Preakness Stakes: $1 Million Challenge
Archive for May, 2009
Preakness Stakes: $1 Million Challenge
Thursday, May 21st, 2009French Open Tune Up – Warsaw Open Semis
Thursday, May 21st, 2009Warsaw, Poland – The Warsaw Open saw Maria Sharapova compete for the first time since withdrawing from action nine months ago to undergo shoulder surgery. Her return to the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour however hit a snag when she fell to Alona Bondarenko in the quarterfinals of the Warsaw Open in straight sets.
UFC 98 Betting – All the Main Event Picks
Thursday, May 21st, 2009MMA Online Betting – UFC 98’s Headliner Selections
If you bet on UFC, Saturday, May 23 delivers online MMA betting fans UFC 98: Evans vs. Machida live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Vegas. It includes a main card stacked with sports betting action, highlighted by a great main event between Rashad ”Sugar” Evans and Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida, as light heavyweight champion Evans…
Sports Gambling:What’s the Big Deal?
Tuesday, May 19th, 2009
If you are a sports fan, odds are pretty good that at one point or another you have engaged in some form of sports betting. You may have been involved in a fantasy pool, you might have bet a beer with a buddy, you may even have placed a couple of bets on the outcome of the Super Bowl or March Madness.
Although sports gambling is so common it is almost natural (in fact, it has been a part of human culture for as long as sport itself), the fact is that many forms of sports gambling we engage in are actually illegal. This is particularly true if you live in Canada or the United States.
The big argument against gambling on most sports in these countries is a belief that betting on sports has the potential to undermine the integrity of the game. Although in the past this tended to hold true with all sports, today it is more an issue with minor sports and collegiate level athletics than the professional leagues.
The reasoning for this, of course, is fairly straightforward. Athletes who are receiving little or no money for playing their sport are more susceptible to bribes from individuals with a vested monetary interest in the game they are playing. When you are playing for nothing but the joy of it, the offer of a few thousand dollars to throw the game can be very tempting. Sports history is rife with examples of athletes both minor and pro who have succumbed to this temptation.
Legalities aside, it is fairly obvious that sports betting is still a major part of our culture. In fact, it is quite rare to hear of circumstances in which anyone beyond those directly involved in the game even get in trouble for engaging in sports betting. Those involved would include coaches, officials, and players, rarely those betting on the game itself.
In fact, you could say that sports gambling is pretty much an “open crime” these days. Odds and money lines are posted on all the major sports channels, and bookmakers operate online with relative impunity. There are little or no efforts to stop mass betting on sports, which seems to indicate that sooner or later the laws prohibiting the activity will be done away with for good.
In the meantime, though, if you want to get a piece of betting action on a sport but want to stay well within the law, there are a couple of ways to do it. Let’s take a quick look.
- Pari-mutuel betting: There are certain sports in which the government actually endorses betting. This type of betting is known as pari-mutuel, or revenue shared, gambling. Strictly regulated, it applies only to dog and horse racing, and jai alai. All of these events are quite short, and therefore harder to rig when it comes to results. And, the government gets a cut of all bets!
- Go to Vegas! Nevada is the one state in which sports betting is legal and practiced as well. Again, who knows the real reasons, but there are Nevada bookies ready to take bets from people all over the country.
- Go online: In most of the rest of the world, sports betting is regulated and not seen as a problem. That means that thanks to the Internet, people from North America can place their bets with well known bookies the world over. Bookmakers out of Vegas, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, and any number of other countries have a presence online. Just make sure that they will take your money; some are leery of American bettors do to the government’s ambiguity on the issue of sports gambling.
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The Advantages of Online Sports Betting
Friday, May 15th, 2009
Just one short decade ago, it was virtually impossible to engage in legal sports betting if you live in the United States or in Canada. Both countries prohibit betting on almost all organized sports, in any form at all. The exceptions have always been pari-mutuel betting, which is only applied to two or three different sports (among them dog and horse racing).
Outside of those sports, the only legal bets one could place on sports in North America had to be made in the state of Nevada. For whatever reason, sports betting seemed like a reasonable thing to do deep in the desert, but nowhere else.
The coming of age of the Internet has changed the face of sports betting forever. First of all, it has opened up whole new opportunities for those interested in making legal wagers on their favourite teams or events. No longer does a person have to wait to make a trip to Las Vegas in order to place a bet on the Final Four during March Madness. Instead, those bets can be placed with a Vegas bookmaker online, from the comfort of one’s own home.
And Vegas is not the only town in on the online sports betting action. All over the world, major bookmakers have opened online sites for those wishing to place a wager. This means that you can place a bet on virtually any sport in the world, from American football to lacrosse, in any league you want be it amateur or professional.
Of course, the governments of some nations (America in particular) are concerned with the prevalence of online sports gambling, so there are some sites which will not take bets from American customers. However, there are plenty that will, at least until the legality of the practice is determined by the governing bodies of the nation.
