tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8828471141418570932024-02-02T14:41:11.822+01:00Betting System Professional | Sport Betting Systems | Sequence BettingBETTING BLUEPRINT | BETTING SYSTEMS | BETTING PRODUCTS | BETTING PROFITS | ARBITRAGE BETTING | BETTING TIPS | BETTING STRATEGY | STAKING PLANS | HANDICAP BETTING | BETTING QUOTES | BETTING TERMS | SPORT NEWS | SPORT LIVE SCORES | SPORT STATISTICS | ONLINE BOOKMAKERS | BOOKMAKERS REVIEWS | ONLINE BETTING | BETTING MATHEMATICSXPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.comBlogger458125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-76678175027118181222012-02-20T14:58:00.003+01:002014-02-19T18:15:04.278+01:00ALL BETTING SYSTEMS FOR FREE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-49100330432317353422011-08-30T03:23:00.002+02:002011-08-30T03:23:54.812+02:00VIGORISH<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Vigorish, or simply the vig, also known as juice or the take, is the amount charged by a bookmaker, or bookie, for his services. In the United States it also means the interest on a shark's loan. The term is Yiddish slang originating from the Russian word for winnings, выигрыш vyigrysh. Bookmakers use this practice to make money on their wagers regardless of the outcome. To minimize their risk, bookmakers do not want to have an interest in either side winning in a given sporting event. They are interested, instead, in getting equal betting on both outcomes of the event. In this way, the bookmaker minimizes his risk and always collects a small commission from the vigorish. The bookmaker will normally adjust the odds or the line, to attract equal action on each side of an event.<br />
The concept is also sometimes referred to as the overround, although this is technically different, being the percentage the event book is above 100% whereas the vigorish is the bookmaker's percentage profit on the total stakes made on the event. For example, 20% overround is vigorish of 16 2⁄3%. The connecting formulae are v = o⁄(1 + o) and o = v⁄(1 − v) where o is overround.<br />
It is simplest to assume that vigorish is factored in proportionally to the true odds, although this need not be the case. Under proportional vigorish, a moneyline odds bet listed at −100 vs. −100 without vigorish (fair odds) could become −110 vs. −110 with vigorish factored in. Under disproportional vigorish, it could become −120 vs. +100.<br />
<br />
Example<br />
A fair odds bet: Two people want to bet on opposing sides of an event with even odds. They are going to make the bet between each other without using the services of a bookmaker. Each person is willing to risk $100 to win $100. After each person pays his $100, there is a total of $200 in the pot. The person who loses receives nothing and the winner receives the full $200.<br />
By contrast, when using a sportsbook with the odds set at −110 vs. −110 (10 to 11, 1.9090..) with vigorish factored in, each person would have to risk or lay $110 to win $100 (the sportsbook collects $220 "in the pot"). The extra $10 per person is, in effect, a bookmaker's commission for taking the action. This $10 is not in play and cannot be doubled by the winning bettor; it can only be lost. A losing bettor simply loses his $110. A winning bettor wins back his original $110, plus his $100 winnings, for a total of $210. From the $220 collected, the sportsbook keeps the remaining $10 after paying out the winner.<br />
<br />
Discussion<br />
In the above example, the bookmaker has taken a rake, or scaled commission fee, of $10 ÷ $220 = 4.55%. Since the winning bettor got his full $110 wager back, plus $100 in winnings, many observers will assert that only the losing bettor paid the vigorish. Others would attest that the winner — who had risked $110 and only received $210 in the end, instead of doubling his money to $220 — is the only bettor who paid the vigorish. To discuss how the bettors are affected by the vigorish, we must first define what they would have bet at fair odds (without the presence of vigorish) or else there is no way to compare how much tax is placed on the winner or loser due to the vigorish. There are unlimited possibilities for how the presence of vigorish could affect the amount wagered by a bettor, since a bettor is free to bet in any arbitrary way based on the odds. There are, however, several natural options to consider which give different results on how vigorish affects a bettor.<br />
1. The gambler has a target amount he wants to win, which is independent of the presence or absence of vigorish. As an example, for an even match we would have −100 vs. +100 for fair odds and the gambler wagers 100 to win 100. Under proportional vigorish the odds would become −110 vs. +100 and so gamblers must wager 110 to win 100. In this case, losers lose 110 under the juiced odds compared to 100 under fair odds, so the loser pays 10 extra. The winner gets back his 110 plus 100 profit, compared to getting back his 100 plus 100 profit under fair odds. The winner has no net difference since he is up 100 either way. So the loser pays the full vigorish of 10 under this assumption.<br />
2. The gambler has a given amount he is willing to risk, independent of vigorish. Under fair odds the gambler risks 100 to win 100. Under vigorish, the gambler still risks 100 to win 100 × (100 ÷ 110) = 90.9. Under this behavior, the loser loses 100 in both cases, so pays no vigorish. The winner wins 100 net under fair odds and 90.9 net under vigorish, so he pays 9.1 in vigorish. The winner pays the full vigorish under this assumption.<br />
3. The gambler bets more when he has a greater edge (better payout for a given chance of winning). A Kelly gambler is one such gambler, who seeks to maximize his rate of bankroll growth in the limit of infinite bets placed over time. This type of gambler will bet more when the payout reflects a bigger advantage for him. The fact that he bets at all indicates that he thinks he has an advantage in the bet, so the presence of vigorish reduces this edge by reducing the payout for a given amount wagered. Therefore, these gamblers on either side of the wager will both bet less than they would have at fair odds (assuming proportional vigorish). The losers therefore lose less than they would have under fair odds, so counter-intuitively these losers do better with vigorish. The winners not only receive a lower payout factor on their bet, but they also risked less than they would have at fair odds, so they pay the full rake of the bookmaker, plus the amount saved by the losers, since (amount cost by winners) − (amount saved by the losers) = (full vigorish raked by the bookmaker). So for these gamblers, the losers pay negative vigorish, while the winners pay more than the full vigorish raked in by the bookie.<br />
These are three examples of possible gambler behaviors that all give different answers to the distribution of vigorish fees amongst winners and losers. One therefore cannot say precisely whether winners or losers or both are paying the vigorish until the gamblers' behaviors with respect to the fair odds and juiced odds is defined.<br />
<br />
Vigorish percentage<br />
Vigorish percentage can be defined in a way independent of the outcome of the event and of bettors' behaviors by defining it as the percentage raked in a risk-free wager. This definition is the rake of the bookie as a percentage of total bets received if the bookie has balanced the wagers so that he makes equal profit regardless of the outcome of the event.<br />
For a two outcome event, the vigorish percentage, v is<br />
<br />
where the p and q are the decimal payouts for each outcome. This should not be confused with the percentage a bettor pays due to vigorish. No consistent definition of the percentage a bettor pays due to vigorish can be made without first defining the bettor's behavior under juiced odds and assuming a win-percentage for the bettor. These factors are discussed under the debate section.<br />
For example, −110 side pricing of an even match is 4.55% vigorish, and −105 side pricing is 2.38% vigorish.<br />
<br />
Other kinds of vigorish<br />
Casino games<br />
Vig may generically refer to the built-in house advantage on most bets on any game in a casino. The term may also refer to, and be applied in specific ways to, particular casino games.<br />
* Baccarat, in the house-banked version of baccarat (also mini-baccarat) commonly played in North American casinos, vigorish refers to the 5% commission (called the cagnotte) charged to players who win a bet on the banker hand. The rules of the game are structured so that the banker hand wins slightly more often than the player hand; the 5% vigorish restores the house advantage to the casino for both bets. In most casinos, a winning banker bet is paid at even money, with a running count of the commission owed kept by special markers in a commission box in front of the dealer. This commission must be paid when all the cards are dealt from the shoe or when the player leaves the game. Some casinos don't keep a running commission amount, and instead withdraw the commission directly from the winnings; a few require the commission to be posted along with the bet, in a separate space on the table.<br />
* Backgammon, the recube vig is the value of having possession of the doubling cube to the player being offered a double.<br />
* Craps, vigorish refers to the 5% commission charged on a buy bet, where a player wishes to bet that one of the numbers — 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 10 — will be rolled before a 7 is rolled. The commission is charged at the rate of $1 for every $20 bet. The bet is paid off at the true mathematical odds, but the 5% commission is paid as well, restoring the house advantage. For many years, this commission was paid whether the bet won or not. In recent years, many casinos have changed to charging the commission only when the bet wins, which greatly reduces the house advantage; for instance, the house advantage on a buy bet on the 4 or 10 is reduced from 5% to 1.67%, since the bet wins one-third of the time (2:1 odds against). In this case, the vig may be deducted from the winnings (for instance, a $20 bet on the 4 would be paid $39 — $40 at 2:1 odds, less the $1 commission), or the player may simply hand the commission in and receive the full payout. This rule is commonplace in Mississippi casinos, and becoming more widely available in Nevada.<br />
* Poker<br />
o In pai gow poker, a 5% commission charged on all winning bets is referred to as vigorish. Unlike baccarat, the commission is paid after each winning bet, either by the player handing in the amount from his stack of chips, or by having the vig deducted from the winnings.<br />
o In table poker, the vigorish, more commonly called the rake, is a fraction of each bet placed into the pot. The dealer removes the rake from the pot after each bet (or betting round), making change if necessary. The winner of the hand gets the money that remains in the pot after the rake has been removed. Most casinos take 5-10% of the pot, typically capping the total rake at $3 or $4.<br />
* Slot machines - the payouts and winning combinations available on most slot machines and other electronic gambling systems are often designed such that an average of between 0.1% to 10% (varying by machine and facility) of funds taken in are not used to pay out winnings, and thus becomes the house's share. Machines or facilities with a particularly low percentage are often said to be loose.<br />
<br />
Other uses<br />
* In investment banking, "vig" is sometimes used to describe profits from advisory and other activities.<br />
* In sports, Pittsburgh Pirates announcer Bob Prince coined the term "hidden vigorish" to describe an underdog's ability to beat the odds in a given situation.<br />
* The term is also used in reference to an auction house's buyers and sellers fees.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-63362092603994308742011-08-30T03:22:00.001+02:002011-08-30T03:22:40.028+02:00SPORTSBOOK<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">In the United States a sportsbook (sometimes abbreviated as book) or a race and sports book is a place where a gambler can wager on various sports competitions, including golf, football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, horse racing, boxing, and mixed martial arts. The method of betting varies with the sport and the type of game. There are roughly 150 licensed sportsbooks in the United States, all located in Nevada casinos, as such operations are illegal in the other 49 states[citation needed]. Sports betting is fully legal in many countries: for general coverage of the topic see sports betting. In English-speaking countries other than the United States terms such as betting shop or bookmakers are used rather than sportsbook. This article is restricted to sportsbooks in the United States and the impact of internet sports betting on the U.S. market.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Winning bets are paid when the event finishes, or if not finished, when played long enough to become official; otherwise all bets are returned. This policy can cause some confusion since there can be a difference between what the sportsbook considers official and what the sports league consider official. Customers should carefully read the sportsbook rules before placing their bets.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The betting volume at sportsbooks varies throughout the year. Bettors have more interest in certain types of sports and increase the money wagered when those sports are in season. Some major sporting events that don't follow a specific schedule, like boxing, can create peaks of activity for the sportsbooks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Odds</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the mid 1930s, Leo Hirschfield started a company in Minneapolis, Minnesota called Athletic Publications, Inc., that published and distributed odds to bookies across the country by telephone and telegraph. He had a team of handicappers analyzing the matchups who also studied newspapers across the country. The company was a major provider of odds and prices until it finally disbanded, under fear of prosecution from the Federal Wire Act of 1961.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Today most sportsbooks get their opening prices from other sportsbooks as well as private companies like Las Vegas Sports Consultants. They adjust prices based on the bets coming in, news, injury, and weather information, and the price movement by other sportsbooks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nevada sportsbooks</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Today there are roughly 150 licensed sportsbooks in the United States, all located in Nevada casinos. Now that many casinos share the same parent company, they offer the exact same wagering choices and odds, which is a disadvantage to the astute gambler who in the past could do more shopping for better prices.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the 1950s the first Nevada sportsbooks, called Turf Clubs, opened. They were independent from the casinos, and had an informal agreement with the hotels that they would stay out of the casino business as long as the hotels stayed out of the sportsbook business. The sportsbooks had to pay a 10 percent tax so they charged a high vigorish to gamblers, but they still brought in a lot of business.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1974 the tax was lowered to 2 percent, (it was lowered to 0.25 percent in 1983), and in 1975 Frank Rosenthal, who ran the Stardust Casino, convinced legislators to allow them in the casinos, and soon nearly all of the casinos added them. The turf clubs were no longer able to compete and eventually all closed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">At Nevada casino sportsbooks you will find:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> * Betting windows</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> * Big screen televisions</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> * Interactive betting stations</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> * Odds boards, usually computerized</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> * Papers with different odds for the day</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> * Places to sit and watch games & races</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Sports betting on the internet</div><div style="text-align: justify;">While internet sportsbooks lack face-to-face transactions, they can handle more customers than physical sportsbook shops and operate more cost effectively. They pass lower costs on to customers in the form of reduced vigorish (cheaper prices) or bonus incentives. They can also offer similar products, such as casino games, bingo, and poker to their existing clients.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">While Internet sportsbooks take bets online, normally they are licensed in some jurisdiction. Taxation and regulation vary greatly by country.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Internet sportsbooks range from fraudulent operations with no intention of paying their customers to multi-billion dollar publicly traded companies. Furthermore, many internet sites have been reported for questionable customer service practices and withholding money from customers. Internet sportsbooks range in focus, as some primarily cater to American sports, while others focus on European soccer. Some sportsbooks handle large wagers while others have low wagering limits. Some offer many exotic proposition wagers, where others have limited choices. Payment methods are not universally accepted at all sportsbooks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Costa Rica is home to a large number of offshore sportsbooks, as it caters to many of the needs of the industry with an open regulatory environment and a large, capable workforce. A number of sportsbooks are also located in Isle of Man, Jamaica, Gibraltar, Antigua, Curaçao, Australia, United Kingdom, Philippines and many other countries around the world.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The United States Justice Department claims that wagering at offshore sportsbooks is a violation of the 1961 Federal Wire Act. Jeffrey Trauman of Harwood, North Dakota, was the first player ever to be prosecuted for online sports betting in the United States. The former car salesman, who quit his job to become a professional gambler, was cited under a North Dakota state law.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In separate incidents in 2006, two executives of internet-based sportsbooks were arrested in the United States. On July 16, 2006 David Carruthers of BetonSports was arrested at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in Texas while changing planes. On September 7 of that same year, Peter Dicks of Sportingbet Plc was detained in similar fashion at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Both men await separate charges on gambling-related offenses.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-1959824807394299662011-08-30T03:21:00.002+02:002011-08-30T03:21:16.410+02:00SP BOOKMAKING<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Starting price or SP bookmaking literally refers to taking bets at fixed odds, i.e. a fixed starting price, as opposed to the totalisator model of betting. This form of gambling was only legal in Australia for bookmakers operating on the course or racetrack, and so a large telephone based SP bookmaking industry started, leading to the term SP bookie or "turf accountant" to more affluent customers, becoming synonymous with a criminal bookmaker operating off-course in competition with the authorized on-course bookmakers and the totalisator (or tote). SP quickly became a large area of vice, intimately associated with police corruption and racetrack rigging. Several Royal Commissions investigated the practice, and there were many attempts to eradicate it. Once a common sight in suburban pubs and bars, the introduction of telephone and internet betting at fixed prices by licenced on-course bookmakers has made them largely redundant.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-2966606317881933622011-08-30T03:20:00.002+02:002011-08-30T03:20:35.013+02:00POINT SHAVING<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">In organized sports, point shaving is a type of match fixing where the perpetrators try to prevent a team from covering a published point spread. Unlike other forms of match fixing, sports betting invariably motivates point shaving. A point shaving scheme generally involves a sports gambler and one or more players of the sports team favored to win the game. In exchange for a bribe, the player or players agree to ensure that their team will not "cover the point spread". The gambler then wagers against that team.<br />
General Use In Sports<br />
Basketball<br />
Basketball is a particularly easy medium for shaving points because of the scoring tempo of the game and the ease by which one player can influence key events. By deliberately missing shots or committing well-timed turnovers or fouls, a corrupt player can covertly ensure that his team fails to cover the point spread, without causing them to lose the game (or to lose so badly that suspicions are aroused). Although the NCAA has adopted a zero tolerance policy with respect to gambling activity by its players, some critics believe it unwittingly encourages point shaving due to its strict rules regarding amateurism, combined with the large amount of money wagered on its games. The NCAA has produced posters warning of this, the most notable being an athlete sitting alone on a bench with his face buried in his hands (although this may also look like the athlete suffered a tremendous defeat) with the caption "DO NOT BET ON IT" with warnings as to what could happen if they are involved in such a plan (as well as an athlete being caught gambling himself).<br />
Famous examples of this are the CCNY Point Shaving Scandal of the 1950-51 and the Boston College basketball point shaving scandal of 1978-79, which was perpetrated by gangsters Henry Hill and Jimmy Burke.<br />
Other Sports<br />
The technique has been used by both amateur and professional athletes in many other sports. The intention is to manipulate scoring so that the final score results in a predetermined outcome. A typical sports game should always tend to behave in a nondeterministic manner. In other words, the exact final score of a game exists in a set which can contain more than a thousand possible combinations. Furthermore, nondeterminism suggests that the final score of a sports game is practically unpredictable.<br />
Many variables can influence the outcome. Such variables include weather, fatigue, and human error. However, amateur and professional athletes who are very skilled in the technique of point shaving can consistently create unlikely outcomes in bad weather and other challenging conditions. These unlikely outcomes tend to create huge financial gains/losses in prediction markets.<br />
The deviation from the mean, otherwise known as the expected value, is what makes these outcomes so unlikely. In many cases of point shaving, the expected value is equivalent to a scoring differential; and, this scoring differential is most commonly known as a point spread. Additionally, the deviation in the final outcome can be quite large. Many times, the deviation is so large that athletes on opposing teams must cooperate in order to achieve the desired result. In this particular case, the final outcome is commonly referred to as a thrown game.<br />
Current Use<br />
In the past, small bookies saw large profits in small point shaving schemes; however, the conspiracy has reached new levels in present day sports. According to the 1999 Gambling Impact Study, an estimated $80 billion to $380 billion was illegally bet each year on sporting events in the United States. This estimate dwarfed the $2.5 billion legally bet each year in Nevada.<br />
Unfortunately, such an enormous amount of illegal activity makes organized sports a likely candidate for corruption. On August 15, 2007, an NBA referee, Tim Donaghy, plead gulity to two felonies related to wagering on games that he officiated. And despite providing strict regulations for its participants, organized sports has shown little to no interest in legalizing the sports gambling industry which continues to remain highly unregulated and illegal for the most part in the United States.<br />
In Popular Culture<br />
In Season 5, Episode 2 of The Sopranos ("The Rat Pack"), Bobby Baccalieri stated that point shaving had been invented by fictional mob boss Carmine Lupertazzi during a 1951 game between CCNY and Kentucky.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-55107471003483447432011-08-30T03:19:00.002+02:002011-08-30T03:19:40.363+02:00PARLAY<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">A parlay or accumulator is a single bet that links together two or more individual wagers and is dependent on all of those wagers winning together. The benefit of the parlay is that there are much higher payoffs than placing each individual bet separately since the difficulty of hitting it is much higher. If any of the bets in the parlay loses, the entire parlay loses. If any of the plays in the parlay ties, or "pushes", the parlay reverts to a lower number of teams with the odds reducing accordingly.<br />
<br />
Odds and payout<br />
Parlay bets are paid out at odds higher than the typical single game bet, but still below the "true" odds. For instance, a common 2-team NFL parlay generally has a payout of 2.6:1 if both picks are correct.[citation needed] In reality, however, if one assumes that each single game bet is a coin flip and would be expected to pay out at 1:1, the true payout should instead be 3:1, a substantial difference.<br />
Examples<br />
<br />
Example 1<br />
Alex places a three-team NFL parlay on the Packers, Bears and Bengals. If any one of those teams fail to cover the spread, Alex loses his parlay bet. But if all three teams beat the spread, Alex gets paid $600 for every $100 bet.<br />
If Alex pushes on one of those picks, he then has a two-team parlay. If he pushes on two picks, he would then have a straight bet.<br />
<br />
Example 2<br />
<br />
Winning example<br />
You wager $1,000 on Arsenal/Manchester United to draw, Chelsea to win and Liverpool to win. You win $6,072 as you correctly predicted all three results.<br />
The calculation is: $1,000 × 3.2 × 1.7 × 1.3 = $7,072, less the stake of $1,000.<br />
<br />
Losing example<br />
You wager $1,000 on Manchester United to win, Chelsea to win and Liverpool to win. You lose the wager as Manchester United did not win.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-80706118107037696772011-08-30T03:18:00.000+02:002011-08-30T03:18:22.623+02:00MATCH FIXING<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">In organised sports, match fixing, game fixing, race fixing, or sports fixing occurs as a match is played to a completely or partially pre-determined result, violating the rules of the game and often the law. Where the sporting competition in question is a race then the incident is referred to as race fixing. Games that are deliberately lost are sometimes called thrown games. When a team intentionally loses a game, or does not score as high as it can, to obtain a perceived future competitive advantage (for instance, earning a high draft pick) rather than gamblers being involved, the team is often said to have tanked the game instead of having thrown it. In pool hustling, tanking is known as dumping. In sports where a handicap system exists and is capable of being abused, tanking is known as sandbagging.<br />
