In related news, as expected Delaware Governor Jack Markell has signed legislation legalizing sports betting in that state. Neighboring state New Jersey’s press and lawmakers were quick to react.

Pro sports bettors meet in Vegas

A group of top sports bettors met recently in Las Vegas and the Sun ran an interesting interview with one of the participants. The interviewee wanted to keep a low profile for obvious reasons:

A tableau reminiscent of that classic exchange played out this weekend in a well-appointed conference room at a Strip resort, where a small group of sports bettors had gathered for a private meeting to network and exchange information on their trade.

One guest speaker, going by the pseudonym “Mr. X,” runs a major sports betting syndicate that wagers large sums of money through offshore sports books as well as in Las Vegas.

One thing that surprised me is the rate of return expected by pro sports bettors. I expected something more than 1% of total amount wagered, but this is what is reported:

Overall, Mr. X said, his syndicate “holds,” or wins, about 1 percent of the amount of money it puts into action. To put that in perspective, if you bet $1,000 a week for 17 weeks of a football season and had as much success as this group of high-level professional gamblers, you could expect to pocket a grand total of $170. This sports betting stuff truly is a game of inches.

Sure, 1 percent of a big fleet of new cars can be quite a nice score. But even that rate of return requires an enormous amount of work, according to Mr. X. His team completes much of the “heavy lifting” in analyzing the forthcoming football season by June, then relies on statistical models throughout the season itself.

Typically during football season, Tuesday is a big day for placing early wagers. But the action kicks into high gear Thursday through Sunday, when Mr. X sleeps about five hours a day and works the other 19 hours.

“Thursday and Friday, we’re betting all day every day,” Mr. X said. “That’s when we start doing a lot of ‘halves’ (first-half lines), which start coming up (on betting boards). Last year we were betting a lot of college totals on Fridays because there’s so much other stuff you can be doing Saturday morning. On Saturdays, you can really get money down, particularly if you have a network.”

I really enjoy interviews like this that give the reader a small window into the world of pro sports betting. I’m looking for a video interview along the same lines – if anyone knows of one please forward me the info. Thanks!

Happy March Madness everyone, I hope you’re all doing better with your picks than I am! Here is a quick update of the latest news from the sports betting world:

• New Jersey sues Federal Government, claims sports betting ban is unconstitutional – this is huge! If this suit is successful it could legalize sports betting for all U.S. citizens. We’ll continue to monitor this story very closely.
• New Vegas casino offers in game wagering – the new M Resort has immediately become the gold standard for sports betting in Vegas. “All the sports lines will originate here,” M Resorts Chairman Anthony Marnell III said during a recent interview. “It used to be the Stardust set the lines. Now, it’s us.”
• Delaware budget contains legalized sports betting – the budget proposal for Delaware contains provisions for a state sponsored sports betting “lottery”. It looks like the local media is supporting the bill and we may see this landmark legislation pass.
• NCAA kills March Madness wagering in Canadian casinos – another example of U.S. entities using their economic and political power to take away the sports betting freedoms of foreign citizens.
• President Obama smiles on online sports betting – Carter Randel writes, “Barack Obama showed he shares the people’s disregard for online gambling laws by appearing on ESPN to make his own bracket picks.” Randel continues, “The President has acknowledged enjoying playing poker, has shown visionary use of the Internet in his campaign, and now flirts with online sports gambling on natiuonal television.” This could point to a brighter future for online sports betting in the U.S. under the Obama administration. I’m hoping for the best.

Sports betting systems don’t work. That is to say, sports betting systems that are openly for sale on the internet won’t work in the long term. The problem is that if a system is successful, it will attract a lot of users. When too many people start using a system, the sportsbooks adjust their lines to compensate for the predictive effect of the system rendering it useless. For example, if a system recommends betting on the Celtics -9 over the Knicks, the line will quickly move to Celtics -10 as the users of the system start piling on their wagers, rendering the initial pick obsolete. This may be extremely obvious to some people, but based on the number of sports betting systems I see advertised regularly, it seems that the message hasn’t gotten out to everyone quite yet.

