.

Yes the language of betting on this sport is all over the map, but it fortunately does reward a few hours of study. Pasting the betting pages on the wall and throwing a dart at it to take your pick, may work for the lucky few, but this is not a game for fools so learn to know your horses.

With technology advancing the way it is, if you are interested in sports gambling, today you no longer need to be at the venue to gamble. This true in the case of all sports whether it is the races, basketball or whatever else! But before you actually start gambling, you need to find a gambling site that is true to its word and that will not take you for a ride. Just how do you go about finding a gambling site like this? It does take a lot of effort and research. However here are a few things you should look out for that will help you narrow down your search.

Betting bonuses

It is a very common occurrence for a gambling site to offer its players a start up bonus to place a bet. If a site you are considering is offering you this, you do not necessarily have to run away from it. Start up bonuses is a common occurrence as they are meant to lure players to bet on that particular site. Your warning bells need to start ringing if you feel that the startup bonuses are a bit too high and good to be true. Websites that offer bonuses like these offer them in small amounts, enough to get you started. If the site you are on falls into this category, it should be safe.

Is there someone to talk to?

Before freezing in on a choice of gambling site, you need to make sure that they have a customer service department that is actually available for you to contact whenever you need. A genuine site will have the entire list of management available for you to view with options of being able to contact them. They should also have a customer care centre that you can contact at any point in the day. This means that the customer service centre should be available 24×7. This is very important as you will need it if you encounter a problem.

The advantage of being able to view multiple games

What is perhaps the greatest advantage of a sports gambling site is the fact that you can track multiple games at the same time. This in itself is a very big advantage. Tracking multiple games, helps you streamline your research and bet wisely. This is an advantage that book keepers do not really have.

Find a niche

Another great advantage when it comes to a gambling site is that you can actually develop and find your own niche by methods of trial and error and watching multiple games. This too can work out as a great advantage as finding a niche is also vital to successful gambling. It is advisable that once you find your niche, you need to make sure that you stick with it. Experimenting more than is actually necessary is being foolish and perhaps taking unnecessary chances when you really do not need to do so.

If you are a sports gambling enthusiast, you probably wish you could place bets in places other than Las Vegas. Now you can. As a special online gambling bonus, you can find not only the best games at online casinos, but also the best opportunities for sports gambling.

Some of the best insider secrets when it comes to gambling on sports are the following:

Know your teams

If you are interested in football gambling, for example, you need to know the statistics for your team.  You need to know what the team’s chances are at winning if you are to place a sound bet.  While anything can happen, especially in a football game, knowing the stats is one way to keep atop of the game.  Insiders who are successful sports gamblers know this to be the number one tip for anyone who is wants to bet on sports.

Play point spreads

You don’t always have to bet to win, especially if you are football gambling. Bookies will usually give you odds on certain teams. For example, in a game of the blue team against the red team, the red team may be heavily favored, so to get you to bet on the blue team, they will give you a point spread. The larger the point spread, the more the red team is favored. You can bet on the blue team and still win if the blue team loses, as long as they don’t lose by more than the point spread. 

Don’t play squares

This is just a guess. Successful sports gamblers never guess when they gamble. If you are going to gamble on sports, have a strategy, and bet a certain team. This is still a guess, but at least it’s your guess and not someone else’s.  

Don’t get greedy

Do not bet more than you can afford to lose. Insiders know this is the primary secret to successful sports gambling. This takes all of the fun out of the bet and there is no such thing as a sure thing. 

Bet safe sites online

Not all online casinos that take sports bets are safe.  Fortunately, you can visit www.gamblingwiz.com to find out all of the safe sites that will take your sports bets. As an online gambling bonus, you can also find out all of the best poker sites and other online casinos when you visit this portal. 

Following these tips that insiders know so well can lead you to becoming a successful sports gambler. By finding some of the safe and exciting new online casinos where you can place sports bets, you can enjoy winning real cash right from your own home. 

Gambling on sports involves more than just a guess; you have to have a strategy.  If you are going to bet on sports teams, know the team, know the point spreads and bet for or against another team.  Do not take a sucker bet and put money on squares over which you have little or no control.

Online gambling sites are facing innumerable challenges from the law makers of certain countries to curtail their activities striking at the very root of them. The main contention of those who oppose to online gambling is that the sites are not following fair and ethical trade practices in accepting wagers in monies whether it is U.S. dollars or in Euros. 

The same argument goes for collection of revenues due to the tax collection authorities of these governments, unlike in the case of offline gambling casinos and clubs where the very physical presence of the outlets enables checking evasion of any tax liabilities.  This is countered by the supporters of online gambling sites, their associations and legal representatives that adequate checks and balances are already there, adopted by the websites to ensure fair-play in these matters and online gambling should be allowed to carry on business unobtrusively.

There is another dimension emerging on the legal wrangles between online gambling sites and authorities of law-making.  This is completely concerned with online betting on sports events. There are quite a large number of online gambling sites engaged purely on betting of monies on an array of sports like soccer, tennis, cricket, baseball and the like.  The monetary transactions on these betting on sports run into trillions of dollars and Euros annually.