Thrown games, when motivated by gambling, require contacts (and normally money transfers) between gamblers, players, team officials, and/or referees. These contacts and transfer can sometimes be found, and lead to prosecution, by law or by the sports league(s). In contrast, tanking is internal to the team and very hard to prove. Often, substitutions made by the coach designed to deliberately increase the team's chances of losing (frequently by having one or more key players sit out, often using minimal or phantom injuries as a public excuse for doing this), rather than ordering the players actually on the field to intentionally underperform, were cited as the main factor in cases where tanking has been alleged.<br />
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Motivations and causes<br />
The major motivations behind match fixing are gambling and future team advantage.<br />
Agreements with gamblers<br />
There may be financial gain through agreements with gamblers. The most infamous example of this in North America was the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, in which several members of the Chicago White Sox conspired with gamblers to fix the World Series.<br />
Getting a better draft pick<br />
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In the National Hockey League (NHL), National Basketball Association (NBA) and Australian Football League, teams near the bottom of the standings have sometimes been accused of throwing games at the end of the season to finish with the worst record in the league—thereby gaining the first draft pick. To deter this behavior, these leagues now use a draft lottery which does not guarantee the first pick to the team at the bottom of the standings. Other leagues such as the Australian Football League and the National Football League (NFL) do not make use of a lottery, which leads to suspicions of match fixing, especially since top draft picks can have top careers. Like the NFL, Major League Baseball (MLB) does not conduct a draft lottery, but credible allegations of thrown games in the MLB are uncommon due to the historically weak correlation between draft order and major-league success (baseball draftees generally do not play immediately for their major league club, but rather start playing for a farm team).<br />
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Better playoff chances<br />
In the NBA (but not in the NHL, which re-seeds teams after the first playoff round), there have also been allegations of teams tanking games in order to finish in sixth rather than fifth place in the conference standings, thus enabling the team in question to evade a possible playoff match with the conference's top seed until the final round of playoffs in that conference (for more details see single-elimination tournament). For example, the 2006 Los Angeles Clippers allegedly tanked late season games so they could finish with the 6th seed and play the 8th-ranked team in the league's Western Conference, the Denver Nuggets, who were the 3rd seed by way of winning their division. Another quirk in the league's playoff system gave the Clippers even more of an incentive to tank. The NBA is the only one of the four major professional sports leagues of the United States in which home advantage in the playoffs is based strictly on regular-season record without regard to seeding. If the Clippers had finished with the 5th seed in the West, they would have had to face the Dallas Mavericks, who despite being the 4th seed had the second-best record in the conference, which would give the Mavericks home advantage. However, the Clippers would have home advantage in a series against the Nuggets by virtue of a better overall record. If tanking was indeed their strategy, it worked, as the Clippers easily won their first round series. Following the 2006 season, the NBA changed its playoff format so that the best second-place team in each conference would be able to obtain up to the #2 seed should it have the second-best conference record. On occasion, an NFL team has also been accused of throwing its final regular-season game in an attempt to "choose" its possible opponent in the subsequent playoffs. For example, in the closing game of the 2004 season, the Indianapolis Colts faced the Denver Broncos. With a win, the Broncos would advance to the playoffs as a wild card and face the Colts as their first round playoff opponent. It would seem the Colts had little incentive to win as their loss would ensure that they would play a team they dominated in the 2003 Wild Card game. Sure enough, the Colts rested their starters, lost the game, and went on to blow out the Broncos the following week in the playoffs.<br />
Perhaps the most notable example of this was when the San Francisco 49ers, who had clinched a playoff berth, lost their regular-season finale in 1988 to the Los Angeles Rams, thereby keeping the New York Giants (who had defeated the 49ers in the playoffs in both 1985 and 1986, also injuring 49er quarterback Joe Montana in the latter year's game) from qualifying for the postseason; after the game, Giants quarterback Phil Simms angrily accused the 49ers of "laying down like dogs."<br />
A more recent example of possible tanking occurred in the ice hockey competition at the 2006 Winter Olympics. In Pool B, Sweden was to face Slovakia in the last pool match for both teams. Sweden coach Bengt-Åke Gustafsson publicly contemplated tanking against Slovakia, knowing that if his team won, their quarterfinal opponent would either be Canada, the 2002 gold medalists, or the Czech Republic, 1998 gold medalists. Gustafsson would tell Swedish television "One is cholera, the other the plague." Sweden lost the match 3–0; the most obvious sign of tanking was when Sweden had a five-on-three powerplay with five NHL stars—Peter Forsberg, Mats Sundin, Daniel Alfredsson, Nicklas Lidström, and Fredrik Modin—on the ice, and failed to put a shot on goal. (Sports Illustrated writer Michael Farber would say about this particular powerplay, "If the Swedes had passed the puck any more, their next opponent would have been the Washington Generals.") If he was seeking to tank, Gustafsson got his wish; Sweden would face a much less formidable quarterfinal opponent in Switzerland. Canada would lose to Russia in a quarterfinal in the opposite bracket, while Sweden went on to win the gold medal, defeating the Czechs in the semifinals.<br />
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More favorable schedule next year<br />
NFL teams have been accused of tanking games in order to obtain a more favorable schedule the following season; this was especially true between 1977 and 1993, when a team finishing last in a five-team division would get to play five of its eight non-division matches the next season against other last-place teams.<br />
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Match fixing by referees<br />
In addition to the match fixing that is committed by players, coaches and/or team officials, it is not unheard of to have results manipulated by corrupt referees. Since 2004, separate scandals have erupted in prominent sports leagues in Portugal, Germany (Bundesliga scandal), Brazil (Brazilian football match-fixing scandal) and the United States (see Tim Donaghy), all of which concerned referees who fixed matches for gamblers. Many sports writers have speculated that in leagues with high player salaries, it is far more likely for a referee to become corrupt since their pay in such competitions is usually much less than that of the players.<br />
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Match fixing to a draw or a fixed score<br />
Match fixing does not necessarily involve deliberately losing a match. Occasionally, teams have been accused of deliberately playing to a draw or a fixed score where this ensures some mutual benefit (e.g. both teams advancing to the next stage of a competition.) One of the earliest examples of this sort of match fixing in the modern era occurred in 1898 when Stoke City and Burnley intentionally drew in that year's final "test match" so as to ensure they were both in the First Division the next season. In response, the Football League expanded the divisions to 18 teams that year, thus permitting the intended victims of the fix (Newcastle United and Blackburn Rovers) to remain in the First Division. The "test match" system was abandoned and replaced with automatic relegation.<br />
A more recent example occurred in the 1982 FIFA World Cup, West Germany played Austria in the last match of group B. A West German victory by 1 or 2 goals would result in both teams advancing; any less and Germany was out; any more and Austria was out (and replaced by Algeria, who had just beaten Chile). West Germany attacked hard and scored after 10 minutes. Afterwards, the players then proceeded to just kick the ball around aimlessly for the remainder of the match. Algerian supporters were so angered that they waved banknotes at the players, while a German fan burned his German flag in disgust. By the second half, the ARD commentator Eberhard Stanjek refused any further comment on the game, while the Austrian television commentator Robert Seeger advised viewers to switch off their sets. As a result, FIFA changed its tournament scheduling for subsequent World Cups so that the final pair of matches in each group are played simultaneously.<br />
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Abuse of tie-breaking rules<br />
On several occasions, "creative" use of tie-breaking rules have allegedly led teams to play less than their best.<br />
An example occurred in the 2004 European Football Championship. Because unlike FIFA, UEFA takes "head-to-head" play into consideration before overall goal difference when ranking teams level on points, a situation arose in Group C where Sweden and Denmark played to a 2-2 draw, which was a sufficiently high scoreline to eliminate Italy (which had lower-scoring draws with the Swedes and Danes) regardless of Italy's result with already-eliminated Bulgaria. Although Italy beat Bulgaria by only one goal and would hypothetically have been eliminated using the FIFA tie-breaker too, some Italian fans bitterly contended that the FIFA tie-breaker would have motivated their team to play harder and deterred their Scandinavian rivals from, in their view, at the very least half-heartedly playing out the match after the score became 2-2.<br />
But the FIFA tie-breaker, or any goal-differential scheme, can cause problems, too. There have been incidents (especially in basketball) where players on a favored team have won the game but deliberately ensured the quoted point spread was not covered (see point shaving). Conversely, there are cases where a team not only lost (which might be honest) but lost by some large amount, perhaps to ensure a point spread was covered, or to grant some non-gambling related favor to the victor. Perhaps the most famous alleged example was the match between Argentina and Peru in the 1978 FIFA World Cup. Argentina needed a four goal victory to advance over Brazil, an enormous margin at this level of competition, especially since Argentina had a weak offense (6 goals in 5 games) and Peru a stout defence (6 goals allowed in 5 games). Yet somehow, Argentina won 6-0. Much was made over the fact that the Peruvian goalkeeper was born in Argentina, and Peru was dependent on Argentinian grain shipments, but nothing was ever proven.<br />
Although the Denmark-Sweden game above led to calls for UEFA to adopt FIFA's tiebreaking formula for future tournaments, it is not clear if this solves the problem - the Argentina-Peru game shows a possible abuse of the FIFA tie-breaker. Proponents of the UEFA tie-breaker argue that it reduces the value of blow-outs, whether these be the result of a much stronger team running up the score or an already-eliminated side allowing an unusually large number of goals. Perhaps the most infamous incident occurred in December 1983 when Spain, needing to win by eleven goals to qualify for the Euro 1984 ahead of the Netherlands, defeated Malta by a score of 12-1 on the strength of nine second half goals. Especially in international football, such lopsided results are seen as unsavoury, even if they are honest. If anything, these incidents serves as evidence that the FIFA tie-breaker can cause incentives to perpetrate a fix in some circumstances, the UEFA tie-breaker in others.<br />
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Individual performance in team sports<br />
Bookmakers in the early 21st century accept bets on a far wider range of sports-related propositions than ever before. Thus, a gambling-motivated fix might not necessarily involve any direct attempt to influence the outright result, especially in team sports where such a fix would require the co-operation (and prerequsitely, the knowledge) of many people, and/or perhaps would be more likely to arouse suspicion. Fixing the result of a more particular proposition might be seen as less likely to be noticed - for example, scandalized former National Basketball Association referee Tim Donaghy has been alleged to have perpetrated some of his fixes by calling games in such a manner as to ensure more points than expected were scored by both teams, thus affecting "over-under" bets on the games whilst also ensuring that Donaghy at least did not look to be outright biased. Also, bets are increasingly being taken on individual performances in team sporting events, which in turn has seen the rise of a phenomenon known as spot-fixing, although it is currently unlikely that enough is bet on an average player to allow someone to place a substantial wager on them without being noticed.<br />
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One such attempt was described by retired footballer Matthew Le Tissier, who in 2009 admitted that while he was playing with Southampton FC back in 1995 he tried (and failed) to kick the ball out of play right after the kick-off of a Premier League match against Wimbledon FC so that a group of associates would collect on a wager made on an early throw-in. Similarly, in 2010 Pakistani cricket players were accused of committing specific no ball penalties for the benefit of gamblers.<br />
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Effect of non-gambling-motivated fixing on wagering<br />
Whenever any serious motivation for teams to manipulate results becomes apparent to the general public, there can be a corresponding effect on betting markets as honest gamblers speculate in good faith as to the chance such a fix might be attempted. Some bettors might choose to avoid wagering on such a fixture while others will be motivated to wager on it, or alter the bet they would otherwise place. Such actions will invariably affect odds and point spreads even if there is no contact whatsoever between teams and the relevant gambling interests. The rise of betting exchanges has allowed such speculation to play out in real time. For example, the average payout on bets backing the 2004 2-2 result between Sweden and Denmark were much lower than would normally be expected, as heavy betting on that result depressed the odds despite the fact that both teams vehemently denied they would intentionally attempt to manipulate the result. There has never been any evidence produced to suggest that the betting patterns witnessed before that match was anything more than honest speculation from honest bettors.<br />
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History<br />
Since gambling pre-dates recorded history it comes as little surprise that evidence of match fixing is found throughout recorded history. The Ancient Olympics were almost constantly dealing with allegations of athletes accepting bribes to lose a competition and city-states which often tried to manipulate the outcome with large amounts of money. These activities went on despite the oath each athlete took to protect the integrity of the events and the severe punishment sometimes inflicted on those who were caught. Chariot racing was also dogged by race fixing throughout its history.<br />
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By the end of the 19th century gambling was illegal in most jurisdictions, but that did not stop its widespread practice. Boxing soon became rife with fighters "taking a dive" - probably because boxing is an individual sport which makes its matches much easier to fix without getting caught. Baseball also became plagued by match fixing despite efforts by the National League to stop gambling at its games. Matters finally came to a head in 1919 when eight members of the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series (see Black Sox Scandal). In an effort to restore confidence, Major League Baseball established the office of the Baseball Commissioner, and one of Kenesaw Mountain Landis's first acts was to ban all involved players for life. Strict rules prohibiting gambling persist to this day (See Pete Rose).<br />
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Japan<br />
Yaochō (八百長 , やおちょう?) is a Japanese word meaning a cheating activity which is committed at places where a match, fight, game, competition, or other contest, is held, where the winner and loser are decided in advance by agreement of the competitors or related people. It is believed that the word "Yaocho" came from the name ("Chobei") of the owner of a vegetable stand (yaoya) during the Meiji period. Created from the first syllable of "Yaoya" and "chobei", the word "yaocho" was created for a nickname of Chobei. Chobei had a friend called "Isenoumi Godayu" (7th Isenoumi stablemaster) with whom he played the game Igo, who had once been a Sumo wrestler "Kashiwado Sogoro" (former shikona: "Kyonosato") and now was a "Toshiyori" (a stablemaster of Sumo). Although Chobei was a better Igo player than Isenoumi, he sometimes lost games on purpose to please Isenoumi, so that Isenoumi would continue to buy merchandise from his shop. Afterward, once people knew of his cheating, they started to use "Yaocho" as a word meaning any decision to win/lose a match in advance by negotiation etc. with the expectation of secondary profit, even though the match seems to be held seriously and fairly.<br />
Most of the motive for match fixing is helping each other's ranking to keep their salary higher according to Keisuke Itai, who disclosed how it goes. For example, wrestlers in Juryo desperately try to avoid makekoshi and exchange or buy the match result otherwise their salary would be nothing, literally 0 yen, with the participation wage of 150,000 yen every two month if they get makekoshi and their ranking would go down to Makushita, the lesser ranking from Juryo in which you can earn 1,036,000 yen monthly with some prizes.<br />
Economists, using statistical analysis, have shown very strong evidence of bout fixing in Sumo wrestling. (See also 2011 in sumo)<br />
Match fixing and gambling today<br />
Influenced by baseball's experiences, the NFL and NBA have followed MLB's lead and adopted a hard line against gambling on its games, especially by those directly involved in the league. The NCAA takes an even harder line:<br />
* It prohibits athletes, coaches, and athletics administrators at member schools, plus staff of member conferences, from gambling on any sport in which the NCAA holds a championship or any sport classified by the NCAA as an "emerging sport" for women. The prohibition includes professional competition in all of the aforementioned sports, and also specifically includes Division I FBS football, in which the NCAA does not sponsor an official championship.<br />
* It also prohibits venues in championship play from carrying advertising for any form of gambling, including state lotteries.<br />
Each of these organizations was, and may still be influenced by fears that their games could come under the influence of gamblers in the absence of these tough measures. Critics of such hard line measures note that in spite of such policies, such influence nonetheless does occur.<br />
In Britain the authorities in both government and sport have taken a softer line on gambling. Following decades of relatively lax, intermittent and ineffective enforcement of laws prohibiting gambling, sports betting was finally legalized and regulated in the 1960s. Organizations such as The Football Association seem to have taken the stance that gambling on their events is inevitable. The FA only prohibits betting on a match by those directly involved in the game in question. Footballers (or coaches, managers, etc.) are not prohibited from betting on matches that do not involve their own team.<br />
Match fixing in football (soccer) remains a major concern. In Turkey more than 30 players and staff have been convicted of game fixing. In South Korea, more than 50 professional soccer players have been indicted and ten players have received lifetime bans. In Finland, two Zambian players were convicted and more than a dozen people are under investigation. Other investigations are continuing in China, El Salvador, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Thailand, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe.<br />
The integrity of horse racing remains an ongoing concern since gambling is an integral part of this sport. Recent allegations of race fixing have centered around the recently-formed betting exchanges which unlike traditional bookmakers allow punters to lay an outcome (that is, to bet against a particular runner). Leading exchange Betfair has responded to the allegations by signing Memorandums of Understanding with the Jockey Club, The FA, the International Cricket Council, the Association of Tennis Professionals and other sporting authorities. These memoranda of understanding are evidence of the vast difference between British and American attitudes[citation needed] — as of 2008 it would be almost unthinkable for an American sports league to sign such an agreement with a bookmaker or <br />
<br />
betting exchange.<br />
It should be noted that while British football has never been rocked by match fixing allegations on the scale of the Black Sox scandal (the aforementioned incidents involved league matches, not major championships), football match-fixing has become a serious problem in parts of Continental Europe.<br />
Cricket has been scandalized by several gambling and match fixing allegations in recent years, particularly the case of Hansie Cronje in the late 1990s, culminating in the World Cup investigations of 2007. These highly publicised enquiries were prompted by the surprise defeat of Pakistan in the Cup by Ireland and the subsequent murder investigation into the sudden death, straight after the match, of Pakistan's head coach Bob Woolmer. According to the head of the ICC's anti-corruption unit Paul Condon, cricket is the most bet on sport in the world, and fixing is found at every level of the sport and is a significant problem.<br />
The high salaries of some of today's professional athletes likely serves to insulate their leagues from player-instigated match fixing. In the NCAA and in leagues where the salaries are comparatively less (or, in the case of the amateur NCAA, zero), match fixing by players remains a serious concern.<br />
Match fixing incidents<br />
<br />
* In 1919, gamblers bribed several members of the Chicago White Sox to throw the World Series. This became known as the Black Sox Scandal and was recounted in book and movie form as Eight Men Out.<br />
* In 1951, District Attorney Frank Hogan indicted college basketball players for point shaving from four New York schools, including CCNY, Manhattan College, New York University and Long Island University.<br />
* In 1964, the great British football betting scandal of the 1960s was uncovered. A betting ring organized by Jimmy Gauld and involving several Football League players had been fixing matches. The most famous incident involved three Sheffield Wednesday players, including two England international players, that were subsequently banned from football for life and imprisoned after it was discovered they had bet against their team winning in a match against Ipswich Town. A similar scandal had occurred in 1915.<br />
* In 1978, mobsters connected with the New York Lucchese crime family, among them Henry Hill and Jimmy Burke, organized a point shaving scheme with key members of the Boston College basketball team.<br />
* On August 24, 1989, former baseball player Pete Rose voluntarily accepted a permanent ban from Major League Baseball for allegedly betting on Cincinnati Reds games while managing the team. Rose would later confirm the truth of the allegations in his 2004 autobiography, My Prison Without Bars. However, no evidence of actual match-fixing was shown.<br />
* In 1994, a comprehensive point shaving scheme organized by campus bookmaker Benny Silman and involving players from the Arizona State University men's basketball team was uncovered with the assistance of Las Vegas bookmakers, who grew suspicious over repeated large wagers being made against Arizona State.<br />
* In February 1999 a Malaysian-based betting syndicate was caught attempting to install a remote-control device to sabotage the floodlights at FA Premier League team Charlton Athletic's ground with the aid of a corrupt security officer. If the match had been abandoned after half-time, then the result and bets would have stood. Subsequent investigations showed that the gang had been responsible for previously unsuspected "floodlight failures" at West Ham's ground in November 1997, and again a month later at Crystal Palace's ground during a home match of Palace's groundsharing tenant Wimbledon.<br />
* In 2000 the Delhi police intercepted a conversation between a blacklisted bookie and the South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje in which they learnt that Cronje accepted money to throw matches. The South African government refused to allow any of its players to face the Indian investigation unit, which opened up a can of worms. A court of inquiry was set up and Cronje admitted to throwing matches. He was immediately banned from all cricket. He also named Saleem Malik (Pakistan), Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja (India). Jadeja was banned for 4 years. They too were banned from all cricket. As a kingpin, Cronje exposed the dark side of betting, however with his untimely death in 2002 most of his sources also have escaped law enforcement agencies. Two South African cricketers, Herschelle Gibbs and Nicky Boje, are also wanted by the Delhi police for their role in the match fixing saga. A few years before in 1998, Australian players Mark Waugh and Shane Warne were fined for revealing information about the 'weather' to a bookmaker.<br />
* The Italian Football Federation said in October 2000 it had found eight players guilty of match-fixing. Three were from Serie A side Atalanta and the other five played for Serie B side Pistoiese. The players were Giacomo Banchelli, Cristiano Doni and Sebastiano Siviglia (all Atalanta) and Alfredo Aglietti, Massimiliano Allegri, Daniele Amerini, Gianluca Lillo and Girolamo Bizzarri (all Pistoiese). The charges related to an Italian Cup first round tie between the two sides in Bergamo on August 20, 2000 which ended 1-1. Atalanta scored at the end of the first half and Pistoiese equalised three minutes from full time. Atalanta qualified for the second round. Snai, which organises betting on Italian football, said later it had registered suspiciously heavy betting on the result and many of the bets were for a 1-0 halftime score and a fulltime score of 1-1.<br />