In the meantime, though, sports betting online means that there is more money floating around than ever before, all thanks to ease of access.
Aside from the many options offered by the number of bookies online alone, those wishing to engage in football betting, basketball betting, or placing bets on any other type of sport can also take advantage of alternate betting opportunities. Traditionally, sports bets have had to be made through a bookmaker. This business sets the odds and takes a cut of the action as well. The rise of the online betting exchange, however, has meant that bettors can make or take their own odds, often increasing the value of their bets. There are also opportunities to bet against a team or individual in a sports betting exchange, rather than just on a team to win.
Finally, online access means that people betting on sports have more information at their fingertips which can help them decide which bets to make. Sports information lines have up to the minute records of teams, statistics, rosters, and odds which can all factor into the responsible gambler’s bet day decisions.
The growth of the Internet has revolutionized many different industries, and sports betting is certainly among them. More information and a lot more options are two of the main strengths of online sports betting.
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AFC East Update – Jason Taylor Stays in Miami
Friday, May 15th, 2009The AFC East hasn’t changed that much, aside from the arrival of one certain superstar (we’ll get to that later). If anything, the division has gone back in time to the 1007 NFL betting season when Tom Brady and Randy Moss terrorized the league en rout to a 16-0 SU (10-6 ATS) season.
Basketball Betting: Amateur level on up
Saturday, May 9th, 2009
Are you a fan of hoops? Every year, there are three big events that attract huge numbers of gamblers to sports book all over the world. The biggest, and this should come as no surprise, is the Super Bowl. The next most popular event in terms of bets wagered, though, is not on professional sports at all; it is on the March Madness tournament put on every year by the college basketball association.
March Madness, from beginning to end, is by far the most popular amateur sporting event to receive bets on the continent. In fact, many Las Vegas bookmakers hire extra staff and prepare months ahead of time just to handle all of the extra traffic that goes through their shops during the weeks of the tournament!
March Madness is of course just one example of the amount of bets placed on basketball games each year in America. From the amateur level on up, basketball is as popular to wager on as any other sport in the world, and more popular than some. We’re going to discuss some basketball betting basics in this article, tips that will help you out no matter what level you are betting on.
The spread rules:
Basketball, like football, is a game where there can be a large discrepancy on the scoreboard, although really not many extra baskets have taken place. That’s because most successful shots in basketball will result in at least two points, and many in three, so the score is tipped one way quickly.
Just as in football, this means that betting the spread is the most popular option for those who are betting on basketball. In sports betting, the spread is the number of points a team must win by in order for those who wagered on them to collect money one. In other words, it is no good to just pick the team which wins; that team has to win by a certain amount.
The spread in basketball is usually only a basket or two, so between 2 and 4 points. That actually makes things a little more difficult for the bettor, as it almost comes out to a straight out prediction of the game results, but with less money to win if you are accurate. Here is the basic format of basketball lines offered by the sports books:
Orlando Magic -1.5
Atlanta Hawks 192
In this example, the Magic are the favorites. They must win the game by at least two points in order for those betting the spread to win the money. Sports betting lines are based on amounts of $100; in this case, if the Magic lose or win by less than two points, those betting on the underdog Hawks will win $192 for every $100 bet.
Other types of sports bets in basketball:
There are several other types of bets that can be placed on a basketball game at any level. The money line is the next most popular. This is a bet where the wager is placed on a straight up winner of the game. It’s expressed like this:
Toronto Raptors +220
New York Knicks -110
In order to win $100 on the favored Knicks, a person must bet $110. If the bettor thinks the underdog Raptors can win, on the other hand, then she or he stands to earn $220 for every $100 bet. Note: A line this size means that the Raptors are heavy underdogs, as books usually keep the line much tighter than this.
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Favre to Vikings – Say it Ain’t so
Friday, May 8th, 2009Favre To Vikings; Headaches To My Brain
No no no no no no no no no don’t do this again, Brett. I’m dead serious. You waffled like Jon Kerry last season, and now you’re doing it again. We’ve run out of ways to defend you. Nobody wants this. Sail in to the horizon on a glorious legend.
Is Raider Nation Ready to Rise Again?
Thursday, May 7th, 2009Ever since the Raiders were throttled by Jon Gruden and the Bucs in the 2003 Superbowl, they’ve never been the same team. Last year alone, the Raiders went 5-11 SU and failed to overcome the spread with a 7-9 ATS record.
Brett Favre – The man who won’t go away
Wednesday, May 6th, 2009Brett Favre apparently isn’t going to quit until everyone resents him. The rumor is that he is considering yet another return after an announced retirement, and that particular mill has him going to the Minnesota Vikings (+1000 to win the NFC at BetUS), where he was expected to go last season, until the trade to the Jets (+1800 to win the AFC at BetUS). Favre asked the Jets to officially give him…