For decades earlier in the western countries, betting on sports events has been going on even before the introduction of the Internet.  Like Inter-venue betting on horse racing, the gambling outfits were accepting wagers from the punters of their neighborhood on major sports events across the world, wherever they were held.  The size and measure of betting were enlarged to proportions of unimaginable magnitude when the cyber-world came into being.  Sitting at home any one had the facility of betting on the favorite side of any sports easily and all the wagering monies when pooled together offered an attractive dividend to each punter’s bet on winning.  This gradually grew into giving room for complaints from many quarters that pre-fixing the results of the events by manipulation of vested interests and unfair and unethical practices of gambling had started in the business.

In this background the latest complaint has come up against online betting of Grand Slam Tennis Tournaments such as French Open.  The organizers of French Open have opened up a landmark case in the Liege court of Eastern Belgium and Parris claiming that the online betting sites have stained the reputation of the championship tournament on the clay-court of Roland Garros.
The French Tennis Federation has claimed that the very integrity of the Tennis match is at stake because of such unethical practices being followed by the organizations of online betting.  They have cited many instances of foul-play in the trade, including a glaring example, which took place in August 2007 in one of the major tennis match held in Poland.  Their claim is backed by declarations of players that they were approached for fixing matches with hefty sums of money offered. The law suit is against three popular betting organizations, and praying for an injunction to stop making betting on French Open and fine of large amount for violation on a daily basis.  The sports lovers and players of online bets eagerly await the outcome of this landmark case which will have a very wide impact on the online betting industry.

It’s less than a month away; it’s everybody’s choice event and it’s no surprise that while Las Vegas bookmakers are relying heavily on some wishful thinking on good returns this New Year, the expectations of the masses are heading the online Super Bowl 2008. This is one of the biggest events for all gamblers and one can make a ton of money from this popular football tournament. A perfect example of how better odds can steal a game! The key word being convenience, the craze is outrunning the propagandas of the U.S. government’s attempts to put down by force online gambling and sports betting in the county. And the best part is, there remain no geographical restrictions. Everyone can get in on the action!

On the upper edge of popularity, it is the Patriots that still rule the roost. This is because four NFL teams cleared out leaving the odds in favour of the New England Patriots at 2/7; it is also likely to be the shortest odds, since the Internet bookies have emerged for the Super Bowl event.

The news that Las Vegas bookmakers are failing miserably of recent may come as a shock to some, but that it was inevitable if someone doesn’t keep with the times. Online odds captured the market so one need not move over to Vegas for placing a bet; more because a 2/13 on $1,000 shall yield around $135 lesser compared to that yielded online. It’s less expensive to play and the returns are greater. And if you think that you shall anyway find a local bookie than making it to the state of Nevada, know them to be an endangered species that have been almost replaced by the convenience the offshore sports books provide. Playing the Super Bowl online shall also take lesser time – another reason why near about 70% of the entire male population around the globe are willing to give this online gambling a shot.

But pros and cons are old pals and always accompany each other; the word of warning here is that all of you who have by now made up their mind to bet for the 2008 Super Bowl must be very careful and remain conservative about the entire thing; you must select the online sports books with utmost care. It is because there are less honest and trustworthy online sports bookmakers and many more fraudsters who come out play during this time; at the end of the day, one doesn’t want the pink balloons to be pricked by even a golden pin!

But then again, to those people whose way of life is gambling, they don’t care much – they maintain that gambling is all about uncertainty, right? WRONG! One cannot afford to forget that we gamble to win and whether the blame rests on an unregulated industry or not, betting online should only occur after running a proper research on the available online bookmakers, just as much as you would before buying an expensive diamond ring. Good luck and sweet realities!

Why the confusion?

The DoJ claims that the provision from 2006 was strictly to enforce the laws put in place against foreign companies, and does not address domestic horse betting. However, they confirm that online horse betting is illegal in the U.S.

On the other hand, the online horse betting industries believe that the IHA amended the Wire Act, legalizing horse betting in the states. Peggy Hendershot is the senior vice president of legislative affairs for the National Thoroughbred Racing Association. Even she states, “The Interstate Horse-racing Act, as amended in 2000, confirms the legality of online pari-mutual wagering (or pool wagering) on state-regulated horseracing.”

Perhaps one reason for different opinions and interpretations of the law is that the DoJ has never prosecuted an Internet horse betting company. Could it be that they are afraid to lose the case? Many people from the horseracing industry believe this to be the truth. It would be dangerous for the DoJ to lose a case because of the message it would send to the people—that our Department of Justice is wrong. But isn’t that the message they are sending anyways by not pursuing what they claim to be law?

The DoJ should save themselves further embarrassment by either changing their stance on the issue, or clarifying their current law.

First of all, how can there be a law that is understood differently by everyone? This is obviously a problem when the people interpret a law one way and the DoJ decodes it in another. Just how does that happen?

Secondly, if they are stubborn enough to uphold an unconstitutional and unpopular law, at least do it right! My suggestion to them is to recognize the true importance of the issue and convey that to the people they are making laws (in a straight-forward way). If this can’t be done without political drivel and puzzles, drop it. If a law in the making isn’t merely for a personal agenda, then the DoJ should have no problem explaining the law and its purpose.

And to all you horse lovers, don’t be discouraged by the mess the DoJ is creating. It is their own mess, and they will be the ones having to clean it up. So keep betting on your favorite horse and have fun; and of course, Good Luck!

By Victoria Maro