* In June 2004 in South Africa, thirty-three people (including nineteen referees, club officials, a match commissioner and an official of the South African Football Association) were arrested on match-fixing charges.<br />
* In the summer of 2004, Betfair provided evidence of race fixing to City of London Police that led to the arrest of jockey Kieren Fallon and fifteen others on race fixing charges. On 7 December 2007 the judge in the case ordered the jury to find Fallon not guilty on all charges.<br />
* In late 2004, the game between Panionios and Dinamo Tbilisi in the 2004-05 UEFA Cup was suspected of being fixed after British bookmakers detected an unusually high number of half-time bets for a 5-2 win for the Greek side, which was trailing 0-1. As the final result ended up being 5-2, suspicions of fixing quickly emerged, but were quickly denied by both clubs, although UEFA started an investigation.<br />
* 2005 Bundesliga scandal: In January 2005, the German Football Association (DFB) and German prosecutors launched separate probes into charges that referee Robert Hoyzer bet on and fixed several matches that he worked, including a German Cup tie. Hoyzer later admitted to the allegations; it has been reported that he was involved with Croat gambling syndicates. He also implicated other referees and players in the match fixing scheme. The first arrests in the Hoyzer investigation were made on January 28 in Berlin, and Hoyzer himself was arrested on February 12 after new evidence apparently emerged to suggest that he had been involved in fixing more matches than he had admitted to. Hoyzer has been banned for life from football by the DFB. On March 10, a second referee, Dominik Marks, was arrested after being implicated in the scheme by Hoyzer. Still later (March 24), it was reported that Hoyzer had told investigators that the gambling ring he was involved with had access to UEFA's referee assignments for international matches and Champions League and UEFA Cup fixtures several days before UEFA publicly announced them. Ultimately, Hoyzer was sentenced to serve 2 years and 5 months in prison.<br />
* In July 2005, Italian Serie B champions Genoa was arbitrarily placed last in the division, and therefore condemned to relegation in Serie C1, after it was revealed that they bribed their opponents in the final match of the season, Venezia to throw the match. Genoa won the match 3-2 and had apparently secured promotion to Serie A.<br />
* Brazilian football match-fixing scandal: In September 2005, a Brazilian magazine revealed that two football referees, Edílson Pereira de Carvalho (a member of FIFA's referee staff) and Paulo José Danelon, had accepted bribes to fix matches. Soon afterwards, sport authorities ordered the replaying of 11 matches in the country's top competition, the Campeonato Brasileiro, that had been worked by Edílson. Both referees have been banned for life from football and face possible criminal charges. Brazilian supporters have taken to shout "Edílson" at a referee who they consider to have made a bad call against their team, in a reference to the scandal.<br />
* 2006 Serie A scandal ("Calciopoli"): In May 2006, perhaps the largest match fixing scandal in the history of Italian Serie A football was uncovered by Italian Police, implicating league champions Juventus, and powerhouses AC Milan, Fiorentina, and Lazio. Teams were suspected of rigging games by selecting favorable referees, and even superstar Italian World Cup team goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon was charged with betting on football games. Initially, Juventus were stripped of their titles in 2004-05 and 2005–06, all four clubs were barred from European club competition in 2006-07, and all except Milan were forcibly relegated to Serie B. After all four clubs appealed, only Juventus remained relegated due while Milan were allowed to enter the third qualifying round of the Champions League (they went on to win the tournament.) The stripping of Juventus' titles stood.`<br />
* 2007 NBA Referee Scandal: In July 2007 it was revealed that National Basketball Association referee Tim Donaghy had gambled on 10 to 15 games, including games which he refereed. The matter is currently being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation as well as the NBA.<br />
* 2008 The Fix: Book by Declan Hill alleges that in the 2006 World Cup, the group game between Ghana and Italy, the round-of-16 game between Ghana and Brazil, and the Italy-Ukraine quarter-final were all fixed by Asian gambling syndicates to whom the final scores were known in advance. The German Football Federation (DFB) and German Football League (DFL) looked into claims made in a Der Spiegel interview with Hill that two Bundesliga matches were fixed by William Bee Wah Lim a fugitive with a 2004 conviction for match-fixing.<br />
* 2008: On October 1, it was reported that a Spanish judge who headed an investigation against Russian Mafia figures uncovered information alleging that the mobsters may have attempted to fix the 2007–08 UEFA Cup semi-final between eventual champion Zenit St. Petersburg and Bayern Munich. Both clubs denied any knowledge of the alleged scheme. Prosecutors in the German state of Bavaria, home to Bayern, later announced that they did not have enough evidence to justify a full investigation.<br />
* 2008: On October 4, suspicious online betting on the game between Norwich City and Derby County led some to question the validity of the Football League match. Gamblers in Asia were said to have placed a large amount of money down during halftime, which raised concerns over the outcome. The inquiry by The Football Association found no evidence that would suggest the match was fixed. Derby County ended up winning the match 2-1.<br />
* 2009: On May 6, a federal grand jury in Detroit indicted six former University of Toledo athletes—three each from the school's football and basketball programs—on charges of conspiracy to commit sports bribery in relation to their alleged involvement in a point shaving scheme that ran from 2003 through 2006. It is believed to be the first major U.S. gambling case involving two sports at the same college.<br />
* In November 2009, German police arrested 17 people on suspicion of fixing at least 200 soccer matches in 9 countries. Among the suspected games were those from the top leagues of Austria, Bosnia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Turkey, and games from the second highest leagues of Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. Three contests from the Champions League were under investigation, and 12 from the Europa League.<br />
* In 2010, several professional Starcraft players were suspected of being involved in illegal match fixing, with two people arrested and about seven gamers investigated, with two renowned gamers, Ma Jae-Yoon and By.CrocuS were confirmed as working as a broker between the betters and the gamers.<br />
* The fourth Test of Pakistan's summer 2010 cricket tour of England was alleged to have contained several incidents of spot fixing, involving members of the Pakistan team deliberately bowling no-balls at specific points in order to facilitate the potential defrauding of bookmakers.<br />
* In April 2011, a U.S. federal grand jury in San Diego indicted a group of 10 individuals on charges of running a point shaving scheme affecting an as yet-undetermined number of college basketball games. Three of the accused have ties to the University of San Diego's men's basketball team—one was the team's all-time leader in points and assists; another was a former player; and the third was a former assistant. Games at the University of California, Riverside, where the second indicted player also played, were also mentioned as potentially being fixed.<br />
* In June 2011, trials started for people allegedly involved in fixing Finnish football matches. One team, Tampere United was indefinitely suspended from Finnish football for accepting payments from a person known for match-fixing.<br />
<br />
Outside of sports<br />
The 1980s TV game show Starcade had a policy of matching contestants up based on their gaming abilities, which means that after potential contestants had played a number of video games for a certain amount of time, they would be paired up by their total scores. Although it was written in the rules that intentionally doing badly in order to be paired up to someone who really wasn't that good was grounds for disqualification, many contestants did it anyway, and were stripped of any awarded prizes and disqualified</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-84553334955241659782011-08-30T03:17:00.000+02:002011-08-30T03:17:04.334+02:00BETS OFFERED BY UK BOOKMAKERS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">This glossary of bets offered by UK bookmakers is a non-exhaustive list of traditional and popular bets offered by bookmakers in the United Kingdom. The 'multiple-selection' bets in particular are most often associated with horse racing selections but since the advent of fixed-odds betting on football matches some punters use these traditional combination bets for football selections as well.<br />
<br />
Types of bet<br />
Win<br />
A bet that produces a return only if the selection comes first in an event (i.e. wins). A win bet may be placed on a single event or the stake may be placed on two or more selections in a multiple bet (see below), all of which must win to give a return.<br />
<br />
Place<br />
A bet that produces a return only if the selection finishes first or within a predetermined number of positions (places) of the winner of an event. The return is often based on a fixed proportion of the win odds of the selection (e.g. \tfrac{1}{5} the odds a place 1,2,3). It is rare for bookmakers to offer the opportunity to bet solely on a selection finishing in a place without at least an equal bet on the selection to win (see Each-Way below). Exceptions include betting at Parimutuel-style odds in pool betting (aka. 'betting on "The Tote"' in the UK). More recently, some bookmakers have started to introduce special 'Place Only' markets, in which a punter can place a wager solely on a selection to finish placed, meaning you are not bound to having an equal or bigger stake to win. However, the odds are not set in stone as below; they are completely arbitary. Horse racing offers the following place odds for races with a given number of runners:<br />
<br />
All races<br />
Less than 5 runners: all up to win - i.e. the horse must win, but the odds for 1st place are the same as the win odds.<br />
5-7 runners: \tfrac{1}{4} the odds a place 1,2.<br />
8-11 runners: \tfrac{1}{5} the odds a place 1,2,3.<br />
<br />
Non-handicap races<br />
12+ runners: \tfrac{1}{5} the odds a place 1,2,3.<br />
<br />
Handicap races<br />
12-15 runners: \tfrac{1}{4} the odds a place 1,2,3.<br />
16+ runners: \tfrac{1}{4} the odds a place 1,2,3,4.<br />
<br />
Each-Way<br />
A combination of win and place bets of equal size. Each-Way bets may be placed on a single event or on two or more selections in a multiple bet. Each-Way multiple bets are settled on a win-to-win and place-to-place basis, i.e. win returns from one selection form the win stake on the next selection, and the place returns from one selection form the place stake on the next selection. An alternative way of settling an each-way multiple bet (although much less common) is for the total return from the first selection to be equally divided as an each-way bet on the next selection, and so on. This is known as an Each-Way all Each-Way bet and must be specifically stated as such on the betting slip as the settling method if the default Win to Win, Place to Place method of settling is not required.<br />
All the following bets are described as if they were win-only bets for ease of description; they may however, in almost all instances, be staked as an each-way bet.<br />
<br />
Single<br />
A bet on an individual selection.<br />
<br />
Multiple bet<br />
A double, treble or accumulator. A linked series of win singles where all the return from the first selection is automatically staked on the second selection as a win single and so on until all selections have won, thus giving a return, or until one selection loses in which case the whole bet is lost.<br />
<br />
Double<br />
A bet on two selections; both of which must win to gain a return.<br />
<br />
Treble<br />
A bet on three selections; all three of which must win to gain a return.<br />
<br />
Accumulator<br />
A bet on four or more selections; all of which must win to gain a return. Accumulators are often named after the number of selections they contain - thus we can get a fourfold, fivefold or sixfold accumulator (or even higher).<br />
<br />
Full cover bet<br />
A wager consisting of all possible doubles, trebles and accumulators across a given number of selections. These include: Trixie, Yankee, Canadian or Super Yankee, Heinz, Super Heinz and Goliath. A double may be thought of as a full cover bet with only two selections.<br />
<br />
Trixie<br />
A wager on three selections and consisting of four separate bets: 3 doubles and a treble. A minimum two selections must win to gain a return.<br />
<br />
Yankee<br />
A wager on four selections and consisting of 11 separate bets: 6 doubles, 4 trebles and a fourfold accumulator. A minimum two selections must win to gain a return.<br />
<br />
Canadian or Super Yankee<br />
A wager on five selections and consisting of 26 separate bets: 10 doubles, 10 trebles, 5 fourfolds and a fivefold accumulator. A minimum two selections must win to gain a return.<br />
<br />
Heinz<br />
A wager on six selections and consisting of 57 separate bets: 15 doubles, 20 trebles, 15 fourfolds, 6 fivefolds and a sixfold accumulator. A minimum two selections must win to gain a return. It is named for the '57 varieties' advertising slogan of the H. J. Heinz Company.<br />
<br />
Super Heinz<br />
A wager on seven selections and consisting of 120 separate bets: 21 doubles, 35 trebles, 35 fourfolds, 21 fivefolds, 7 sixfolds and a sevenfold accumulator. A minimum two selections must win to gain a return.<br />
<br />
Goliath<br />
A wager on eight selections and consisting of 247 separate bets: 28 doubles, 56 trebles, 70 fourfolds, 56 fivefolds, 28 sixfolds, 8 sevenfolds and an eightfold accumulator. A minimum two selections must win to gain a return.<br />
<br />
Full cover bets with singles<br />
Patent<br />
A wager on three selections and consisting of 7 separate bets: 3 singles, 3 doubles and a treble. Equivalent to a Trixie plus 3 singles. One winning selection will guarantee a return.<br />
<br />
Lucky 15<br />
A wager on four selections and consisting of 15 separate bets: 4 singles, 6 doubles, 4 trebles and a fourfold accumulator. Equivalent to a Yankee plus 4 singles. One winning selection will guarantee a return. The 'Lucky' part of the name of this and other similar bets comes from the bookmaker's practice of offering bonuses for one or more winners; usually including 'double the odds' for only one winning selection.<br />
<br />
Lucky 31<br />
A wager on five selections and consisting of 31 separate bets: 5 singles, 10 doubles, 10 trebles, 5 fourfolds and a fivefold accumulator. Equivalent to a Canadian plus 5 singles. One winning selection will guarantee a return.<br />
<br />
Lucky 63<br />
A wager on six selections and consisting of 63 separate bets: 6 singles, 15 doubles, 20 trebles, 15 fourfolds, 6 fivefolds and a sixfold accumulator. One winning selection will guarantee a return.<br />
<br />
Alphabet<br />
A bet consisting of six selections - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, usually on horse racing or greyhound racing. Selections 1, 2, and 3 form a patent, as described above. Selections 4, 5, and 6 form a second patent. Selections 2, 3, 4, and 5 form a Yankee, as described above. Selections 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 form a sixfold accumulator, as described above. The total number of bets in an alphabet is therefore 26 [2 patents at 7 bets each, plus 1 yankee at 11 bets, and one accumulator at one bet - (7+7+11+1=26)]. At least one correct selection guarantees a return.<br />
<br />
'Any to Come' (ATC) or 'if cash' bets<br />
Wagers which include conditional bets, i.e. if part of the wager produces a sufficient return then a predetermined amount may be wagered on one or more of the other selections. ATC and 'if cash' bets (generally referred to as 'conditional bets') are normally not accepted on Ante-post selections.<br />
<br />
Up-and-Down<br />
An example of an 'if cash' or 'any-to-come (ATC)' bet. A wager on two selections and consisting of two single bets. If one selection wins (hence the phrase 'if cash') then the original stake is placed as an additional single bet on the second selection. If both selections win each original stake is placed as a single on the other selection: in effect giving twice the winnings for just two stake units. The downside of only one winning selection is that both original stakes are lost.<br />
Usually played for 'single stakes about (SSA)' meaning stakes identical to the original ones are placed on selections in the case of one or more winners. 'Double stakes about (DSA)' means twice the original stake is placed on selections in the case of one or more winners. Note: an odds-on winner will not supply enough money for 'double stakes about' so the whole amount actually available is used.<br />
<br />
Round Robin<br />
A wager on three selections and consisting of 10 separate bets: 3 doubles, 1 treble and 3 up-and-down bets (each of 2 separate bets). It may be considered to be a Trixie to which 3 up-and-down bets have been added. One winning selection will guarantee a return.<br />
<br />
Flag<br />
A wager on four selections and consisting of 23 separate bets: 6 doubles, 4 trebles, 1 fourfold and 6 up-and-down bets. It may be considered to be a Yankee to which 6 up-and-down bets have been added. One winning selection will guarantee a return.<br />
<br />
Super Flag<br />
A wager on five selections and consisting of 46 separate bets: 10 doubles, 10 trebles, 5 fourfolds, 1 fivefold and 10 up-and-down bets. It may be considered to be a Canadian to which 10 up-and-down bets have been added. One winning selection will guarantee a return.<br />
<br />
Rounder<br />
A wager on three selections A, B and C consisting of 3 singles and 3 any-to-come (ATC) doubles to the original singles stakes. For example: £1 win A, ATC £1 double BC; £1 win B, ATC £1 double AC; £1 win C, ATC £1 double AB.<br />
<br />
Roundabout<br />
As Rounder (above) except the ATC doubles are to twice the stake, e.g. £1 win A, ATC £2 double BC etc. Note: In the event of an odds-on winner the complete returns (less than £2 in this example) from the winning single are bet on the appropriate double.<br />
<br />
Speciality bets<br />
Union Jack<br />
<br />
A wager on nine selections usually placed in a 3 by 3 grid on a purpose-designed betting slip and consisting of 8 trebles. If the selections A to I are placed thus:<br />
<br />
A B C<br />
D E F<br />
G H I<br />
<br />
then the 8 trebles are (horizontally) ABC, DEF, GHI, (vertically) ADG, BEH, CFI, (diagonally) AEI, CEG. All three selections in a particular treble must win to achieve a return. It is possible to get five or even six winners from the nine selections and yet still not achieve any return (e.g. A, B, E, F, G do not give a winning treble in example 1, and A, B, D, F, H, I do not produce a return in example 2, as shown below).<br />
<br />
Example 1<br />
<br />
A B C<br />
D E F<br />
G H I<br />
<br />
Example 2<br />
<br />
A B C<br />
D E F<br />
G H I<br />
<br />
Note that selection E appears in 4 of the trebles; A, C, G and I appear in 3 trebles; B, D, F, and H appear in only 2 trebles.<br />
This is considered more of a novelty bet.<br />
<br />
Forecasts<br />
Forecasts are bets on a single event that require the correct forecasting of the finishing order of (usually) the first two or three finishers in the event. Returns on correctly predicted finishing orders are calculated by industry sources via computer software that uses the starting price of all participants in the event, and are usually declared to a £1 stake unit on (mainly) horse and greyhound races.<br />
Straight Forecast<br />
A straight forecast (SF) or computer straight forecast (CSF) is a wager requiring the naming of two selections a and b to finish 1st and 2nd in the correct order in a specified event. Requires a single unit stake. Usually declared on horse and greyhound races of three or more runners. Equivalent to the USA exacta or perfecta, or the Canadian exactor.<br />
<br />
Reversed Forecast<br />
A reversed forecast (RF) is a wager requiring the naming of two selections to finish 1st and 2nd in either order in a specified event. It is the same as two straight forecasts on selections a and b: a 1st, b 2nd and b 1st, a 2nd. Requires two unit stakes. Equivalent to a "boxed" exacta/perfecta in North America, where the quinella is a similar wager that requires only one unit stake.<br />
Combination Forecast<br />
<br />
A combination forecast is a wager on three or more named selections in order to choose two of the selections to finish 1st and 2nd in the correct order in a specified event. It is the same as the number of straight forecasts on selections a, b ... n given by the formula n(n − 1) and therefore requires this number of unit stakes. E.g. 3 selections - 6 bets; 4 selections - 12 bets; 5 selections - 20 bets; etc. Equivalent to boxing an exacta/perfecta with more than two runners in North America.<br />
<br />
Tricast<br />
A tricast is a wager requiring the choosing of three named selections a, b and c to finish 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the correct order in a specified event. Requires a single unit stake. Accepted on horse races where 8 or more horses are declared and at least 6 run, and on greyhound races of 5 or more runners that form part of the bookmakers' main service. In North America, this wager is known as the trifecta (USA) or triactor (Canada).<br />
<br />
Combination Tricast<br />
A combination tricast is a wager on three or more named selections in order to choose three selections to finish 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the correct order in a specified event. Requires multiple unit stakes given by n(n − 1) (n − 2) where n is the number of selections. E.g. 3 selections, 6 bets; 4 selections, 24 bets; 5 selections, 60 bets; etc. In North America, this is a "boxed" trifecta.<br />
</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-82197524732812998182011-08-30T03:15:00.002+02:002011-08-30T03:15:45.706+02:00TOTE IRELAND<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Tote Ireland Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Horse Racing Ireland, with responsibility for the operation of a Totalisator on the 25 racecourses in the Republic of Ireland. Tote Ireland is at the heart of Irish Horseracing, providing a wide variety of betting options for all race goers. All profits made by Tote Ireland are used for the improvement of Irish Horseracing. 'Tote' is short for Totalisator and Tote Betting is similar to the Irish lottery. It works like this: all the stakes on a race are pooled; a deduction is made to cover costs and our contribution to racing. The remainder of the pool is divided by the number of winning units to give a dividend, which is inclusive of a 1 stake.<br />
In other words, Tote customers bet into a common pool, betting against one another, whereas in bookmaking, they bet against the bookmaker. Tote odds may fluctuate according to the pattern of betting and the amount of money staked on each horse. Betting ceases at the "off" of each race.<br />
<br />
History<br />
* In 1929 the Totalisator Act was passed for mechanical pool betting in Ireland with the Totalisator borrowing 20,000IR punts from sponsored races. Its first meeting in Fairyhouse on the April 21, 1930, offered win and place betting from 35 windows and had a Tote turnover of 5,035IR punts. By the end of 1930, with its best meetings at Punchestown, The Curragh, Galway and Tramore, the Tote had sold million tickets at 87 race meeting amassing 100,000IR punts.<br />
* In 1932 Tote Account was established, accepting bets by telegram. Also that year Tote attracted investors to the company and seven years later in 1939 slot machines were introduced, operating a single machine for each horse. By their end in 1965 they had sold 60 million tickets.<br />
* 1945 saw the forming of the Racing Board and in 1966 the Tote Jackpot Bet was introduced.<br />
* In 1987 computerised terminals were introduced and the IHA (Irish Horseracing Authority) was formed in 1994.<br />
* In 1999 the Tote launched their self service Touch Tote Terminals and only a year later in 2000 they took an amazing 1 million IR punts turnover for a single days racing, at the Galway festival on August 3, 1999. This record was broken at Galway in 2003 and once again in 2005, surpassing all previous records with a single race days take reaching 1,914,558.05<br />
* In 2001 Tote commenced co-mingling into UK Tote pools and in 2004 table service betting was introduced. Online wagering was introduced on the December 14, 2005.<br />
<br />
Tote Pools<br />
<br />
Tote Ireland operates the following pools:<br />
<br />
* Win - Runner must finish first<br />
* Place - Runner must finish within the first two places (in a 5-7 runner race), three places (8-15 runners and non-handicaps with 16+ runners) or four places (handicaps with 16+ runners). (From 23 April 2000 to 23 May 2010, Tote Ireland operated 4-place betting on ALL races with 16 or more runners.)<br />
* Each-way - Charged and settled as one bet to win and another bet to place (for example, a punter asking for a bet of "five euro each way" will be expected to pay ten euro.)<br />
* Jackpot - A Pick 4 bet on races 3-6 at every meeting<br />
* Pick Six - On races 1-6 at one meeting on all Sundays and occasionally on other days (introduced on 9 January 2011).<br />
* Placepot The better must correctly pick one horse to place in each of the races 2-7.<br />
* Exacta - The bettor must correctly pick the two runners which finish first and second, in the correct order.<br />
* Trifecta - The bettor must correctly pick the three runners which finish first, second, and third, in the correct order (introduced on 26 May 2010).<br />
* Daily Double - The bettor must correctly pick the winners of race 5 and race 6 (introduced on 22 January 2011).<br />
<br />
Tote Records<br />
<br />
* Largest single Jackpot winner = €207k Leopardstown 20/11/1988<br />
* Best Winning Odds: 1177/1 Naas 30/11/1988<br />
* Best Exacta Odds: 8,107/1 Galway 01/08/2001<br />
* Largest take single race: €437,686.15 Galway 29/07/2004<br />
* Largest take single race day: €1,914,558.05 Galway 28/07/2005</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-60388107954733857142011-08-30T03:14:00.001+02:002011-08-30T03:14:34.013+02:00BETTING POOL<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">A betting pool, sports lottery, sweep or office pool if done at work, is a form of gambling, specifically a variant of parimutuel betting influenced by lotteries, where gamblers pay a fixed price into a pool (from which taxes and a house "take" or "vig" are removed), and then make a selection on some outcome, usually related to sport. In an informal game, the vig is usually quite small or non-existent. The pool is evenly divided between those that have made the correct selection. There are no odds involved; each winner's payoff depends simply on the number of gamblers and the number of winners. (True parimutuel betting, which was historically referred to as pool betting, involves both odds calculations and variable wager amounts.)<br />