This is not to say that sports betting systems can never work. The fun part about sports betting is that, unlike casino gambling, there is no deterministic advantage for the house. Like the stock market, in sports betting smart money takes dumb money. The issue is that if you did have a successful sports betting system, you would really have very little incentive to share it with anyone else. A person could make more money off of the successful sports picks generated by their system than they would selling those picks and, eventually, killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Again, I know this seems painfully obvious to many, but it’s news to some and a message worth repeating.

This idea was nicely summed up on a recent thread over at Black Hat SEO:

Bookies change the odds (or point spread) based on the amount bet. If your system works and you sell it, and people make money on it regularly, they will bet more and more until you start shifting the odds and it will no longer work. If it really works you are much better off if you keep it a secret and use it to bet yourself.

The following video from our youtube friend parlayhelp does a great job of explaining the games played by purveyors of sports betting systems and why the potential buyer should beware:

Change is coming. That is the message in a great article over at ESPN yesterday on the efforts of Gov. Jack Markell to legalize sports betting in Delaware. The author convincingly argues that Markell’s inevitable victory in his home state will lead to a complete overturning of the 1992 Federal ban on sports betting in the United States.

The idea is that once sports betting is legal in Delaware, it will bring in out of state gamblers and drain profits away from casinos in nearby Atlantic City. The author does a great job of framing the ensuing showdown:

Gambling options on the Eastern seaboard and on the Internet have been eroding Atlantic City’s profits since Sinatra headlined the Sands. Now Delaware—a roll of the dice away from AC—may allow sports betting? When the boardwalk is empty on Super Bowl Sunday? That’s just too much.

For months Jersey’s state legislature has been leaning on its U.S. congressmen to challenge the ban. This past December, the state assembly passed a resolution making its opposition official.

New Jersey state Senator Raymond Lesniak isn’t waiting for Congress to come around on this issue however. He’s taking it straight to them:

Lesniak says he’s gonna kick the federal government in the shins, filing a lawsuit that claims the 1992 Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act is discriminatory and unconstitutional. “When they banned sports betting we were living in a different world,” says Lesniak, who pays the bills as a lawyer. “Now it’s legal where there are other gambling options as well, it should be legal here.”

In a time of pervasive government budget crises and the growing tide of online sports betting availability, there could be a window of opportunity here for the states to rise up and demand that the unconstitutional sports betting ban of 1992 finally be lifted. The author of this article thinks that it’s only a matter of time, and I optimistically agree.

Read the full story at ESPN.com.

The big news item today is the blown call at the end of yesterday’s Chargers Steelers game. While not affecting the outcome of the game, the official’s decision to invalidate Pittsburgh’s last minute touchdown caused San Diego to beat the point spread resulting in a lost wager for those who picked Pittsburgh. To make matters worse, the play was originally ruled a touchdown and then was overturned based on a false understanding of the rules. The NY Times paints an interesting picture of the pandemonium that ensued at the Vegas sportsbooks:

As befuddling as the end of Sunday’s game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the San Diego Chargers was for fans — when an apparent Steelers touchdown on the final play was affirmed by the referee and then waved off with little explanation — imagine if your company had bet $1 million on the point spread and more than 1,000 people were loudly demanding you pay it off.

Bob Scucci did not have to imagine. As the head of sports betting for Boyd Gaming in Las Vegas, he lived it for a harrowing 15 minutes Sunday night, when chaos reigned about the final score. Bettors who had picked the Steelers and given 4 to 5 points believed that Troy Polamalu’s final-play touchdown had made the final score 17-10, making them winners. Those who had taken the Chargers and the points insisted that the play was later reversed and the final score reverted to 11-10, making them the winners.

As he watched the mounting mutiny from behind the counter at the Orleans Casino, Scucci said, he knew that “maybe” would be an insufficient response.