Contestants predict the outcome of sporting events that take place at a later time. The concept was introduced in 1923 by Littlewoods Pools where it was known as toto[clarification needed] and based on football (soccer) matches. Today in England, sports lotteries are more commonly referred to as football pools. American sports lotteries often do not require contestants to purchase a lottery ticket or make an initial wager. Hockey pools are common in North America, and footy tipping in Australia.<br />
<br />
A death pool is a betting pool concerning the death of someone.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-78118623280825385702011-08-30T03:13:00.002+02:002011-08-30T03:13:39.724+02:00SPREAD BETTING<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Spread betting is any of various types of wagering on the outcome of an event, where the pay-off is based on the accuracy of the wager, rather than a simple "win or lose" outcome, such as fixed-odds (or money-line) betting or parimutuel betting. A spread is a range of outcomes and the bet is whether the outcome will be above or below the spread. Spread betting has been a major growth market in the UK in recent years, with the number of gamblers heading towards one million. Spread betting carries a high level of risk, with potential losses or gains far in excess of the original money wagered. In the UK, spread betting is regulated by the Financial Services Authority rather than the Gambling Commission.<br />
<br />
Purpose<br />
The general purpose of spread betting is to create an active market for both sides of a binary wager, even if the outcome of an event may appear a priori (prima facie) to be biased towards one side or the other. In a sporting event a strong team may be matched up against a historically weaker team; almost every game will have a favorite and an underdog. If the wager is simply "Will the favorite win?", more bets are likely to be made for the favorite, possibly to such an extent that there would be very few betters willing to take the underdog.<br />
The point spread is essentially a handicap towards the underdog. The wager becomes "Will the favorite win by more than the point spread?" The point spread can be moved to any level to create an equal number of participants on each side of the wager. This allows a bookmaker to make a market by accepting wagers on both sides of the spread. The bookmaker charges a commission, or vigorish, and acts as the counterparty for each participant. As long as the total amount wagered on each side is roughly equal, the bookmaker is unconcerned with the actual outcome; profits instead come from the commissions.<br />
Because the spread is intended to create an equal number of wagers on either side, the implied probability is 50% for both sides of the wager. In order to profit, the bookmaker must pay one side (or both sides) less than this notional amount. In practice, spreads may be perceived as slightly favoring one side, and bookmakers will often revise their odds in order to manage their event risk.<br />
Spreads in sports wagering<br />
Spread betting was invented by Charles K. McNeil, a mathematics teacher from Connecticut who became a bookmaker in Chicago in the 1940s. The idea became popular in the United Kingdom in the 1980s. In North America, the gambler usually wagers that the difference between the scores of two teams will be less than or greater than the value specified by the bookmaker. An example:<br />
<br />
* The bookmaker advertises a spread of 4 points in a certain game;<br />
<br />
* If the gambler bets on the "underdog", he is said to take the points and will win if the underdog's score plus the spread is greater than the favorite's score.<br />
<br />
* The eventual score is Underdog 8, Favorite 10: 8 + 4 > 10, so the gambler wins;<br />
* The eventual score is Underdog 8, Favorite 13: 8 + 4 < 13, so the gambler loses.<br />
<br />
* If the gambler bets on the "favorite", he gives the points and will win if the favorite's score minus the spread is greater than the underdog's score:<br />
<br />
* The eventual score is Underdog 5, Favorite 10: 10 - 4 > 5, so the gambler wins;<br />
* The eventual score is Underdog 8, Favorite 10: 10 - 4 < 8, so the gambler loses.<br />
<br />
Spreads are frequently, though not always, specified in half-point fractions to eliminate the possibility of a tie, known as a push. In the event of a push, the game is considered no action, and no money is won or lost. However, this is not a desirable outcome for the sports book, as they are forced to refund every bet, and although both the book and its bettors will be even, if the cost of overhead is taken into account, the book has actually lost money by taking bets on the event. Sports books are generally permitted to state "ties win" or "ties lose" to avoid the necessity of refunding every bet.<br />
<br />
A teaser is a bet that alters the spread in the gambler's favor by a predetermined margin – in American football the teaser margin is often six points. For example, if the line is 3.5 points and the bettor wants to place a teaser bet on the underdog, he takes 9.5 points instead; a teaser bet on the favorite would mean that the gambler takes 2.5 points instead of having to give the 3.5. In return for the additional points, the payout if the gambler wins is less than even money. At some establishments, the "reverse teaser" also exists, which alters the spread against the gambler, who gets paid at more than evens if the bet wins.<br />
<br />
Bets on the total (over/under)<br />
In addition to the spread bet, a very common "side bet" on an event will be the total (commonly called the over/under or O/U) bet. This is a bet on the total number of points scored by both teams. Suppose the Cowboys are playing the Giants and the total is set at 44.5 points. If the final score is Cowboys 24, Giants 17, the total is 41 and bettors who took the under will win. If the final score is Cowboys 30, Giants 31, the total is 61 and bettors who took the over will win. The total is popular because it allows gamblers to bet on their overall perception of the game (e.g., a high-scoring offensive show or a defensive battle) without needing to pick the actual winner.<br />
In the UK, these bets are sometimes called spread bets, but rather than a simple win/loss, the bet pays more or less depending on how far from the spread the final result is.<br />
Example: In a football match the bookmaker believes that 12 or 13 corners will occur, thus the spread will be set at 12-13.<br />
<br />
* A gambler believes that there will be more than 13 corners, and "buys" at £25 a point at 13.<br />
<br />
* If the number of corners is 16, the gambler wins (16 - 13) = 3 x £25.<br />
* If the number of corners is 10, the gambler loses (13 - 10) = 3 x £25.<br />
<br />
* A "sell" transaction is similar except that it is made against the bottom value of the spread.<br />
* Often "live pricing" will change the spread during the course of an event, allowing a profit to be increased or a loss minimized.<br />
<br />
In North American sports betting many of these wagers would be classified as over-under (or, more commonly today, total) bets rather than spread bets. However, these are for one side or another of a total only, and do not increase the amount won or lost as the actual moves away from the bookmaker's prediction. Instead, over-under or total bets are handled much like point-spread bets on a team, with the usual 10/11 (4.55%) commission applied. Many Nevada sports books will allow these bets to be used in parlays, just like team point spread bets, making it possible to bet, for instance, "the Packers and the over", and be paid if both the Packers "cover" the point spread and the total score is higher than the book's prediction. (Such parlays usually pay off at odds of 13:5 with no "vig", just as a standard two-team parlay would.)<br />
<br />
Mathematics of spread betting<br />
<br />
The mathematical analysis of spreads and spread betting is a large and growing subject. For example, sports that have simple 1-point scoring systems (e.g., baseball, hockey, and soccer) may be analysed using Poisson and Skellam statistics.<br />
Financial spread betting<br />
By far the largest part of the official market in the UK concerns financial instruments; the leading spread-betting companies make most of their revenues from financial markets, their sports operations being much less significant.[citation needed] Financial spread betting in the United Kingdom closely resembles the futures and options markets, the major differences being<br />
<br />
* the "charge" occurs through a wider bid-offer spread;<br />
* spread betting has a different tax regime compared with securities and futures exchanges (see below);<br />
* spread betting is more flexible since it is not limited to exchange hours or definitions, can create new instruments relatively easily (e.g. individual stock futures), and may have guaranteed stop losses (see below); and<br />
* the trading is off-exchange, with the contract existing directly between the market-making company and the client, rather than exchange-cleared, and is thus subject to a lower level of regulation although the spread betting companies themselves are some of the most regulated entities in the City of London.[citation needed]<br />
<br />
Financial spread betting is a way to speculate on financial markets in the same way as trading a number of derivatives. In particular the financial derivative Contract for difference (CFD) which in many ways mirrors the spread bet. In fact a number of Financial derivate trading companies offer both financial spread bets and CFDs in parallel using the same trading platform.<br />
Unlike fixed-odds betting, the amount won or lost can be unlimited as there is no single stake to limit any loss. However, it is usually possible to negotiate limits with the bookmaker:<br />
<br />
* A "stop loss" or "stop" will automatically close the bet if the spread moves against the gambler by a specified amount.<br />
* A "stop win", "limit" or "take profit" will close the bet when the spread moves in a gambler's favor by a specified amount.<br />
<br />
Spread betting has moved outside the ambit of sport and financial markets (that is, those dealing solely with share, bonds and derivatives), to cover a wide range of markets, such as house prices.<br />
In a falling stockmarket, financial spread betting can also be used by investors as a means of hedging against predicted losses in a portfolio of shares.<br />
Tax treatment<br />
In the UK and some other European countries the profit from spread betting is free from tax. The UK and some other European countries tax authorities designate financial spread betting as gambling and not investing, meaning it is free from capital gains tax and stamp tax, despite the fact that its regulated as a financial product by the Financial Services Authority in the UK. Most traders are also not liable for Income Tax unless they rely solely on their profits from financial spread betting to support themselves. The popularity of financial spread betting in the UK and some other European countries, compared to trading other speculative financial instruments such as CFDs and futures is partly due to this tax advantage. However, this also means any losses cannot be offset against future earnings for tax calculations.<br />
Conversely, in most other countries financial spread betting income is considered taxable. For example the Australian Tax Office issued a decision in March 2010 saying "Yes, the gains from financial spread betting are assessable income under section 6-5 or section 15-15 of the ITAA 1997". Similarly, any losses on the spread betting contracts are deductible. This has resulted in a much lower interest in financial spread betting in those countries.<br />
Financial spread bet example<br />
Suppose Lloyds TSB is trading on the market at 410p bid, and 411p offer. A spread-betting company is also offering 410-411p. We use cash bets with no definite expiry, or "rolling daily bets" as they are referred to by the spread betting companies.<br />
If I think the share price is going to go up, I might bet £10 a point (i.e., £10 per penny the shares moves) at 411p. We use the offer price since I am "buying" the share (betting on its increase). Note that my total loss (if LloydsTSB went to 0p) could be up to £4110, so this is as risky as buying 1000 of the shares normally.<br />
If a bet goes overnight, the bettor is charged a financing cost (or receives it, if the bettor is shorting the stock). This might be set at LIBOR + a certain percentage, usually around 2/3%.<br />
Thus, in the example, if Lloyds TSB are trading at 411p, then for every day I keep the bet open I am charged [taking finance cost to be 7%] ((411p x 10) * 7% / 365 ) = £0.78821 (or 78.8p)<br />
On top of this, the bettor needs an amount (AKA collateral) in the spread-betting account to cover potential losses. Usually this is either 5 or 10% of the total exposure you are taking on but can go up to 100% on illiquid stocks. In this case £4110 * 0.1 or 0.05 = £411.00 or £ 205.50<br />
<br />
If at the end of the bet Lloyds TSB traded at 400-401p, I need to cover that £4110 - £400*10 (£4000) = £110 difference by putting extra deposit (or collateral) into the account.<br />
The bettor will usually receive all dividends and other corporate adjustments in the financing charge each night. For example, suppose Lloyds TSB goes ex-dividend with dividend of 23.5p. The bettor will receive that amount. The exact amount received varies depending on the rules and policies of the spread betting company, and the taxes that are normally charged in the home tax country of the shares.<br />
<br />
Dangers of financial spread betting<br />
According to an article in The Times dated 10 April 2009 approximately 30,000 spread bet accounts were opened last year, and that the largest study of gambling in the UK on behalf of the Gambling Commission found that serious problems developed in almost 15% of spread betters compared to 1% of other gambling. In addition a report from Cass Business School found that only 1 in 5 punters ends up a winner. As noted in the report, this corresponds to the same ratio of successful punters in regular trading.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-23118904234598836452011-08-30T03:12:00.002+02:002011-08-30T03:12:38.405+02:00ASIAN HANDICAP<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">An Asian Handicap (named so simply because of its Eastern origins) is a gambling term used to describe spread betting in soccer that has gained popularity over the years. The handicaps typically range from one quarter goal to several goals and can be described in terms of half or even quarter goals.<br />
Most importantly, Asian Handicap betting reduces the possible number of outcomes from three (in traditional 1X2 wagering) to two by eliminating the draw outcome. This simplification delivers two betting options that each have a near 50% chance of success.<br />
Asian Handicaps are both good and bad for bookmakers. On one hand, they help bookmakers minimize risk by facilitating trading with parity or balancing the amount of wagering on each side of the match. This enables bookmakers to take larger positions on major matches. On the other hand, Asian Handicap markets are typically low margin offerings that do not contribute as significantly to the gross win as other, higher vigorish betting options like 1X2.<br />
The term Asian Handicap was applied to this method of betting by a journalist, Joe Saumarez Smith, in November 1998. He was asked by an Indonesia bookmaker, Joe Phan, to provide a translation of the betting method that was termed 'hang cheng betting' by bookmakers in Asia.<br />
<br />
Description<br />
Football (soccer) is one of the few sports in the world where a tie is a fairly common outcome. With traditional fixed odds, ties are treated as an additional outcome to the game. In other words, bettors lose when they place a wager on either team to win and the game ties. With Asian Handicaps, however, the chance for a tie is eliminated by use of a handicap that forces a winner. This creates a situation where each team has a 50-50 chance of winning; similar to the odds for a basketball or baseball game where a tie is impossible. This system works in a straight-forward manner. The bookmakers's goal is to create a handicap or "line" that will make the chance of either team winning (considering the handicap) as close to 50% as possible. Since the odds are as close to 50% as possible, bookmakers offer payouts close to even money, or 1.90 to 2.00. Asian Handicaps start at a quarter goal and can go as high as 2.5 or 3 goals in matches with a huge disparity in ability. What makes Asian Handicaps most interesting is the use of quarter goals to get the "line" as close as possible. Taken in conjunction with the posted total for the game, the handicap essentially predicts the game's final score.<br />
<br />
Quarter Goal or Two Way Handicaps<br />
Subsequently, many matches are handicapped in ½ and ¼ intervals; both of which eliminate the possibility of a push since no one can score a half-goal. Quarter (¼) handicaps split the bet between the two next closest ¼ intervals. For instance, a $1000 bet with a handicap of 1 ¾ is the same as betting $500 at 1 ½ and $500 at 2. With ¼ handicap bets, you can win and tie (win ½ of wager) or lose and tie (lose ½ wager). The ¼-goal handicap may be expressed by some bookmakers as "0 and ½", or (especially for bookmakers whose systems are designed for sports like American football and basketball (where bets have a handicap that is designed to make the odds as close to even as possible)) as "pk (for "pick-em") and ½".<br />
<br />
Match: Everton vs. Newcastle United<br />
<br />
Handicap: 0 : +1.0, +1.5<br />
<br />
Explained: This handicap states that half of your bet goes on Newcastle winning, or losing by less than 1 goal, and half on Newcastle winning, or losing by less than 1.5 goals.<br />
If the final score is Everton 1-0 Newcastle, half your bet would be refunded due to draw (Everton 1 - +1 Newcastle, i.e: Newcastle lost by exactly one goal). The second half would win (Everton 1 - +1.5 Newcastle, i.e: Newcastle lost by less than 1.5 goals).<br />
Whole Handicaps and Draws<br />
In the event that a whole number is used for the handicap, the handicap adjusted final score could result in a draw. This situation is not a draw, but a push. With a push, all bettors have their original wagers returned as there is no winner.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-12425077513510059912011-08-30T03:11:00.002+02:002011-08-30T03:11:32.666+02:00EVEN MONEY<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Even money describes a wagering proposition with even odds - if the bettor loses a bet, he or she stands to lose the same amount of money that the winner of the bet would win (less any vigorish or "juice"). The term has come to have meaning in the wider English usage beyond actual gambling, however, as a way of describing an event whose occurrence is about as likely to occur as not. This is also known as 50-50 though technically they are different since the amount won on a 50-50 bet does not mean that the chance of winning is also 50-50, in fact it is likely less than a 50% chance they will win, especially if they are playing against a professional gambling establishment (casino, sportsbook, etc.) since this is how casinos make their money.<br />
Successful gamblers have to examine any bets they make in light of the odds really being even money.<br />
Even money bets do not mean that the bettor can't lose, like betting red or black on roulette. The presence of the green 0, and even the 00, means that statistically the bettor will lose more than 50% of the time. There are variations of the game that offer en prison on 37 number tables so if a 0 is rolled, the bettor neither wins or loses but his or her bet rides again on the next roll; if the bet-upon event occurs on the second spin, the even-money wager is returned to the bettor. There still is not a 50-50 chance of winning, but a lot closer, since the house edge is reduced by almost 50%.<br />
In blackjack, even money bet is a side bet offered to a player that has a natural (an Ace and a ten-valued card) in case the dealer has an Ace as a face-up card. This bet costs half the size of the original bet. Even money bet protects the player from a push if the dealer has a blackjack. In case the dealer does have a blackjack, the player will push on the original bet and get a 2 to 1 payout on the even money side bet. However if the dealer does not have a blackjack, the player will be paid 3 to 2 on the original bet and lose the even money bet.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-4780148479646603282011-08-30T03:05:00.000+02:002011-08-30T03:08:55.697+02:00FULL COVER BET<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">A full cover bet is any bet which consists of all available multiple bets over a given number of selections.<br />
<br />
Examples of full cover bets:<br />
<br />
* Trixie - three selections<br />
* Yankee - four selections<br />
* Canadian or Super Yankee - five selections<br />
* Heinz - six selections<br />
<br />
Examples of full cover bets with singles included:<br />
<br />
* Patent - three selections<br />
* Lucky 15 - four selections<br />
* Lucky 31 - five selections<br />
* Lucky 63 - six selections<br />
<br />
The Lucky bets are so named because of the bookmaker's practice of offering bonuses for one or more winning selections; most common of which is 'double the odds' for one winner. The offering of a percentage increase in winnings for the success of two or more selections in these Lucky bets is primarily to compensate for the compounding of the overround when two or more events with individual overrounds on their books are combined in doubles, trebles and accumulators.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-41394830526224486382011-08-26T21:13:00.000+02:002011-08-26T21:13:11.784+02:00DUE COLUMN BETTING<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;"> 'Due-column Betting' (also: 'due column betting') is a type of fixed-profit betting strategy whereby a bettor increases the amount he wagers on a single proposition after each successive loss. According to this system, the bettor determines a target profit before he begins betting. Then he increases his bet on propositions following a loss in such a way that a win will recover the sum of all amounts he lost from his preceding bets plus gain him his predetermined profit.<br />
While similar to both the Martingale and Labouchere strategies, "Due-column betting" differs from other like betting systems in that it accounts for the odds variance in successive parimutuel propositions. Still, it is often used interchangeably with the casino gambling term "progressive system," which refers to several similar betting systems typically employed at casino gaming tables.<br />
<br />
System Explanation<br />
Due-column wagering is considered a fixed-profit system because the Due-column bettor determines his desired profit before he begins betting. However, whereas with percentage-based money-management systems the bettor varies his bets as a percentage of his bankroll, with a series of Due-column bets he bets the amount necessary to make his desired profit plus the total amount necessary to recuperate what he has lost in all previous wagers.<br />
Supposedly betting this way ensures that if the bettor correctly calls a single race at any point in the series he will have profited and can cease betting or begin a new series. Proponents of the system argue that the probability of experiencing ten consecutive losses if the bettor is an average, 33 percent handicapper is 1.82 percent. Consequently, they conclude, a Due-column bettor has a given probability of profiting from slightly more than 98 percent of all 10-race series. And, they therefore believe, a Due-column bettor will win the product of his designated profit times the expected percentage of wins per the number of series played; or, assuming the bettor's desired profit is $100, he will win about $9,800 per 100 series played.<br />
The coining of "Due-column" is due to bettors' creating charts to track their bets. A typical Due-column chart is as follows:<br />
<br />
Mathematical Analysis<br />
There are several problems with the assumptions that Due-column bettors make, not the least of which is that the mathematical basis for the system is flawed. The average bettor in any series of horse races is a 33 percent handicapper with an average mutuel of $5.00. Such a bettor's mathematical expectation can be expressed as follows:<br />
<br />
E(x) = .33 <--> ($1.50) - .67 = -$.175<br />
<br />
According to this analysis, the average bettor's mathematical expectation would not provide a profit, but a loss because his expectation is a negative gain every bet. As a result, the bettor's playing the Due-column system will only multiply his losses over time. After 10 losses given the expression above, for instance, the bettor would average a loss of $1.75, thus making an upward-sloping expectation impossible.<br />
Theoretically, the solution to this flaw in the Due-column system is for the bettor to consistently handicap and have a mutuel above the average rates. If, for example, a bettor had a handicap of 35 percent and mutuel of $6 his expectation could be expressed as follows:<br />
<br />
E(x) = .35 x (2) - .65 = .05<br />
<br />
This above-average bettor would then have a positive expected gain of 5 percent or $.05 every race. Still, should that bettor attempt to apply the Due-column system to increase his gains he will run into a second problem: Diminishing returns.<br />
The bettor would run into diminishing returns because, as seen in the example Due-column chart above, the bets he must make increase exponentially compared to each preceding bet with each successive loss. Because of the nature of parimutuel betting, then, the bettor's larger wagers will depress his payout odds. As a result, the bettor's real expected return for the session will deflate far below his original target profit.<br />
Furthermore, in horse racing no single horse runs more than one race. So, though jockeys might ride more than one race, each race is arguably an "independent event" and the Due-column bettor will therefore run afoul of the Law of Independent Trials; that is, believing the outcome of each event is significantly dependent on the outcome of the last he will commit the Gambler's Fallacy.<br />
Indeed, insomuch as jockeys do ride in multiple races, horse races are not entirely independent events. The poor morale and physical enervation of a jockey who recently lost a close race previously could undermine his ability to win the following race. But even the worst jockey will have minimal effect on an outcome if riding a horse that performs far better than the other racers.<br />
As with any series of independent propositions, then, only with trials numbering in the thousands can a Due-column bettor ensure that, on average, his historical number of wins will match his probable number of wins. Consequently, experiencing more than 10 losses in a single series is likely to occur according to the Law of Large Numbers, and as the chart above shows, continuing to play the Due-column system will require risking a bankroll proportionately far too large to wager for the expected return.<br />
For all these reasons using the Due-column system is not only unproductive, but counterproductive. Because of this many contemporary gambling strategists strongly advise players not to consider it a winning strategy.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-29523440973360798302011-08-26T21:12:00.000+02:002011-08-30T03:08:55.698+02:00BETTING STRATEGY<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">A betting strategy or betting system is a structured approach to gambling intended to counter the inherent bias held by the house in casino and card games and by bookmakers in horseracing and sports betting. A successful strategy should increase the odds of winning in order to produce long term profits from a pursuit which under normal circumstances will only ever result in a long term loss.<br />
All betting systems are predicated on statistical analysis, seeking to exploit the rare circumstances when the odds are in the favour of the player. Though the basis of all risk is fundamentally the same, betting systems vary in relation to the rules and circumstances of each particular game. The most established betting systems include:<br />
<br />
* Card games – Card counting<br />
* Roulette – Martingale<br />
* Horse racing – Hedging, Arbitrage<br />
* Sports – Handicapping[citation needed]<br />
<br />
Independent events<br />
The following betting strategies apply to games which operate on independent events. For such games, the odds of a particular outcome are identical for every bet played. No such strategy can beat the house edge (if any) in the long run, and all of them trade off many small wins for a big loss or vice versa.<br />
* Martingale – doubling bet after each loss until a win is achieved (or fails when the amount of the bet becomes excessive)<br />
* Kelly criterion<br />
* Split martingale<br />
* Anti-martingale<br />
* d'Alembert<br />
* Contra d'Alembert<br />
* Regression<br />
* Paroli of Three<br />
<br />
Horse racing systems<br />
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2010)<br />
Horse racing betting systems are based on a number of criteria, some of which include analysis of the horses' form.<br />
Often horse racing systems are based on financial systems such as hedging (betting on multiple outcomes in a race) and arbitrage (lay the horse a low price and back it at a high price). Other horse racing systems exist which are based on items such as horse name, jockey form, trainer form, and lane draw. Modern horse racing systems can rely on specific betting possibilities only offered on betting exchanges.<br />
Loss recovery systems such as Martingale can also be applied to horse racing.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-22390701123137049982011-08-26T21:11:00.000+02:002011-08-30T03:08:55.699+02:00ONLINE GAMBLING<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Online gambling, also known as Internet gambling and iGambling, is a general term for gambling using the Internet.<br />
<br />
Online poker<br />
Online poker tables commonly offer Texas hold 'em, Omaha, Seven-card stud, razz, HORSE and other game types in both tournament and ring game structures. Players play against each other rather than the "house", with the card room making its money through "rake" and through tournament fees.<br />
Online casinos<br />
There is a large number of online casinos, in which people can play casino games such as roulette, blackjack, pachinko, baccarat and many others. These games are played against the "house", which makes money due to the fact that the odds are in its favor. Online sports betting<br />
Bookmakers, spread betting firms and betting exchanges offer a variety of ways to wager over the Internet on the results of sporting events, the most popular being fixed-odds gambling.<br />
Online bingo<br />
There are a number of online bingo rooms offering games on the Internet.<br />
Online lotteries<br />
Most lotteries are run by governments and are heavily protected from competition due to their ability to generate large taxable cash flows. The first online lotteries were run by private individuals or companies and licensed to operate by small countries. Most private online lotteries have stopped trading as governments have passed new laws giving themselves and their own lotteries greater protection. Government controlled lotteries now offer their games online.<br />
<br />
Mobile gambling<br />
Developments in the use of wireless, mobile devices to gamble follow in the wake of mainstream online gambling.<br />
Funds transfers<br />
Normally, gamblers upload funds to the online gambling company, make bets or play the games that it offers, and then cash out any winnings. Gamblers can often fund gambling accounts by credit card or debit card, and cash out winnings directly back to the card; most U.S. banks, however, prohibit the use of their cards for the purpose of Internet gambling, and attempts by Americans to use credit cards at Internet gambling sites are usually rejected. A number of electronic money services offer accounts with which online gambling can be funded; however, many top fund-transfer sites such as FirePay, Neteller & Moneybookers have discontinued service for U.S. residents.<br />
Payment by cheque and wire transfer is also common.<br />
<br />
Legality<br />
Antigua and Barbuda<br />
The government of the island nation of Antigua and Barbuda, which licenses Internet gambling entities, made a complaint to the World Trade Organization about the U.S. government's actions to impede online gaming. The Caribbean country won the preliminary ruling but WTO's appeals body somewhat narrowed that favorable ruling in April 2005. The appeals decision held that various state laws argued by Antigua and Barbuda to be contrary to the WTO agreements were not sufficiently discussed during the course of the proceedings to be properly assessed by the panel. However, the appeals panel also ruled that the Wire Act and two other federal statutes prohibiting the provision of gambling services from Antigua to the United States violated the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services, or "GATS". Although the United States convinced the appeals panel that these laws were "necessary" to protect public health and morals, the asserted United States defense on these grounds was ultimately rejected because its laws relating to remote gambling on horse-racing were not applied equally to foreign and domestic online betting companies, and thus the United States could not establish that its laws were non-discriminatory. On March 30, 2007, the WTO confirmed the U.S. "had done nothing to abide by an earlier verdict that labeled some U.S. Internet gambling restrictions as illegal." On June 19, 2007, Antigua and Barbuda filed a claim with the WTO for USD $3.4 billion in trade sanctions against the United States, along with a request for authorization to ignore U.S. patent and copyright laws. This followed by a day similar demands for compensation made by the European Union. Many of the companies operating out of Antigua are publicly traded on various stock exchanges, specifically the London Stock Exchange. Antigua has met British regulatory standards and has been added to the UK's “white list”, which allows licensed Antiguan companies to advertise in the UK.<br />
<br />
Australia<br />
On 28 June 2001 the Australian Government passed the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 (IGA). The government said that the IGA was important to protect Australians from the harmful effects of gambling. The IGA targets the providers of interactive gambling services. The IGA makes it an offence to provide an interactive gambling service to a customer physically present in Australia, but it is not an offence for Australian residents to play poker or casino games online. In stark contrast to the USA, sports betting online is also completely legal in Australia, with many state government licensed sportsbooks in operation, such as Centrebet, Sportingbet & Betfair. The offense applies to all interactive gambling service providers, whether based in Australia or offshore, whether Australian or foreign owned.<br />
<br />
France<br />
On March 5, 2009, France proposed new laws to regulate and tax Internet gambling. Budget minister Eric Woerth stated the French gambling market would expand to adapt to "Internet reality." He further stated "Rather than banning 25,000 websites, we'd rather give licenses to those who will respect public and social order." The new regulations are expected to take effect in June 2010. Betting exchanges, however, will remain illegal under the new plans.<br />
India<br />
Online gambling is a banned offense in the state of Maharashtra under the "Bombay Wager Act". Other acts/legislations are silent with respect to online gambling/online gaming in India.<br />
<br />
Israel<br />
The Israel gambling law (Israeli Penal Law 5737 - 1977) does not refer specifically to online gambling (land based gambling and playing games of chances is prohibited except in the cases of the Israel Lottery and the Israeli Commission for Sports Gambling). In December 2005, the Attorney General ordered all online gambling operations, online backgammon included, to close their businesses and at the same time commanded credit card companies to cease cooperating with online gambling websites. In May 2007, the Attorney General had excluded the online backgammon website Play65 of the ruling, due to "the unique circumstances of the site activity", allowing to return to full activity in Israel.<br />
<br />
Russia<br />
Russian legislation, enacted in December 2006, prohibits online gambling altogether (as well as any gambling relying on telecommunications technology).<br />
<br />
United States<br />
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in November 2002 that the Federal Wire Act prohibits electronic transmission of information for sports betting across telecommunications lines but affirmed a lower court ruling that the Wire Act "'in plain language' does not prohibit Internet gambling on a game of chance."<br />
Online gambling, which was once illegal in all but two states, is now accepted by most states, though some states have specific laws against online gambling of any kind. In addition, owning an online gaming operation without proper licensing is illegal, and no states currently grant online gaming licenses. Despite this, online gambling now generates more than $60 billion in revenue for the United States.<br />
In March 2003, Deputy Assistant Attorney General John G. Malcolm testified before the Senate Banking Committee regarding the special problems presented by online gambling. A major concern of the United States Department of Justice is online money laundering. The anonymous nature of the Internet and the use of encryption make it especially difficult to trace online money laundering transactions.<br />
In April 2004 Google and Yahoo!, the two largest Internet search engines, announced that they were removing online gambling advertising from their sites. The move followed a United States Department of Justice announcement that, in what some say is a contradiction of the Appeals Court ruling, the Wire Act relating to telephone betting applies to all forms of Internet gambling, and that any advertising of such gambling "may" be deemed as aiding and abetting. Critics of the Justice Department's move say that it has no legal basis for pressuring companies to remove advertisements and that the advertisements are protected by the First Amendment. In April 2005, Yahoo! has instigated a restrictive policy about gambling ads.<br />
In August 2004, Casino City, an online portal for Internet gambling sites, sued the U.S. Department of Justice. The complaint alleged, inter alia, that the website's business—promoting Internet gambling—was legal, and requested a declaration from the court that its business was protected by the First Amendment. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana dismissed the case in February 2005.<br />
<br />
In its opinion, the District Court wrote,<br />
It is well-established that the First Amendment does not protect the right to advertise illegal activity... The government's interest is specifically directed towards the advertising of illegal activity, namely Internet gambling... Furthermore, the speech in which the plaintiff wishes to engage is misleading because it falsely portrays the image that Internet gambling is legal... Because plaintiff's speech concerns misleading information and illegal activities, it does not fall within the speech that is protected by the First Amendment.<br />
The U.S. Court of Appeals, 5th Circuit, dismissed Casino City's appeal in January, 2006.<br />
<br />
In February 2005 the North Dakota House of Representatives passed a bill to legalize and regulate online poker and online poker cardroom operators in the state. Testifying before the State Senate, Nigel Payne, CEO of Paradise Poker, pledged to relocate to the state if the bill became law. However, the measure was defeated by the State Senate in March 2005. Rep. Jim Kasper, who sponsored the 2005 legislation, planned to introduce similar bills in the 2007 North Dakota legislative session.<br />
In July 2006, David Carruthers, the CEO of BetonSports, a company publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange, was detained in Texas while changing planes on his way from London to Costa Rica. He and ten other individuals had been previously charged in a sealed indictment with violations of US federal laws relating to illegal gambling. While as noted above, a United States Appeals court has stated that the Wire Act does not apply to non-sports betting, the Supreme Court of the United States previously refused to hear an appeal of the conviction of Jay Cohen, where lower courts held that the Wire Act does make it illegal to own a sports betting operation that offers such betting to United States citizens.<br />
The BetOnSports indictment alleged violations of at least nine different federal statutes, including 18 USC Sec. 1953 (Operation of an Illegal Gambling Business). Carruthers is currently under house arrest on a one million dollar bail bond.<br />
In September 2006, Sportingbet reported that its chairman, Peter Dicks, was detained in New York City on a Louisiana warrant while traveling in the United States on business unrelated to online gaming. Louisiana is one of the few states that has a specific law prohibiting gambling online. At the end of the month, New York dismissed the Louisiana warrant.<br />
Also in September 2006, just before adjourning for the midterm elections, both the House of Representatives and Senate passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (as a section of the unrelated SAFE Port Act) to make transactions from banks or similar institutions to online gambling sites illegal. This differed from a previous bill passed only by the House that expanded the scope of the Wire Act. The passed bill only addressed banking issues. The Act was signed into law on October 13, 2006, by President George W. Bush. At the UIGEA bill-signing ceremony, Bush did not mention the Internet gambling measure, which was supported by the National Football League but opposed by banking groups.<br />
In response to Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, a number of online gambling operators including PartyGaming, Bwin, Cassava Enterprises, and Sportingbet announced that real-money gambling operations would be suspended for U.S. customers. PartyGaming's stock dropped by 60% following its announcement. Other operators such as PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Bodog, and World Sports Exchange announced their intention to continue serving customers in the U.S.<br />
The regulation called for in the UIGEA were issued in November 2008. The regulation does not define "unlawful Internet gambling."<br />
On April 26, 2007, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) introduced HR 2046, the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act, which would modify UIGEA by providing a provision for licensing of Internet gambling facilities by the Director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.<br />
On June 7, 2007, Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) introduced HR 2610, the Skill Game Protection Act, which would legalize Internet poker, bridge, chess, and other games of skill. Also on June 7, Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) introduced H.R. 2607, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act. IGRTEA would legislate Internet gambling tax collection requirements.<br />
On June 8, 2007, the House Financial Services Committee, chaired by Barney Frank, held a hearing entitled, "Can Internet Gambling Be Effectively Regulated to Protect Consumers and the Payments System?". Expert witnesses at the hearing testified that Internet gambling can be effectively regulated for age verification, money laundering issues, facilitation of state and federal tax collection, and for issues relating to compulsive gambling.<br />
On September 26, 2008, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) introduced S.3616, the Internet Skill Game Licensing and Control Act. This bill would amend title 31, United States Code, to provide for the licensing of Internet skill game facilities, and for other purposes. This is the first bill related to online skill games that has been introduced in the Senate.<br />
On May 6, 2009, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), re-introduced the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act (H.R. 2267). The legislation would establish a framework to permit licensed gambling operators to accept wagers from individuals in the U.S. and mandates a number of significant consumer protections, including safeguards against compulsive and underage gambling, money laundering, fraud and identify theft. Additional provisions in the legislation reinforce the rights of each state to determine whether to allow Internet gambling activity for people accessing the Internet within the state and to apply other restrictions on the activity as determined necessary. The legislation also would allow states and Native American tribes with experience in regulating gambling to play a role in the regulatory process.<br />
Also on May 6, 2009, as a companion to Rep. Frank’s Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act of 2009 Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) re-introduced the Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act (H.R. 2268) which would ensure that individual and corporate taxes owed on regulated Internet gambling activities are collected.<br />
<br />
The Poker Players Alliance has raised $3million to help get the law repealed.<br />
In June 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice seized over $34 million belonging to over 27,000 accounts in the Southern District of New York Action Against Online Poker Players. This is the first time money was seized from individual players as compared to the gaming company. Jeff Ifrah, the lawyer for one of the account management companies affected, said that the government “has never seized an account that belongs to players who are engaged in what [Ifrah] would contend is a lawful act of playing peer-to-peer poker online."<br />
On October 29, 2009, a Joint Committee on Taxation analysis found that regulating Internet gambling, as proposed in pending legislation introduced by Representatives Barney Frank (D-MA) and McDermott, would generate nearly $42 billion over 10 years. The analysis is based on the provision of a federal license for operators that would allow them to offer online gambling throughout the United States, while maintaining existing federal prohibitions on any form of sports betting.<br />
On November 27, 2009, Department of the Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke announced a six month delay, until June 1, 2010, required compliance with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA). The move blocks regulations to implement the legislation which requires the financial services sector to comply with rules that attempt to prevent unlawful Internet gambling transactions.<br />
On December 3, 2009, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on UIGEA and Rep. Frank’s Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act of 2009 (H.R. 2267) where experts in the fields of online security and consumer safety testified that a regulatory framework for Internet gambling would protect consumers and ensure the integrity of Internet gambling financial transactions. On July 28, 2010, the committee passed H.R. 2267 by a vote of 41-22-1. The bill would legalize and regulate online poker and some other forms of online gambling.<br />
On November 22, 2010, the New Jersey state Senate became the first such US body to pass a bill (S490) expressly legalizing certain forms of online gambling. The bill was passed with a 29-5 majority, despite a Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll in April 2009 that showed only 26% of New Jersey voters approved of online sports-betting. The bill allows bets to be taken by in-State companies on poker games, casino games and slots but excludes sports betting, although it allows for the latter to be proposed, voted on and potentially regulated separately in due course. On a national level, two-thirds (67%) of voters polled by PublicMind in March 2010 opposed changing the law to allow online betting. Men were more likely than women (29%-14%) and liberals more likely than conservatives (27%-18%) to approve of changing the law to allow online betting.<br />
On April 15, 2011, in U. S. v. Scheinberg et al. (10 Cr. 336), three online poker companies were indicted for violating U.S. laws that prohibit the acceptance of any financial instrument in connection with unlawful Internet gambling, that is, Internet gambling that involves a "bet or wager" that is illegal under the laws of the state where the bet is made. The indictment alleges that the companies used fraudulent methods to evade this law, for example, by disguising online gambling payments as purchases of merchandise, and by investing money in a local bank in return for the bank's willingness to process online poker transactions. The companies argue that poker is a game of skill rather than a game of chance, and therefore, online poker is not unlawful Internet gambling.<br />
<br />
Other countries<br />
Various forms of online gambling are legal and regulated in many countries, including some provinces in Canada, most members of the European Union and several nations in and around the Caribbean Sea.</div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-21779312325200699642011-08-26T21:10:00.000+02:002011-08-30T03:08:55.700+02:00MOBILE GAMBLING<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Mobile gambling refers to playing games of chance or skill for money by using a remote device such as a tablet computer, smartphone or a mobile phone with a wireless internet connection. Over a dozen mobile casinos are operating as of March 2011.<br />
<br />
Market<br />
In 2005, Jupiter Research forecast that global mobile gambling services would generate revenues of more than $19.3 billion US dollars by 2009. In 2010, Gartner analysts showed the 2009 global mobile gambling revenues at $4.7 billion and forecast $5.6 billion for 2010. Such a large discrepancy between the 2005 forecast and the 2009 reality is attributed to the unexpected 2006 US prohibition of all internet based gambling.<br />
The mobile gambling market, as of 2011 is still in flux. The European Union still does not have a unified mobile gambling legislative framework in place. Each European country has their own set of widely different laws which regulate mobile gambling ranging from Finland where a government monopoly operates internet casinos to Norway which is in favor of complete prohibition of online gambling.<br />
<br />
Market projections<br />
According to a Juniper Research report released in September 2010 the total sum wagered on mobile casino games is expected to surpass $48 billion US dollars by 2015. The report bases this prediction on (1) the high growth rates of mobile casinos, lotteries and sports betting providers in major emerging markets and China; (2) liberalization of mobile gambling legislation in Europe; (3) United States repealing the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, permitting people in the US to legally gamble online again.<br />
A 2010 Gartner forecast sees 2014 global mobile gambling revenues reach $11.4 billion dollars.<br />
<br />
Mobile casino games<br />
According to a February 2010 comScore MobiLens study of the U.S. mobile gaming market, smartphone subscribers are much more likely to play mobile casino games than subscribers of generic phones. The study revealed that 7.6% of smartphone subscribers and 1.2% of generic mobile subscribers played mobile casino games within a three month time frame.<br />
As of March 2011, there is a total of approximately 100 casino style mobile games which permit the use of real money:</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-69362737137819028312011-08-26T21:09:00.002+02:002011-08-30T03:08:55.701+02:00GAMBLING IN THE UNITED KINGDOM<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Gambling in the United Kingdom is regulated by the Gambling Commission on behalf of the government's Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) under the Gambling Act 2005. This Act of Parliament significantly updated the UK's gambling laws, including the introduction of a new structure of protections for children and vulnerable adults, as well as bringing the burgeoning Internet gaming sector within British regulation for the first time.<br />
<br />
Gambling forms<br />
Bingo and casinos<br />
The game of Bingo was popularised in the armed forces in the Second World War and brought back to Britain after the end. The Betting and Gaming Act 1960 allowed commercial bingo halls to be set up, provided they were established as members-only clubs and had to get their take from membership fees and charges rather than as a percentage of the entry fees.<br />
Casinos had a similar history, with requirement for licensing from the Gaming Board of Great Britain and for casinos to be members-only. The number of gaming machines in casinos was limited at 10.<br />
In part due to the difficulty of enforcing this, the Gaming Act 1968 liberalised the law, by allowing true commercial casinos. The first very popular game was Chemmy, popularized by the Clermont Club, in London.<br />
The Gambling Act of 2005 paved the way for larger resort style casinos to be built, albeit in a controlled manner with one being built every few years until the Act is fully implemented. Many towns and cities bid to host one of these so-called "super casinos", which will be similar to those found in Las Vegas. On 30 January 2007 Manchester was announced as the winning bid to be the location of the first 'super-casino'. The House of Lords urged on 29 March 2007 the Government to review plans for the massive 'super-casino' in Manchester. Instead it supported plans for 16 smaller casinos, including ones in Solihull and Wolverhampton. In 2008, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that the Government would not be proceeding with the 'super-casino' in Manchester.<br />
Gaming machines are divided into a number of categories, mainly depending upon the stakes and payouts involved.<br />
<br />
Gambling on sports<br />
Sports gambling has a long history in the United Kingdom, having been controlled for many decades, and more recently relaxed. The 1960 Act legalised off-course bookmakers. Pool betting on horses is a monopoly of the state-owned Tote.<br />
There is a large market in the UK for gambling on competitive sports at bookmakers or licensed website , particularly for horse, greyhound racing and association football (soccer). The last of these also has an associated form of gambling known as the football pools, in which players win by correctly predicting the outcome of each week's matches.<br />
<br />
Lottery<br />