“People were trying to cash all sorts of tickets — no one was really sure,” Scucci recalled in a telephone interview Monday. “They demanded an explanation. It got pretty ugly.”

Ted Sevransky, a prominent professional handicapper, said: “It was chaos. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The controversial play took place soon after the Steelers had kicked a field goal with 11 seconds left to make the score 11-10, with the subsequent kickoff and one last Chargers play from scrimmage remaining. Philip Rivers threw to LaDainian Tomlinson, who lateraled to Chris Chambers, whose toss toward Rivers was tipped by Polamalu — who corralled the ball and ran it into the end zone for an apparent touchdown.

Suddenly the Steelers led, 17-10, with 0:00 on the clock. Pittsburgh bettors were delirious and Chargers bettors distraught, but all joined in communal confusion when the referee, Scott Green, announced that the play was being reviewed.

“It was so loud that we couldn’t hear what the ref was saying,” Scucci said.

At one point, Green signaled touchdown again, but it soon became clear that matters were not settled. Viewers on the East Coast saw CBS flash an 11-10 final score for a few seconds before the network switched to its “60 Minutes” interview with Barack and Michelle Obama. Stations in the Pacific time zone stayed with the CBS game feed.

This is one of the reasons I dislike betting on the point spread. Nothing is more frustrating for me than to lose a bet because my interests as a bettor are no longer in sync with the coach who only cares about winning the game. In this particular case the Steelers coach really had no motivation to argue the call as they had won the game regardless, and you often see examples of teams just spiking the ball at the end of the game rather than kicking an easy field goal if they feel they already have the game won.

Things are looking bad for Bodog. A U.S. based judge just affirmed a ruling that could end up costing them around $50 million dollars. Given that they are not an American company, it’s possible that they will try to not pay the amount. Bodog’s founder has claimed that the company was not served in the original suit and that the company has an insufficient presence in the United States to infringe any US patents.

From Gaming Intelligence Group

Online gaming operator Bodog has failed in its attempt to set aside a $46.6 million judgement against it in the patent infringement suit brought by 1st Technology LLC. With interest, Bodog must now pay 1st Technology over $50 million following yesterday’s ruling.

Bodog was sued by 1st Technology for patent infringement based on Bodog’s distribution of software used for online gaming. A default judgement was issued against the gaming operator on August 1st 2007 after it failed to answer the allegations made against it in the suit.

As part of the ruling, the registrar of Bodog’s domain name was ordered to remove all nameservers associated with Bodog and founder Calvin Ayre, rendering them useless. Bodog subsequently changed its name to NewBodog before finally settling on its current name of BodogLife.

Despite numerous challenges by Bodog against the original judgement by the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit yesterday affirmed the lower court’s ruling.

“We are extremely gratified for our client that the Court of Appeals saw the merits exactly the way we did,” said Mr. Greenspoon, the lawyer representing 1st Technology.

In August of this year, Parlay Entertainment settled a similar patent infringement lawsuit with 1st Technology. The terms of that settlement remain confidential and there was no admission of liability by either party.

This is the latest in a string of recent problems for Bodog. Most recently in July, Forbes magazine released news of an IRS affidavit from a forfeiture lawsuit in Baltimore, Maryland reporting an investigation into the matter of the seizure of over $24M in assets from bank accounts inside the United States that are said to involved in what appears to be money laundering activities in order to process payments to users of the Bodog online gambling casino. The filings are said to involve an elaborate international structure of bank accounts at numerous institutions such as Wachovia, Sun Trust Banks, Bank of America, Regions Bank, Nevada State Bank, a division of Zions Bancorporation in the name of Zaftig Instantly Processed Payments, doing business as ZipPayments.com and business’ said to be linked directly to Bodog founder Calvin Ayre.

If you have a lot of money in your Bodog account, you may want to consider diversifying your assets.