The UK's largest lottery is known as the National Lottery, which was set up under government licence in 1993.<br />
A statute of 1698 provided that in England lotteries were by default illegal unless specifically authorised by statute. An 1934 Act legalised small lotteries, which was further liberalised in 1956 and 1976. There could be no big national lottery until the Government established one, however.<br />
Several games are run under this brand, including Lotto and Thunderball. As with other lotteries players choose a set of numbers, say 6 from 50, with six numbers then being drawn at random. Players win cash prizes depending on how many numbers they match. <br />
The national lottery launched a pan-European "super-lottery", called EuroMillions, in 2004. Currently 9 countries contribute.<br />
In the UK the national lottery has so far raised several billions of pounds for Good Causes, a programme which distributes money via grants. 28% of lottery revenue goes towards the fund, along with all unclaimed prizes. Additionally, 12% goes to the state. The prize fund is 45% of revenue, with the remaining 15% going towards running costs and profits for the lottery organisers and ticket sellers.<br />
In February 2011 the media tycoon Richard Desmond announced the launch of a new Health Lottery , the aim is for the Health Lottery to raise a minimum of £50 million each year for health related charities. Tickets will cost £1 each and 20.5p of every £1 will go to the charities involved.<br />
The odds of specific combinations occurring in the UK national lottery are as follows:<br />
<br />
Scratchcards<br />
Scratchcards are a very popular form of gambling in the UK, due to their easy availability and cheap price. These are small pieces of card where an area has been covered by a substance that cannot be seen through, but can be scratched off. Under this area are concealed the items/pictures that must be 'found' in order to win.<br />
<br />
Economic aspects<br />
Income from gambling currently makes up a small part of the Economy of the United Kingdom.<br />
The betting industry alone is reported to contribute £6 billion as of January 2010, 0.5% of GDP. Furthermore it employs over 100,000 people and generates £700 Million in taxes.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-55317942079595973282011-08-26T21:08:00.002+02:002011-08-30T03:08:55.702+02:00PROBLEM GAMBLING<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Problem gambling (ludomania) is an urge to gamble despite harmful negative consequences or a desire to stop. Problem gambling often is defined by whether harm is experienced by the gambler or others, rather than by the gambler's behavior. Severe problem gambling may be diagnosed as clinical pathological gambling if the gambler meets certain criteria. Although the term gambling addiction is common in the recovery movement pathological gambling is considered to be an impulse control disorder and is therefore not considered by the American Psychological Association to be an addiction.<br />
<br />
Definition<br />
Research by governments in Australia led to a universal definition for that country which appears to be the only research based definition not to use diagnostic criteria.<br />
Problem gambling is characterized by many difficulties in limiting money and/or time spent on gambling which leads to adverse consequences for the gambler, others, or for the community.<br />
Most other definitions of problem gambling can usually be simplified to any gambling that causes harm to the gambler or someone else in any way. However, these definitions are usually coupled with descriptions of the type of harm or the use of diagnostic criteria. According to DSM-IV, Pathological gambling is now defined as separate from a manic episode. Only when the gambling occurs independent of other impulsive, mood, or thought disorders is it considered its own diagnosis. In order to be diagnosed, an individual must have at least five of the following symptoms:<br />
1. Preoccupation. The subject has frequent thoughts about gambling experiences, whether past, future, or fantasy.<br />
2. Tolerance. As with drug tolerance, the subject requires larger or more frequent wagers to experience the same "rush".<br />
3. Withdrawal. Restlessness or irritability associated with attempts to cease or reduce gambling.<br />
4. Escape. The subject gambles to improve mood or escape problems.<br />
5. Chasing. The subject tries to win back gambling losses with more gambling.<br />
6. Lying. The subject tries to hide the extent of his or her gambling by lying to family, friends, or therapists.<br />
7. Loss of control. The person has unsuccessfully attempted to reduce gambling.<br />
8. Illegal acts. The person has broken the law in order to obtain gambling money or recover gambling losses. This may include acts of theft, embezzlement, fraud, or forgery.<br />
9. Risked significant relationship. The person gambles despite risking or losing a relationship, job, or other significant opportunity.<br />
10. Bailout. The person turns to family, friends, or another third party for financial assistance as a result of gambling.<br />
As with many disorders, the DSM-IV definition of pathological gambling is widely accepted and used as a basis for research and clinical practice internationally.<br />
Biological basis<br />
According to the Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery, recent evidence indicates that pathological gambling is an addiction similar to chemical addiction. It has been seen that some pathological gamblers have lower levels of norepinephrine than normal gamblers.<br />
According to a logical study conducted by Alec Roy, M.D. formerly at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, norepinephrine is secreted under stress, arousal, or thrill, so pathological gamblers gamble to make up for their under-dosage.<br />
Further to this, according to a report from the Harvard Medical School Division on Addictions there was an experiment constructed where test subjects were presented with situations where they could win, lose or break even in a casino-like environment. Subjects' reactions were measured using fMRI, a neuro-imaging technique very similar to MRI. And according to Hans Breiter, MD, co-director of the motivation and Emotion Neuroscience Centre at the Massachusetts General Hospital, "Monetary reward in a gambling-like experiment produces brain activation very similar to that observed in a cocaine addict receiving an infusion of cocaine."<br />
Deficiencies in serotonin might also contribute to compulsive behavior, including a gambling addictions.<br />
<br />
Relation to other problems<br />
Pathological gambling is similar to many other impulse control disorders such as kleptomania, pyromania, and trichotillomania. Other mental diseases that also exhibit impulse control disorder include such mental disorders as antisocial personality disorder, or schizophrenia.<br />
According to evidence from both community- and clinic-based studies, individuals who have pathological gambling are highly likely to exhibit other psychiatric problems at the same time, including substance use disorders, mood and anxiety disorders, or personality disorders.<br />
As debts build up people turn to other sources of money such as theft, or the sale of drugs. A lot of this pressure comes from bookies or loan sharks that people rely on for capital to gamble with.<br />
In a 1995 survey of 184 Gamblers Anonymous members in Illinois, Illinois State Professor Henry Lesieur found that 56 percent admitted to some illegal act to obtain money to gamble. Fifty-eight percent admitted they wrote bad checks, while 44 percent said they stole or embezzled money from their employer.<br />
Compulsive gambling is often very detrimental to personal relationships. In a 1991 study of relationships of American men, it was found that 10% of compulsive gamblers had been married more than twice. Only 2% of men who did not gamble were married more than twice.<br />
Abuse is also common in homes where pathological gambling is present. Growing up in such a situation leads to improper emotional development and increased risk of falling prey to problem gambling behavior.<br />
<br />
Suicide rate<br />
A gambler who does not receive treatment for pathological gambling when in his or her desperation phase may contemplate suicide. Problem gambling is often associated with increased suicidal ideation and attempts compared to the general population.<br />
Early onset of problem gambling increases the lifetime risk of suicide. However, gambling-related suicide attempts are usually made by older people with problem gambling. Both comorbid substance use and comorbid mental disorders increase the risk of suicide in people with problem gambling.<br />
A 2010 Australian hospital study found that 17% of suicidal patients admitted to the Alfred Hospital's emergency department were problem gamblers.<br />
<br />
Prevalence<br />
A study by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission, the "British Gambling Prevalence Survey 2007", found that approximately 0.6% of the adult population had problem gambling issues, the same percentage as in 1999. The highest prevalence of problem gambling was found among those who participated in spread betting (14.7%), fixed odds betting terminals (11.2%) and betting exchanges (9.8%).<br />
Available research seems to indicate that problem gambling is an internal tendency, and that problem gamblers will tend to risk money on whatever game is available, rather than a particular game being available inducing problem gambling in otherwise "normal" individuals. However, research also indicates that problem gamblers tend to risk money on fast-paced games. Thus a problem gambler is much more likely to lose a lot of money on roulette or slot machines, where rounds end quickly and there is a constant temptation to play again or increase bets, as opposed to a state lottery where the gambler must wait until the next drawing to see results.<br />
Dopamine agonists, in particular pramipexole (Mirapex), have been implicated in the development of compulsive gambling and other excessive behavior patterns (e.g., PMID 16009751).<br />
<br />
Assessment<br />
The most common instrument used to screen for "probable pathological gambling" behavior is the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) developed by Lesieur and Blume (1987) at the South Oaks Hospital in New York City. This screen is undoubtedly the most cited instrument in psychological research literature.[citation needed] In recent years the use of SOGS has declined due to a number of criticisms including that it over-estimates false positives.<br />
The DSM-IV diagnostic criteria presented as a checklist is an alternative to SOGS, it focuses on the psychological motivations underpinning problem gambling and was developed by the American Psychiatric Association. It consists of ten diagnostic criteria. One screening measure based upon the DSM-IV criteria is the National Opinion Research Center DSM Screen for Gambling Problems (NODS). This measure is currently used frequently. The Canadian Problem Gambling Inventory (CPGI) is another newer assessment measure. The Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) is composed of nine items from the longer CPGI. The PGSI focuses on the harms and consequences associated with problem gambling.<br />
<br />
Treatment<br />
Most treatment for problem gambling involves counseling, step-based programs, self-help, peer-support, medication, or a combination of these. However, no one treatment is considered to be most efficacious and no medications have been approved for the treatment of pathological gambling by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).<br />
Gamblers Anonymous (GA) is a commonly used treatment for gambling problems. Modeled after Alcoholics Anonymous, GA uses a 12-step model that emphasizes a mutual-support approach.<br />
One form of counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been shown to reduce symptoms and gambling-related urges. This type of therapy focuses on the identification of gambling-related thought processes, mood and cognitive distortions that increase one’s vulnerability to out-of-control gambling. Additionally, CBT approaches frequently utilize skill-building techniques geared toward relapse prevention, assertiveness and gambling refusal, problem solving and reinforcement of gambling-inconsistent activities and interests.<br />
As to behavioral treatment, some recent research supports the use of both activity scheduling and desentization in the treatment of gambling problems In general behavior analytic research in this area is growing <br />
There is evidence that the SSRI paroxetine is efficient in the treatment of pathological gambling. Additionally, for patients suffering from both pathological gambling and a comorbid bipolar spectrum condition, sustained release lithium has shown efficacy in a preliminary trial. The opiate antagonist drug nalmefene has also been trialled quite successfully for the treatment of compulsive gambling.<br />
<br />
Voluntary exclusion<br />
Some casinos and state lottery programs offer a Self/Voluntary Exclusion program. When a person signs up for one of these programs, they are effectively banned from the casino, and will be arrested upon entry; in the case of a state lottery program, they are not permitted to cash out winnings, thereby removing the positive incentive to gamble. Once a person signs up for a Self Exclusion program, the ban may or may not be permanent. However, it must be stated that the actual execution of the program is more difficult than it would appear in theory, because it involves security finding the people and then removing them. There have been lawsuits because people have still been able to gamble in a casino after signing up for the programs.<br />
<br />
Step-based programs<br />
One step-based program for gambling issues is Gamblers Anonymous. Gamblers Anonymous uses a 12-step program adapted from Alcoholics Anonymous and also places an emphasis on peer support.<br />
Other step-based programs are specific to gambling and generic to healing addiction, creating financial health, and improving mental wellness. Commercial alternatives, designed for clinical intervention using the best of health science and applied education practices have been used as patient centered tools for intervention since 2007. They include measured efficacy and resulting recovery metrics.<br />
<br />
Peer support<br />
A growing method of treatment is peer support. With the advancement of online gambling, many gamblers experiencing issues use various online peer-support groups to aid their recovery. This protects their anonymity whilst allowing to attempt to self-recover often without having to disclose their issues to loved ones.<br />
<br />
Self help<br />
Research into self-help for problem gamblers has shown benefits.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-31698538432565676382011-08-26T21:07:00.002+02:002011-08-30T03:08:55.842+02:00FANTASY SPORT<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">A fantasy sport (also known as rotisserie, roto, or owner simulation) is a game where participants act as owners to build a team that competes against other fantasy owners based on the statistics generated by the real individual players or teams of a professional sport. Probably the most common variant converts statistical performance into points that are compiled and totaled according to a roster selected by a manager that makes up a fantasy team. These point systems are typically simple enough to be manually calculated by a "league commissioner." More complex variants use computer modeling of actual games based on statistical input generated by professional sports. In fantasy sports there is the ability to trade, cut, and sign players, like a real sports owner.<br />
<br />
Size of hobby<br />
It's estimated by the Fantasy Sports Trade Association that 32 million people age 12 and above in the U.S. and Canada played fantasy sports in 2010. Participation has grown over 60 percent the past four years with 19 percent of males in the U.S. playing fantasy sports. A prior study by the FSTA showed 19.4 million people age 12 and above in the U.S. and Canada played fantasy sports in 2006 and 34.5 million people had ever played fantasy sports. A 2006 study showed 22 percent of U.S. adult males 18 to 49 years old, with Internet access, play fantasy sports. Fantasy Sports is estimated to have a $3–$4 Billion annual economic impact across the sports industry.<br />
The hobby has also moved beyond the U.S. with fantasy leagues for soccer, cricket and other sports. For example, according to a 2008 study by Ipsos, the number of British fantasy sports players aged 16-64 is estimated to range between 5.5 and 7.5 million. Of those, 80 percent of these players participate in fantasy soccer.<br />
<br />
History<br />
Early history - pre-"rotisserie"<br />
The concept of picking players and running a contest based on their year-to-date stats has been around since shortly after World War II, but was never organized into a widespread hobby or formal business. In 1960, Harvard University sociologist William Gamson started the "Baseball Seminar" where colleagues would form rosters that earned points on the players' final standings in batting average, RBI, ERA and wins. Gamson later brought the idea with him to the University of Michigan where some professors played the game. One professor playing the game was Bob Sklar, who taught an American Studies seminar which included Daniel Okrent, who learned of the game his professor played. At around the same time a league from Glassboro State College also formed a similar baseball league and had its first draft in 1976.<br />
While those two leagues focused on baseball, it may be football that produced the first version of the hobby. The Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League began in the early 1960s with eight teams. George Blanda was the first player taken in the first draft in 1963.1963 draft results<br />
Modern founding - "La Rotisserie"<br />
The landmark development in fantasy sports came with the development of Rotisserie League Baseball in 1980. Magazine writer/editor Daniel Okrent is credited with inventing it, the name coming from the New York City restaurant La Rotisserie Francaise where he and some friends used to meet and play. The game's innovation was that "owners" in a Rotisserie league would draft teams from the list of active Major League Baseball players and would follow their statistics during the ongoing season to compile their scores. In other words, rather than using statistics for seasons whose outcomes were already known, the owners would have to make similar predictions about players' playing time, health, and expected performance that real baseball managers must make.<br />
Because Okrent was a member of the media, other journalists, especially sports journalists, were introduced to the game. Many early players were introduced to the game by these sports journalists, especially during the 1981 Major League Baseball strike; with little else to write about, many baseball writers wrote columns about Rotisserie league. A July 8, 1980 New York Times Article titled "What George Steinbrenner is to the American League, Lee Eisenberg is to the Rotisseries League" set off a media storm that led to stories about the league on CBS TV and other publications.<br />
In March 1981, Dan Okrent wrote an essay about the Rotisserie League for Inside Sports called "The Year George Foster Wasn't Worth $36." The article included the rules of the game. Founders of the original Rotisserie league published a guide book starting in 1984. In 1982, Ballantine published the first widely-available Bill James Abstract, which helped fuel fantasy baseball interest. Fantasy fans often used James' statistical tools and analysis as a way to improve their teams. James was not a fantasy player and barely acknowledged fantasy baseball in his annual Abstract, but fantasy baseball interest is credited with his strong sales.<br />
Soon the hobby spread to other sports as well and by 1988, USA Today estimated that five hundred thousand people were playing.<br />
<br />
Early analysts/businesses<br />
In the few years after Okrent helped popularize fantasy baseball, a host of experts and businesses emerged to service the growing hobby. Okrent, based on discussions with colleagues at USA Today, credits Rotisserie league baseball with much of USA Today's early success, since the paper provided much more detailed box scores than most competitors and eventually even created a special paper, Baseball Weekly, that almost exclusively contained statistics and box scores.<br />
Among the first high-profile experts were John Benson, Alex Patton and Ron Shandler. Benson became perhaps the most famous name in the business in the late 1980s, publishing his first book in 1989 and developing one of the first draft-software simulation programs. He had a 900 number at $2.50 per minute.<br />
Patton published his first book ('Patton's 1989 Fantasy Baseball League Price Guide ") in 1989 and his dollar values were included in USA Today Baseball Weekly's fantasy annual throughout the 1990s.<br />
Ron Shandler published his "Baseball SuperSTATS" book in November 1986. At first the book wasn't meant for fantasy baseball fans, but rather as a book of Sabrmetric analysis.<br />
But it wasn't just baseball that saw new businesses and growth. Fantasy Football Index became the first annual fantasy football guide in 1987. Fantasy Sports Magazine debuted in 1989 as the first regular publication covering more than one fantasy sport. Fantasy Football Weekly was launched in 1992 (later becoming Fanball.com) and had $2 million in revenue by 1999. A large number of companies emerged to calculate the stats for fantasy leagues and primarily send results via fax.<br />
In 1993, USA Today included a weekly columnist on fantasy baseball, John Hunt, and he became perhaps the most visible writer in the industry before the rise of the Internet. Hunt started the first high-profile experts league, the League of Alternate Baseball Reality which first included notables as Peter Gammons, Keith Olbermann and Bill James.<br />
The hobby continued to grow with 1 million to 3 million playing from 1991 to 1994.<br />
<br />
Internet boom<br />
The seminal moment for the growth of fantasy sports was the rise of the Internet in the mid-1990s. The new technology lowered the barrier to entry to the hobby as stats could quickly be compiled online and news and information became readily available.<br />
While several fantasy businesses had migrated to the internet in the mid-1990s, the watershed era for online fantasy sports was in 1997 when two web sites made their debut that forever changed the fantasy sports industry: Commissioner.com and RotoNews.com.<br />
Commissioner.com launched on January 1, 1997 and first offered a fantasy baseball commissioner service that changed the nature of fantasy sports with real-time stats, league message boards, daily updated box scores and other features—all for $300 per league. Commissioner.com was sold to SportsLine late in 1999 for $31 million in cash and stock in a watershed moment for the fantasy industry. The sale proved fantasy sports had grown from a mere hobby to big business. By 2003, Commissioner.com helped SportsLine generate $11 million from fantasy revenue. Commissioner.com is now the fantasy sports engine behind the CBSSports.com fantasy area (after SportsLine was sold to CBS in 2004).<br />
RotoNews.com also launched in January 1997 and published its first player note on February 16, 1997. RotoNews revolutionized how fantasy sports information was presented on the web with the innovation of the "player note" which were snippets of information every time a player got hurt, traded, benched or had a news event that impacted his fantasy value - all search-able in a real-time database. Most sites today follow how RotoNews had a "news" and "analysis" element to each player update. Within two years RotoNews had become one of the top ten most trafficked sports sites on the web, according to Media Metrix, ranking higher than such sites as NBA.com. RotoNews.com was sold to Broadband Sports in 1999 and later survived as RotoWire.com.<br />
It wasn't long before the larger media players got involved. Yahoo.com added fantasy sports in 1999 and offered most of its games for free - a largely new business model for fantasy sports. A trade group for the industry, the Fantasy Sports Trade Association was formed in 1998.<br />
Other entries during this era included Fanball.com, launched in 1999 by the parent company of Fantasy Football Weekly.<br />
The first survey of the fantasy sports market in the U.S. in 1999 showed 29.6 million people age 18 and older played fantasy games. However, that figure was reduced in later years when it was determined the survey also included people who play NCAA bracket pools, which are not exactly fantasy sports (where you pick individual players).<br />
<br />
Dotcom era<br />
While fantasy sports were fueled by the dot-com boom of the Internet, there was a turbulent period when many of the high-flying Internet companies of the era crashed in 2001. Fanball.com went bankrupt in 2001 (later to re-emerge in 2001). RotoNews.com's parent company, Broadband Sports, went belly up in 2001. The company would re-emerge as RotoWire.com.<br />
There were also wide variations on business models. RotoNews.com launched the Web's first free commissioner service in 1998, quickly becoming the largest league management service. Yahoo.com became the first major media company to offer games for free in 1999. Due to the rising competition, Commissioner.com, which had charged as much as $300, offered its commissioner services for free starting with football in 2000.<br />
Two years later the trend reversed. Sportsline moved back to a pay model for commissioner services (which it largely still has today). TheHuddle.com, a free site since 1997, started to charge for information. RotoWire.com moved from a free model to a pay model in 2001 as well.<br />
Despite the economic instability, fantasy sports started to become a mainstream hobby. In 2002, the NFL found that average male surveyed, for example, spent 6.6 hours a week watching the NFL on TV; fantasy players surveyed said they watched 8.4 hours of NFL per week. "This is the first time we've been able to demonstrate specifically that fantasy play drives TV viewing," said Chris Russo, the NFL's senior vice president. The NFL began running promotional television ads for fantasy football featuring current players for the first time. Previously fantasy sports had largely been seen in a negative light by the major sports leagues.<br />
Fantasy sports continued to grow with a 2003 Fantasy Sports Trade Association survey showing 15 million people playing fantasy football and spending about $150 a year on average, making it a $1.5 billion industry.<br />
<br />
New fantasy game genres<br />
With the growth of the industry, fantasy has branched out to include non-sports related games focused on politics, celebrity gossip, movies, and reality TV.<br />
Notable games in these new categories include:<br />
<br />
* Fantasy Congress<br />
* Fantasy Mogul<br />
* Daily Fantasy Sports<br />
<br />
Additionally, new types of fantasy sports games have continued to evolve. In particular, starting in 2006 a number of operators such as Fantazzle, 365FantasySports, DraftZone, Fanduel and Snapdraft have offered daily draft games where players can draft, play and win (or lose) within a single day. It is still unclear whether these types of games will see mainstream adoption.<br />
<br />
Legal issues<br />
STATS, Inc. vs NBA<br />
In 1996, STATS, Inc., a major statistical provider to fantasy sports companies, won a court case, along with Motorola, on appeal against the NBA in which the NBA was trying to stop STATS from distributing in game score information via a special wireless device created by Motorola. The victory played a large part in defending other cases where sports leagues have tried to suppress live in-game information from their events being distributed by other outlets.[30] The victory also accelerated the market for real-time statistics which were largely fueled by the growth of the fantasy sports industry.[31]<br />
CDM vs. MLBAM<br />
The development of fantasy sports produced tension between fantasy sports companies and professional leagues and players associations over the rights to player profiles and statistics. The players associations of the major sports leagues believed that fantasy games using player names were subject to licensing due to the right of publicity of the players involved. Since the player names were being used as a group, the players had assigned their publicity rights to the players association who then signed licensing deals. During the 1980s and 1990s many companies signed licensing deals with the player associations, but some companies did not. The issue came to a head with the lawsuit of Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM), MLB's Internet wing, vs. St. Louis-based CBC Distribution and Marketing Inc., the parent company of CDM Sports. When CBC was denied a new licensing agreement with MLBAM (they had acquired the rights from the baseball players' association ) for its fantasy baseball game, CBC filed suit.<br />
CBC argued that intellectual property laws and so-called "right of publicity" laws don't apply to the statistics used in fantasy sports.[32] The FSTA filed an amicus curiae in support of CBC, also arguing that if MLBAM won the lawsuit it would have a dramatic impact on the industry, which was largely ignored by the major sports leagues for years while a number of smaller entrepreneurs grew it into a multi-billion dollar industry, and a ruling could allow the MLBAM to have a monopoly over the industry.<br />
"This will be a defining moment in the fantasy sports industry," said Charlie Wiegert, executive vice president of CBC. "The other leagues are all watching this case. If MLB prevailed, it just would have been a matter of time before they followed up. Their player unions are just waiting for the opportunity."<br />
CBC won the lawsuit as U.S. District Court Judge Mary Ann Medler ruled that statistics are part of the public domain and can be used at no cost by fantasy companies.<br />
"The names and playing records of major-league baseball players as used in CBC's fantasy games are not copyrightable," Medler wrote. "Therefore, federal copyright law does not pre-empt the players' claimed right of publicity."<br />
The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision in October 2007. "It would be strange law that a person would not have a First Amendment right to use information that is available to everyone," a three-judge panel said in its ruling.<br />
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 8th Circuit Court's decision by declining to hear the case in June 2008.<br />
<br />
Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006<br />
The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, which was an amendment to the larger and unrelated SAFE Port Act, included "carve out" language that clarified the legality of fantasy sports. It was signed into law on October 13, 2006 by President George W. Bush. The act makes transactions from banks or similar institutions to online gambling sites illegal, with the notable exceptions of fantasy sports, online lotteries and horse/harness racing.<br />
The bill specifically exempts fantasy sports games, educational games, or any online contest that "has an outcome that reflects the relative knowledge of the participants, or their skill at physical reaction or physical manipulation (but not chance), and, in the case of a fantasy or simulation sports game, has an outcome that is determined predominantly by accumulated statistical results of sporting events, including any non-participant's individual performances in such sporting events..."<br />
However, all prizing must be determined in advance of the competition and can not be influenced by the fees or number of participants. Fantasy sports are considered gambling and therefore illegal if the competition does not meet this rule: "prizes and awards offered to winning participants are established and made known to the participants in advance of the game or contest and their value is not determined by the number of participants or the amount of any fees paid by those participants." </div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-51053904844314284982011-08-26T21:06:00.002+02:002011-08-30T03:08:55.843+02:00FOOTBALL POOL<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">A football pool, often collectively referred to as "the pools", is a betting pool based on predicting the outcome of top-level association football matches set to take place in the coming week.<br />
<br />
British pools<br />
Several different companies including Littlewoods, Vernons, Zetters and Brittens have organised similar games, the most famous of which was historically known as Treble Chance. Competitors were given a list of football matches set to take place over the coming week, and attempted to pick a line of eight of them whose results would be worth most points by the scoring scheme, traditionally by crossing specific boxes on a printed coupon. A proportion of the players' combined entry fees was distributed among the competitors whose entries were worth the highest scores.<br />
In 2007, Littlewoods, Vernons and Zetters Football Pool companies came together to form The New Football Pools, now known as The Football Pools. The new company provides classic football pools games alongside other pools variants with coupons containing a smaller number of football matches. These games are all offered on-line.<br />
<br />
Entries<br />
Entries were traditionally entered by post or via agents or collectors. Collectors walked a route door to door taking a percentage usually 12.5% of the money as a fee. Main collectors, who appointed them, delivered the forms and payments to a regional office, which were then dispatched to the companies central offices. Legally the football pools collectors were agents of the entrants, not the pools company. There have been a few cases whereby a rogue agent has fraudulently withheld players' stake money, even though one entrant had actually chosen a set of jackpot-winning fixtures. Business for pools collectors was sustained up by periodic canvassing, where company agents knocked on doors in an area of a town or housing estate.<br />
These days, a variety of football pools games can be played on the Internet. These include the classic pools game that traditionally includes a large number of fixtures, spanning the weekend. New pools game variants include Premier 10 where the player must correctly predict home win, draw or away win for ten, mainly Premier League, football matches. Other pools game variants include Super 6, where the player must correctly predict home win, draw or away win for six football matches and Head 2 Head where the player must correctly predict which, if either, of the two teams featured on the coupon will score the most goals, be awarded the most corners and have the most shots on target in each half of the match.<br />
The football pools coupons with the most football matches on them also have the biggest pool of money that is available to be won.<br />
<br />
Scoring<br />
Scoring schemes varied over the years. The current Treble Chance games use a scoring scheme which awards three points to score draws (matches where both team scored the same, strictly positive, number of goals), two points to no-score draws (matches where neither team scored a goal) and one point to both home wins (matches where the home team scored more goals than the away team) and away wins (matches where the away team scored more goals than the home team). The most famous historical scoring scheme differentiated between home wins and away wins, awarding one and a half points for games resulting in away wins. A scoring scheme used for only one year split score draws into two categories, awarding three points only for matches ending 1-1 and two and a half points for higher-scoring score draws.<br />
The total score of each line would be calculated, up to a maximum of 24 points. The highest scoring line achieved by any player in that particular week's competition would be declared to be worth the top dividend, with a large proportion of the prize pool awarded to the players responsible for submitting the highest-scoring lines. Large football pools would award second and subsequent dividends, splitting smaller proportions of the prize pool among players who had submitted lines scoring nearly as many points; at its peak, the Littlewoods Treble Chance game would offer up to six dividends.<br />
During the summer, when football leagues were not in operation in the United Kingdom, competitions were based on the results of football matches taking place in Australia. Matches which were postponed would often have their results adjudicated, for the sake of the football pools results, by a board known as the Pools Panel; which was formed in 1963 when a particularly cold winter scrapped football for three weeks running. The current panel members are Roger Hunt, Gordon Banks and Tony Green - all three have been on the panel for more than 30 years.<br />
The latest online pools games use a variety of scoring methods based on the number of football matches or match options on the coupon and the predictions required to enter.<br />
<br />
Results<br />
Before their popularity dwindled, pools results were published in most national newspapers a day or two after the Saturday on which the matches were played. Grids marking the points totals per game were sometimes published, against which your pools coupon could be aligned to read off the scores.<br />
The BBC television programme Grandstand used to broadcast the winning match numbers and any Pools Panel verdicts as part of its "Final Score" segment in the late afternoon. Only three people have so far announced the classified football results on the programme since its inception in 1958 - Len Martin until his death in 1995 and, since then, Tim Gudgin. The Fall (band) singer Mark E. Smith read out the classified football results on the BBC's Final Score programme as a one-off, as his band's track Theme from Sparta F.C. was the programme's theme music. Pools news was also given out on the BBC radio programme Sports Report until May 2007.<br />
With scores being read out on radio and television it was also common to relay the message "claims by telegram" for days when around eight score-draws occurred (and thus few players expected to achieve maximum points), through "claims by registered mail only" for days when rather more winners were expected, to "no claims" when there were likely to be so many claimants that the mail would have been overwhelmed.<br />
With the arrival of Internet based pools games, the need for players to score their own coupons was removed. Automatic scoring and payout is now standard on all Internet based pools games.<br />
<br />
Winning<br />
Typically a fraction of a penny would be charged for each line entered, though players often had the option to play each line at a higher stake and so receive a higher share of the pool should their line prove a winner. Accordingly, players would usually submit many different lines in a single entry. Popular ways to do this were "full perm" entries, where 10 (or 11, or more) matches were selected and every possible combination of eight matches selected from the ten (etc.) was entered as a single line. As there are C(10,8) = 45 ways to select eight matches from ten, the cost of such an entry was 45 times the cost of entering a single line. Note that the term "perm" was used despite the relevant mathematical operation being combination rather than permutation, as the order in which the eight matches were selected was irrelevant. The pools companies, many daily newspapers, and the sporting press also issued "plans", which were subsets of full perms: these enable the punter to cover more matches for the same stake, with the proviso that even if 8 draws were in the selections, they might not all be in a single line of the plan (but well designed plans could give a guarantee something like 'if the plan hits 8 draws it must win at least a 3rd dividend').<br />
The largest prizes would be awarded when only one line was entered scoring the maximum number of points; typically this would occur when only eight or nine matches ended in score draws, so only one player would have the line scoring the maximum. These biggest jackpot prizes could be several hundred thousand pounds, sometimes even more than a million. Prizes depended on the number of players and the cost per line, which varied between pools companies and increased over the years; one winner, Viv Nicholson, gained notoriety by declaring she was going to "spend, spend, spend" after winning £ 152,319 in 1961. The story of her subsequent divorces, remarriages, extravagance and eventual bankruptcy was eventually made into a musical named after her assertion.<br />
At the other extreme, payouts of less than a pound were quite common as lower dividends when many entries won. Most "punters" could expect to receive at least one low payout if they played for long enough.<br />
With the arrival of the latest online pools games such as Premier 10 and Super 6, the overall pool size is less than the classic pools game, but the odds of winning a major prize are increased because fewer predictions are required to complete a coupon and, also, fewer inidividuals play each coupon.<br />
<br />
Historic wins<br />
Here are some notable UK football pools winners<br />
1957 Nellie McGrail, Stockport £205,235<br />
1961 Viv Nicholson, Castleford £152,319<br />
1979 Irene Powell, Port Talbot, South Wales £882,000 - first win over £750,000.<br />
1986 Syndicate of hospital workers from Devizes, Wiltshire £1,017,890 - first million pound win.<br />
1987 Barry Dinsdale, Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire £1,910,972.<br />
1991 Rodi Woodcock, £2,072,220 - first double-millionaire.<br />
1994 Syndicate from Worsley, Greater Manchester £2,924,622 - Came on the first weekend of the National Lottery<br />
2010 Michael Elliott, Brechin, Scotland £3,001,511 - Highest ever jackpot went to the prison officer by betting on eight 2-2 draws across Spain, Scotland and England.<br />
<br />
History<br />
Littlewoods football pools was founded in 1923 by John Moores, Vernons in 1925, Zetters in 1933, and Brittens in 1946. The Treble Chance game was also inaugurated in 1946.<br />
The first football pools coupons were distributed to football fans outside Manchester United’s Old Trafford ground in 1923.<br />
The popularity of the Treble Chance game was due to the fact it offered a potential single large jackpot at a time when no other form of gambling in the United Kingdom did; premium bonds were not offered until 1957 and never offered a jackpot which was as high. The popularity of football pools in the UK declined dramatically after the introduction of the National Lottery in 1994, which offered larger jackpots still. Some football pools offer additional ways to win based on scores of football matches at half-time, or football matches in which particularly many goals are scored.<br />
The football pools did not fall under gambling legislation because they claimed to be competitions of skill, rather than chance; however, their rules typically stated that all transactions were "binding in honour only". Typically, between one quarter and one half the entry fees taken would be returned to the players as prizes. Companies organising football pools were heavily taxed; in 1991, the level of tax levied was reduced from 40% of turnover to 37½% of turnover. Additionally, from 1975 on, 2½% of the entry fees went to form the Football Trust which distributed money to football throughout the UK, most famously to help clubs redevelop their stadiums in line with the recommendations made by the Taylor Report.<br />
The Littlewoods Football Pools Collection which shows the history of the pools is held by the National Football Museum.<br />
Competition from the UK National Lottery led to a rapid fall-off in players, from a peak of 10 million in 1994 to 700,000 in 2007. Vernons closed its pools operation in February 1998, and ran a lucky-dip game called Easy Play with the National Lottery during the 1998-9 football season. It resumed its traditional business afterwards.<br />
In 2000, Littlewoods Pools was sold for £161 million. The company is now part of Littlewoods Gaming, a division of Sportech plc. Sportech bought Zetters in 2002 and Vernons in 2007, and announced plans to rebrand the competition as The New Football Pools, launching online at footballpools.com during summer 2008.<br />
<br />
Other games<br />
Other games offered by football pools companies take the form of "8 homes", "4 draws", "5 aways" or the like, where lines consisting of a smaller number of matches are selected and a line is deemed to have won if all the selected matches result in home wins, away wins or draws (irrelevant of the size of the draw) respectively. The cost per line is generally higher; because these attract far fewer players, prizes are generally lower. Some football pools companies additionally organised lotteries, betting on lottery results or spot the ball competitions at various points.<br />
Charitable giving<br />
The Football Pools have donated over £1.1billion to sporting good causes. During the 2009/10 football season a further £6 million was donated to football initiatives including the following<br />
The Every Player Counts scheme - to grow disability football provision across 44 Football League clubs in England and Wales and increase the opportunities for people with varying disabilities to access sports through their local Football Clubs<br />
The Premier League Health scheme - to help tackle a range of men’s health issues including testicular cancer, depression and alcoholism<br />
The Fit for Football, Fit for Life scheme - to help tackle serious health issues for young people across 30 Scottish Football League clubs<br />
<br />
Continental European pools<br />
Similar football pools competitions are frequently known as toto competitions on Continental Europe. While the principle of requiring entrants to predict the results of football matches in advance remains the same, the details are fundamentally different. The name toto derives from totalisator machines which are used to process the parimutuel betting involved.<br />
Typically, a list of 13 matches for the coming week will be given. Pools entrants have to select the result of each one, whether it will be a home win, an away win or neither of these, typically by marking each match with either a 1, a 2 or an N (sometimes X or 0). It is possible to enter two or three results for one or more matches, in which case the entry is treated as a number of separate entries for all possible combinations given; marking two possible results for each of five matches and all three possible results for each of four matches will result in submitting 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 3 × 3 × 3 × 3 = 32 × 81 = 2592 different entries. All entries submitting 13 correct predictions will be declared to have won the top prize; sometimes, prizes for fewer correct predictions are also awarded.<br />
The Intertoto Cup competition was inaugurated by the football pools companies of central Europe to provide matches for their toto coupons during the summer months.<br />
Popular culture<br />
The pools feature prominently in the British films Easy Money (1948) and Home and Away (1956) starring Jack Warner.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-59591759158780582952011-08-26T21:05:00.000+02:002011-08-30T03:08:55.844+02:00SPORTS BETTING<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Sports betting is the activity of predicting sports results and placing a wager on the outcome.<br />
<br />
Types of bets<br />
United States of America<br />
Aside from simple wagers such as betting a friend that one's favorite baseball team will win its division or buying a football "square" for the Super Bowl, sports betting is commonly performed through a bookmaker or through various online Internet outlets. The many types of bets include:<br />
* Proposition bets are wagers made on a very specific outcome of a match. Examples include guessing the number of goals each team scores in a handball match, betting whether a player will score in a football game, or wagering that a baseball player on one team will accumulate more hits than another player on the opposing team.<br />
* Parlays involve multiple bets (usually up to 12) and will reward a successful bettor with a large payout. For example, a bettor could include four different wagers in a four-team parlay, whereby he is wagering that all four bets will win. If any of the four bets fails to cover, the bettor loses the parlay, but if all four bets win, the bettor receives a substantially higher payout (usually 10-1 in the case of a four-teamer) than if he made the four wagers separately.<br />
* Progressive parlays. A progressive parlay involves multiple bets (usually up to 12) and rewards successful bettors with a large payout, though not as large as normal parlays. However in a progressive parlay, unlike a regular parlay, a reduced payout will still be made even should some of the bets lose.<br />
* Teasers. A teaser allows the bettor to combine his bets on two or more different games. The bettor can adjust the point spreads for the two games, but realizes a lower return on the bets in the event of a win.<br />
* If bets. An if bet consists of at least two straight bets joined together by an if clause which determines the wager process. If the player’s first selection complies with the condition (clause), then the second selection will have action; if the second selection complies with the condition, then the third selection will have action and so on.<br />
* Run line, puck line or goal line bets. These are wagers offered as alternatives to straight-up/moneyline prices in baseball, hockey or soccer, respectively. These bets feature a fixed point spread that (usually) offers a higher payout for the favorite and a lower payout for the underdog (both in comparison to the moneyline).<br />
* Future wagers. While all sports wagers are by definition on future events, bets listed as "futures" generally have a long-term horizon measured in weeks or months; for example, a bet that a certain NFL team will win the Super Bowl for the upcoming season. Such a bet must be made before the season starts in September, and winning bets will not pay off until the conclusion of the Super Bowl in January or February (although many of the losing bets will be clear well before then and can be closed out by the book). Odds for such a bet generally are expressed in a ratio of units paid to unit wagered. The team wagered upon might be 50-1 to win the Super Bowl, which means that the bet will pay 50 times the amount wagered if the team does so.<br />
* Head-to-Head. In these bets, bettor predicts competitors results against each other and not on the overall result of the event. One example are Formula One races, where you bet on two or three drivers and their placement among the others. Sometimes you can also bet a “tie”, in which one or both drivers either have the same time, drop out, or get disqualified.<br />
* Totalizators. In totalizators (sometimes called flexible-rate bets) the odds are changing in real-time according to the share of total exchange each of the possible outcomes have received taking into account the return rate of the bookmaker offering the bet. For example: If the bookmakers return percentage is 90%, 90% of the amount placed on the winning result will be given back to bettors and 10% goes to the bookmaker. Naturally the more money bet on a certain result, the smaller the odds on that outcome become. This is similar to parimutuel wagering in horse racing and dog racing.<br />
* 2nd half bets. A 2nd half(Second half) bet is also sometimes called a halftime bet. This bet is placed only at halftime of a particular sporting event. This bet can be placed on the spread(Line) or over/under. The resulting bet that is placed is won or lost only on the points scored by both teams in the second half only.<br />
<br />
Bookmaking<br />
The general role of the bookmaker is to act as a market maker for sports wagers, most of which have a binary outcome: a team either wins or loses. The bookmaker accepts both wagers, and maintains a spread (the vigorish) which will ensure a profit regardless of the outcome of the wager. The Federal Wire Act of 1961 was an attempt by the US government to prevent illegal bookmaking. However, this Act does not apply to other types of online gambling. The Supreme Court has not ruled on the meaning of the Federal Wire Act as it pertains to online gambling. Bookmakers usually hold a 11-10 advantage over his/her customers (for small wagers it is closer to a 6-5 advantage) so he/she will most likely survive over the long term. Successful bookmakers must be able to withstand a large short term loss. (Boyd, 1981) Many of the leading gambling bookmakers from the 1930s to the 1960s got their start during the prohibition era of the 1920s. They were often times decendents of the influx of immigrants coming into the USA at this time. Although the common stereotype is that these bookies were of Italian decent, it has been proven that many of the leading bookies were of eastern European Jewish Ancestry. (Davies, 2001)<br />
<br />
Odds<br />
Odds for different outcomes in single bet are presented either in European format (decimal odds), UK format (fractional odds), or American format (moneyline odds). European format (decimal odds) are favored in continental Europe, Canada, and Australia. They are the ratio of the full payout to the stake, in a decimal format. Decimal odds of 2.00 are an even bet. UK format (fractional odds) are favored by British bookmakers. They are the ratio of the amount won to the stake. Fractional odds of 1/1 are an even bet. US format odds are favored in the United States. They are the amount won on a 100 stake when positive and the stake needed to win 100 when negative. US odds of 100 are an even bet.<br />
<br />
In Asian betting markets, other frequently used formats for expressing odds include Hong Kong, Malaysian, and Indonesian-style odds formats. Odds are also quite often expressed in terms of implied probability, which corresponds to the probability with which the event in question would need to occur for the bet to be a breakeven proposition (on the average).<br />
Many online tools also exist for automated conversion between these odds formats.<br />
<br />
Legality<br />