Bloomberg posted an article yesterday about the rapid rise of “in running” sports betting in the online world. In running wagering allows for betting after a game has started – whether it be on an individual play, a quarter, or the remainder of a game. The growth of this form of sports betting has been remarkable and is projected to continue. Bloomberg writes:

For the bookies, in-running betting has become their biggest growth area. Five years ago it was considered a niche product, offered only by one or two bookies looking to differentiate themselves. Bookmakers now say in-running betting accounts for up to 30 percent of their revenue and that it is growing rapidly. Several predict it will account for half their business by 2010.

This new trend seems to fit the overall cultural trend of shrinking attention spans and increasing availability of “on demand” access to entertainment services. In a global society that demands instant gratification and a generation raised on 30 second youtube videos, the rise of in game betting should hardly come as a surprise.

The article also addresses the potential downsides of in running wagering including the problem of time delays in broadcasts and mentions the recent murder of a chinese couple involved in a plot to exploit this issue as covered previously by iBet.pro.

In running has brought its own issues for bookmakers, mainly because the televised feeds that they receive in their offices (and the ones you receive at home) are delayed from the live match. It is normally only about three seconds but, in some cases, it can be 10 seconds or longer.

This means that bettors can sit at racecourses, football grounds or even the Olympics with a laptop computer and a wireless connection and get bets on the match before the bookmaker sees it on TV. Most bookies now have a small delay in their bet acceptance procedures to help guard against this, but if the delay is big enough they will find themselves taking bets after something crucial has happened.

British police are currently investigating the deaths of a Chinese man and his girlfriend who allegedly employed spotters at British soccer matches to beat in running bookmakers in China and Southeast Asia, according to news reports. They are said to be investigating reports that Zhen Xing Yang had been murdered by either bookmakers upset at his scheme or by some of the spotters, who it is claimed he failed to pay for their work.

On an unrelated note, today is the first day of the 2008 NFL season – good luck to everyone placing a wager. You may want to read this article to remind you of how not to handle your betting.

Yahoo News ran an interesting article the other day about the growth of illegal online sportsbooks and the supposed corrupting effect they are having on sports.  The article starts off with some background on the issue:

The rapidly mushrooming number of illegal sports betting websites is heightening concerns among authorities about global corruption, money laundering and gambling addiction.

There are now an estimated 15,000 such sites on the World Wide Web, including some 13,000 illegal ones, shuffling around 15 billion euros (23.6 billion dollars) a year, according to the authorities.

The author then goes on to detail how the illegal sportsbooks are causing all sorts of problems for sports federations who are eager to wipe them out.  At the same time these very same federations are vying for a piece of the gambling pie from the so-called legitimate sports betting channels:

Sports federations — notably for tennis, football and cricket, the pioneers in the fight against harmful effects of illegal gambling — have become increasingly worried about the issue.

But, apart from fears about the tarnished image of their sport, at the same time they are trying to secure a financial stake for themselves from the booming phenomenon.

Each year, French gamblers place sports bets worth more than 510 million euros on the Internet.

Of this, only around 12 million euros is believed to be legal, by means of the French National Lottery, the only authorised online sports betting operator in the country.

Following the example of the French Tennis Federation, a number of sports bodies are trying to claim part of the lucrative Internet betting industry on the model of television broadcasting agreements.

It seems to me that the issue here is not the evils of online sports betting, but the problems caused when a government tries to monopolize a market and suppress all competition to the detriment of the consumer.  I hope one day that the various governments will realize that they can’t have it both ways – decrying the immorality of sports betting while simultaneously trying to corner the market.

Read more..

We all know that the various sportsbooks out there offer bonus cash to bring in new customers and deposits. The problem for many newcomers to online gambling is figuring out what the best deal is and where to get it. A new site I was turned onto recently does a nice job of rounding up the various offers out there and giving you a full rundown on the details of the deals. They focus on UK bettors mainly but I think anyone opening a new account could use this information. Anyway the site is all about Free Bets – How they work and how to get Free Money from the Sportsbooks. Check out all the Free Bets at FreeBettingOnline.co.uk.