In the USA it is illegal to operate a scheme except for in a few states. In many European nations bookmaking (the profession of accepting sports wagers) is regulated but not criminalized. The NCAA has threatened to ban all playoff games in Delaware if the state allows betting on college sports. New Jersey, which is also interested, has been similarly threatened. Interestingly for New Jersey, a Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll found in April 2009 that 63% of New Jerseyians supported legalizing sports betting in Atlantic city and at horse-racing tracks. However, only 48% of New Jersey voters approved of legalizing betting at off-track betting establishments. A slight majority of New Jersey voters (53%) also disapproved of legalizing sports betting nationally. In March of 2010, a national PublicMind poll found that 39% of Americans would support changing laws so that sports betting would be allowed in all states, whereas 53% reported that they would not support such measures. Converse to national opinion, a February 2011 PublicMind found that 53% of New Jersey voters supported legalizing betting in all states while 34% reported they would not support it. Equally, a majority of New Jersey voters (55%) believed that "lots of people bet anyway, so government should allow it and tax it." Proponents of legalized sports betting generally regard it as a hobby for sports fans that increases their interest in particular sporting events, thus benefiting the leagues, teams and players they bet on through higher attendances and television audiences. Opponents fear that, over and above the general ramifications of gambling, it threatens the integrity of amateur and professional sport, the history of which includes numerous attempts by sports gamblers to fix matches. In the 2009 PublicMind poll, the possibility of corrupting sports was the main concern of New Jersey voters (54%) that opposed legalizing sports betting nationally. Similarly, the 2010 PublicMind national poll found that a majority of Americans shared the views of New Jersey voters in the 2009 poll with 54% of respondents reporting that "legal betting on sports is a bad idea because it promotes too much gambling and corrupts sports." On the other hand, proponents counter that legitimate bookmakers will invariably fight corruption just as fiercely as governing bodies and law enforcement do. Most sports bettors are overall losers as the bookmakers odds are fairly efficient. However, there are professional sports bettors that make a good income betting sports, many of which utilize sports information services.<br />
In areas where sports betting is illegal, bettors usually make their sports wagers with illicit bookmakers (known colloquially as "bookies") and on the Internet, where thousands of online bookmakers accept wagers on sporting events around the world. The PublicMind's 2010 national survey found that 67% of Americans did not support the legalization of Internet betting websites in the United States whereas 21% said they would support legalization.<br />
<br />
Nevada<br />
There are 142 places in Nevada that will take sports bets on professional and amateur sports. In 1998, close to 2.3 billion dollars was wagered in these places. Out of this 2.3 billion, the casinos that accepted these bets kept 77.4 million dollars as a profit. This is because the odds are stacked in favor of the casinos. (Thompson, 2001)</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-32768167521810430122011-08-26T21:03:00.002+02:002011-08-30T03:08:55.845+02:00GREYHOUND RACING<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Greyhound racing is the sport of racing greyhounds. The dogs chase a lure (traditionally an artificial 'hare' or 'rabbit') on a track until they arrive at the finish line. The one that arrives first is the winner.<br />
<br />
In many countries, greyhound racing is purely amateur and conducted for enjoyment. In other countries (particularly the UK, US, Ireland, Australia, Spain, China and Mexico), greyhound racing is part of the gambling business, similar to although far less profitable than horse racing. There is some popular concern in the aforementioned countries regarding the well-being of the dogs; the effectiveness of industry efforts to address these concerns is a topic of some debate. A greyhound adoption movement has arisen to assist retired racing dogs in finding homes as pets.<br />
In Florida, where 16 tracks survive, the handle, or amount wagered, on racing has dropped from about $620 million to $300 million in 10 years.<br />
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2011)<br />
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History<br />
<br />
Greyhound during a race.<br />
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Modern greyhound racing has its origins in coursing. The first recorded attempt at racing greyhounds on a straight track was made beside the Welsh Harp reservoir, Hendon in 1876, but this experiment did not develop. The sport emerged in its recognizable modern form, featuring circular or oval tracks, with the invention of the mechanical or artificial hare in 1912 by Owen Patrick Smith. O.P. Smith had altruistic aims for the sport to stop the killing of the jack rabbits and see "greyhound racing as we see horse racing". The certificates system led the way to parimutuel betting, as quarry and on-course gambling, in the United States during the 1920s.<br />
In 1926 it was introduced to Britain by an American, Charles Munn, in association with Major Lyne-Dixon, a key figure in coursing, and a Canadian, Brigadier-General Critchley. The deal went sour with Smith never hearing from Munn again. Like the American 'International Greyhound Racing Association' (or the In.G.R.A.), Munn and Critchley launched the Greyhound Racing Association, and held the first British meeting at Manchester's Belle Vue Stadium. The sport was successful in cities and towns throughout the U.K. - by the end of 1927, there were forty tracks operating.<br />
The sport was particularly attractive to predominantly male working-class audiences, for whom the urban locations of the tracks and the evening times of the meetings were accessible, and to patrons and owners from various social backgrounds. Betting has always been a key ingredient of greyhound racing, both through on-course bookmakers and the totalisator, first introduced in 1930. Like horse racing, it is popular to bet on the greyhound races as a form of parimutuel gambling.<br />
In common with many other sports, greyhound racing enjoyed its highest attendances just after the Second World War—for example, there were 34 million paying spectators in 1946. The sport experienced a decline from the early 1960s, when the 1960 Betting and Gaming Act permitted off-course cash betting, although sponsorship, limited television coverage, and the later abolition of on-course betting tax have partially offset this decline.<br />
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Greyhound racing today<br />
<br />
Greyhounds rounding a turn on a counterclockwise track<br />
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Today, greyhound racing continues in many countries around the world.<br />
The main greyhound racing countries are:<br />
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* Australia Australia<br />
* Republic of Ireland Ireland<br />
* United Kingdom Great Britain<br />
* New ZealandNew Zealand<br />
* United States United States <br />
o Alabama<br />
o Arizona<br />
o Arkansas<br />
o Connecticut<br />
o Florida<br />
o Guam (Greyhound racing is legal, but the only operating track closed on November 8, 2008. Ban is being debated.)<br />
o Iowa<br />
o Kansas (Greyhound racing is legal, but not currently conducted)<br />
o Massachusetts (Racing ceased January 2010, banned by Question 3. (Passed November 4, 2008.))<br />
o New Hampshire (Racing banned as of January 1, 2011, by HB 630. (Signed into law July 8, 2010.))<br />
o Rhode Island<br />
o Texas<br />
o West Virginia<br />
o Wisconsin (Greyhound racing is legal, but the last operating track closed on December 31, 2009)<br />
o Colorado (Racing suspended in June 2008.)<br />
o Oregon (Greyhound racing is legal, but not currently conducted)<br />
o South Carolina (Greyhound racing is legal, but not currently conducted)<br />
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Smaller scale greyhound racing countries are:<br />
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* Argentina Argentina<br />
* Brazil Brazil<br />
* Czech Republic Czech Republic<br />
* Macau Macau, China<br />
* Denmark Denmark<br />
* Finland Finland<br />
* France France<br />
* Germany Germany<br />
* Hungary Hungary<br />
* Lebanon Lebanon<br />
* Mexico Mexico<br />
* Netherlands The Netherlands<br />
* Pakistan Pakistan<br />
* Portugal Portugal<br />
* South Africa South Africa<br />
* Sweden Sweden<br />
* Vietnam Vietnam<br />
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Living conditions<br />
<br />
In Great Britain<br />
Greyhound racing is a popular sport in Great Britain with attendances at around 3.2 million at over 5,750 meetings, across 26 stadiums in 2007 alone. There are 28 stadiums in Britain, it is a Parimutuel betting tote system with on-course and off-course betting available, with a turnover of £75,100,000.<br />
On July 24, 1926, in front of 1,700 spectators, the first greyhound race took place at Belle Vue Stadium where seven greyhounds raced round an oval circuit to catch an electric artificial hare. This marked the first ever modern greyhound race in Great Britain.<br />
Greyhound racing in Great Britain is regulated by the Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB) In Britain greyhounds are not kept at the tracks and are instead housed in the kennels of trainers and transported to the tracks to race. There are 28 Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB) registered stadiums in Britain. Those who race on the independent circuit (known as 'flapping'), do not have this regulation.<br />
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Greyhounds can live to be 14 years old, but most lose their speed between the ages of 3 and 4. This leaves trainers with many unwanted dogs due to the large number of them no longer able to race at top speed.<br />
The Associate Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare reported in 2007 that 4,728 greyhounds disappear from racing in Britain every year and stated that "...we can assume that the majority of these dogs are destroyed." They also considered the figure to be a conservative estimate.<br />
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In Australia<br />
The Australian Greyhound Racing Association (AGRA) is divided into many state governing bodies, which regulate greyhound welfare and living conditions. All racing authorities in Australia, part finance some of the Greyhound Adoption Groups, which house dozens of greyhounds a month.<br />
Each Australian State and Territory has a governing greyhound racing body. Greyhound Racing New South Wales (GRNSW) and Greyhound Racing Victoria (GRV) are the two largest authorities, governing over 40 racetracks.<br />
The Queensland Greyhound Racing Authority (QGRA), Western Australian Greyhound Racing Authority (WAGRA), Tasmanian Greyhound Racing Authority (TGRA), Greyhound Racing South Australia (GRSA), Northern Territory Racing Authority, and the Canberra Greyhound Racing Club (CGRC), all contribute to running and monitoring of greyhound racing in Australia as it continues to grow.<br />
Major greyhound racing venues include Wentworth Park in Sydney, Cannington Park in Perth, Greyhound Park in Adelaide, Albion Park in Brisbane and Sandown Park in Melbourne.<br />
Greyhound Racing New South Wales (GRNSW) runs a Greyhounds as Pets program for retired greyhounds. Greyhounds as Pets is a not for profit industry initiative. The objective is to improve animal welfare in the greyhound racing industry by providing dogs with a ‘career change’ if they are not suited to, or ready to retire from the racing industry. The program starts with a staff of foster carers, who train the former greyhounds how to be pets and how to live outside the organised and structured life of racing. The dogs are also provided with up to date vaccinations, are desexed, microchipped and wormed. If needed they also are given a dental exam. The costs of all these procuded are heavily subsidised by GRNSW initiative.<br />
In Australia, greyhounds live in kennels at night and are put into running yards or day yards to keep them entertained and exercised, during the day, in accordance with guidelines set by the Australian Greyhound Racing Authority. This is aimed to keep greyhounds as fit, happy, and healthy as possible.<br />
Greyhounds are checked for parasites, malnourishment, or any other medical conditions by an on-course vet before being able to compete.<br />
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In United States<br />
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Ear tattoo on an American racing greyhound. Ear tattoos are used for identification of dogs during their racing careers.<br />
In the United States, greyhound racing is governed by state law, which ranges from total prohibition in some states, to lack of regulation in others.<br />
The National Greyhound Association founded in 1906 strictly regulates greyhound ownership in the U.S. and has established comprehensive animal welfare guidelines based on veterinary recommendations. These guidelines cover nearly every aspect of greyhound care on the farm and at the racetrack. The American Greyhound Council conducts unannounced inspections each year on the nation's 300 breeding farms and kennels to enforce compliance with the industry's animal welfare guidelines. Minor violations are noted and corrected and more serious violations are addressed in hearings before the NGA's governing body. Those found guilty of these violations can be banned from the sport for life. <br />
Greyhounds live in climate-controlled kennels, usually on or near the tracks where they race. They are turned out several times daily for mild exercise and play, exercised on sprint paths and taken for walks.<br />
In addition to state law and regulations, most tracks adopt their own rules, policies and procedures. In exchange for the right to race their greyhounds at the track, kennel owners must sign contracts in which they agree to abide by all track rules, including those pertaining to animal welfare. If kennel owners violate these contract clauses, they stand to lose their track privileges and even their racing licenses.<br />
In several European countries (Belgium, Denmark, The Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland) greyhound racing is carried out by the owners of the dogs without financial interest. This amateur form of the sport is also found in some countries, such as the United States, where professional racing exists. In these countries the dogs often live as pets.<br />
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In South Africa<br />
In the Republic of South Africa dogs are kept with their owners. Due to the amateur state of racing, owners are usually also the trainer and rearer of the dogs; it is very rare that a dog is kenneled with a trainer.<br />
Racing is controlled by a partnership between the United Greyhound Racing and Breeders Society (UGRABS) and the South African Renhond Unie (SARU - South African Racing Dog Union). The studbook is kept by the South African Studbook and organization who keep studbooks for all stud animals. Racing takes place on both oval and straight tracks. Racing is technically illegal in South Africa, which is strange as any other form of animal racing, i.e. horse racing, pigeon racing and even ostrich racing is perfectly legal. Great controversy rages because the use of greyhounds to hunt wild animals is a fairly common occurrence. The supporters of dog racing believe that legal racing, as an industry similar to that of Australia of Great Britain, would cause hunting to eventually stop.<br />
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Medical care<br />
Greyhound adoption groups frequently report that the dogs from the tracks have tooth problems the cause of which is debated. The groups often also find that the dogs carry tick-borne diseases and parasites due to the lack of proper preventative treatments. The dogs require regular vaccination to minimize outbreaks of diseases like kennel cough.<br />
Recently, doping has also emerged as a problem in greyhound racing. The racing industry is actively working to prevent the spread of this practice; attempts are being made to recover urine samples from all greyhounds in a race, not just the winners. Greyhounds from which samples cannot be obtained for a certain number of consecutive races are subject to being ruled off the track. Violators are subject to criminal penalties and loss of their racing licenses by state gaming commissions and a permanent ban from the National Greyhound Association. The trainer of the greyhound is at all times the "absolute insurer" of the condition of the animal. The trainer is responsible for any positive test regardless of how the banned substance has entered the greyhound's system.<br />
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Life after racing<br />
After the dogs are no longer able to race (generally, a greyhound's career will end between the ages of two and six), or possibly when they no longer consistently place in the top four, the dogs' race career ends. The best dogs are kept for breeding purposes. There are both industry-associated adoption groups and rescue groups that work to obtain retired racing greyhounds and place them as pets. In the United Kingdom, according to the BBC, one in four retired greyhounds finds a home as a pet. In the United States, prior to the formation of adoption groups, over 20,000 retired greyhounds a year were killed; recent estimates still number in the thousands, with about 90% of National Greyhound Association-registered animals either being adopted, or returned for breeding purposes (according to the industry numbers upwards of 2000 dogs are still euthanized annually in the US while anti-racing groups estimating the figure at closer to 12,000.) Other greyhounds are sold to research labs, such as Liverpool university animal training school, who have received the remains of dogs killed at Manchester's Belle Vue stadium. A trainer in Lincolnshire was also exposed offering 'slow' dogs to the Liverpool school. Additionally dogs are sent to foreign racetracks such as Spain and sometimes in developing countries. In the North East of England a man is believed to have destroyed as many as 10,000 healthy Greyhounds with a captive bolt gun <br />
Several organizations, such as British Greyhounds Retired Database, GRWE, GAGAH, Adopt-a-Greyhound and Greyhound Pets of America, and the Retired Greyhound Trust try to ensure that as many of the dogs as possible are adopted. Some of these groups also advocate better treatment of the dogs while at the track and/or the end of racing for profit. In recent years the racing industry has made significant progress in establishing programs for the adoption of retired racers. In addition to actively cooperating with private adoption groups throughout the country, many race tracks have established their own adoption programs at various tracks.<br />
In recent years, several state governments in the United States have passed legislation to improve the treatment of racing dogs in their jurisdiction. During the 1990s seven states banned live greyhound racing. In November 2008, Massachusetts held a vote to ban greyhound racing, which passed 56% to 44%.<br />
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Celebrity Greyhound owners<br />
A number of historical figures and celebrities have owned or raced greyhounds. Alexander the Great, Henry VIII and Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg Gothe all had greyhounds as companions. More recently Al Capone, Frank Sinatra, Vinnie Jones and Dara Ó Briain whose dog Snip Nua featured on BBC TV, raced greyhounds.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-882847114141857093.post-70868739445059978862011-08-26T21:02:00.003+02:002011-08-30T03:08:55.846+02:00BOOKMAKER<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">A bookmaker, or bookie, is an organization or a person that takes bets on sporting and other events at agreed upon odds.<br />
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Range of events<br />
Bookmakers in the United Kingdom focus betting on professional sports, especially horse racing and football, however a wider range of bets, including political elections, awards ceremonies such as The Oscars and novelty bets, such as betting that there will be a white Christmas can also be placed with most bookmakers.<br />
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Operational procedures<br />
By adjusting the odds in his favor or by having a point spread, the bookmaker will aim to guarantee a profit by achieving a 'balanced book', either by getting an equal number of bets for each outcome, or (when he is offering odds) by getting the amounts wagered on each outcome to reflect the odds. When a large bet comes in, a bookmaker can also try to lay off the risk by buying bets from other bookmakers. The bookmaker does not generally attempt to make money from the bets themselves, but rather profiting from the event regardless of the outcome. Their working methods are similar to that of an actuary, who does a similar balancing of financial outcomes of events for the assurance and insurance industries.<br />
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Legality<br />
Bookmaking may be legal or illegal, and may be regulated; in the United Kingdom it was at times both regulated and illegal, in that licences were required but no debts arising from gambling could be enforced through the courts. Now, since the inception of the National Lottery, it is not only legal but also a small contributor to the British economy, with a recent explosion of interest with regard to the international gaming sector industry. However, gambling debts were unenforceable under English law until the Gambling Act 2006. Trusted legal bookmakers are members of IBAS, an industry standard organisation to settle disputes. Bookmaking is generally illegal in the United States, with Nevada being a notable exception. In 2009, one of the co-founders of BetOnline was arrested on bookmaking charges. In some countries, such as Singapore, Sweden, Canada, Hong Kong and Japan, the only legal bookmaker is owned and operated by the state. In Canada, this is part of the lottery program and is known as Sport Select.<br />
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United Kingdom gambling industry<br />
Traditionally, bookmakers have been located at the racecourse, but improved TV coverage and modernisation of the law have allowed betting in shops and casinos in most countries. In the UK, on-track bookies still mark up the odds on boards beside the race course and use tic-tac or mobile telephones to communicate the odds between their staff and to other bookies, but, with the modernisation of United Kingdom Bookmaking laws, online and high street gambling are at an all-time high, with a so-called Super Casino having been planned for construction in Manchester prior to the government announcing that this plan had been scrapped on 26 February 2008. In 1961, Harold Macmillan's Conservative Government legalised betting shops and tough measures were enacted to ensure that bookmakers remained honest. A large and respectable industry has grown since. At one time there were over 15,000 betting shops in the UK. Now, through consolidation, they have been reduced to about 8,500. Currently there are four major "high street" bookmakers in the United Kingdom: William Hill (Market Leader), Ladbrokes, Coral, and state-owned ToteSport, with Sky Bet, Bet24, Betfred, Victor Chandler, Stan James, Sportingbet, Mansion and Bet365, rapidly emerging, in terms of turnover and event sponsorship.<br />
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Internet gambling<br />
With the arrival of the World Wide Web, many bookmakers have an online brand, although independently owned bookmakers often still maintain a "bricks and mortar" only operation and others operate a "skin" or "white label" operation which they purchase from one of the large firms as is the case with BetDirect and Betterbet. The main websites only accept bets from countries where Internet gambling is not prohibited, and from people over 18 years old. Often these websites are linked to online casinos. Controversially, the explosion in Internet gambling is being linked to an increase in gambling addiction, according to the UK's help and advice organizations for addicts, GamCare and Gamblers <br />
<br />
Anonymous.<br />
Increasingly, online betters are turning to the use of betting exchanges such as Betfair and BETDAQ, which automatically match Back and Lay bets between different bettors, thus effectively cutting out the bookmaker's traditional profit margin also called an overround. These online exchange markets operate a market index of prices near but usually not at 100% competitiveness as exchanges take commissions on winnings. True wholesale odds are odds that operate at 100% of probabilistic outcomes. Betting exchanges compete with the traditional bookmaker. Not only are they generally able to offer punters better odds due to their much lower overheads, but also in giving opportunities for arbitrage: the practice of taking advantage of a price differential between two or more markets, although traditionally arbitrage has always been possible by backing all outcomes with bookmakers (dutching) as opposed to laying an outcome on an exchange. Exchanges do, however, allow bookmakers to see the state of the market and can set their odds accordingly. Some bookmakers have even taken to using betting exchanges as a way of laying off unfavorable bets and thus reducing their overall exposure. This has led insecurity from some TABs in Australia, state-run betting agencies which attempted to deny Betfair an Australian license by running unfavorable ads in the media regarding the company. When Tasmania granted Betfair a license despite these efforts the Western Australian state legislature passed a law that specifically criminalised using betting exchanges from within the state; however, that law was later ruled to be unconstitutional.<br />
Bets are also taken via phones, using SMS text messages, though poker and other sports are more suited to other media. As technology moves on, the gambling world ensures it is a major player in new technology operations.<br />
Most televised sports in the United Kingdom and Europe are now sponsored wholly or partly by Internet and high street bookmakers, with sometimes several bookmakers and online casinos being displayed on players' shirts, advertising hoardings, stadium signs and competition event titles, although Werder Bremen are currently fighting the German courts for the freedom to continue featuring bookmaker Bwin on their shirts, as Germany and France take action against online gamers.<br />
With the recent banning of tobacco sponsorship, and the significant commercial budgets available to the gaming industry, sponsorship by car manufacturers, alcoholic drinks, soft drinks and fast food marketers is being rapidly replaced by sponsorship by gaming companies in the Far East and Europe.<br />
The United Kingdom Gambling Act 2005 introduces a new regulatory system for governing gambling in Great Britain. This system includes new provisions for regulating the advertising of gambling products. These provisions of the Act came into effect in September 2007. It is an offence to advertise in the UK, gambling which physically takes place in a non-European Economic Area (EEA), or in the case of gambling by remote means, gambling which is not regulated by the gambling laws of an EEA state.<br />
The situation is more confused in the United States, which has attempted to restrict operators of foreign gambling websites accessing their domestic market. This has resulted in a ruling against the US Government by the WTO.</div></div>XPERTBEThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04239795255379590619noreply@blogger.com0