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 football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, horse racing and boxing. The method of betting varies with the sport and the type of game. The more prominent the event, the more wagering options that are made available.

Winning bets are paid when the event finishes, or if not finished, when played long enough to becomes 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.

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. Likewise the interest in sports varies by country since the level of interest in the various sports is not constant the world over. Some major sporting events that don’t follow a specific schedule, like boxing, can create peaks of activity for the sportsbooks.

Word origin

A sportsbook is a portmanteau, French for “jacket holder,” meaning a suitcase with two storage spaces. Sportsbook combines two meanings into one word for a sports gambling operation, in this case SPORTS and BOOK which is short for bookmaking.

Odds

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.

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.

Nevada sportsbooks

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.

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% tax so they charged a high vigorish to gamblers, but they still brought in a lot of business.

In 1974 the tax was lowered to 2%, (and in 1983 lowered to 0.25%), and in 1975 Lefty 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.

In Nevada casino sportsbooks you will find:

• Betting Windows
• Numerous big screen televisions
• Places to sit and watch
• Interactive betting stations
• Odds boards, usually computerized

UK sportsbooks

Betting shops are common in the United Kingdom. Companies like Ladbrokes and William Hill have offered walk-in betting shops for decades.

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Sports betting systems refers to a set of events that when combined for a particular game for a particular sport represents a profitable betting scenario. Since sports betting involves humans, there is no deterministic edge to the house or the gambler. Systems allow the gambler to have an edge.

Sportsbooks use systems in their analysis to set more accurate odds. Therefore the novice gambler may believe that using a system will always work, it is the general consensus that at some point, the oddsmakers will have adjusted for the system to make it no longer profitable. Very short-lived systems are called trends. Any single event that estimates a selection to have a higher likelihood of winning is called an angle as they are meant to be used in conjunction with other angles and trends to produce systems.

Betting on systems

Systems can be deceiving. Any sample space can be constrained enough with meaningless criteria to create the illusion of a profitable betting system. For example, a coin can be flipped with heads being home teams and tails being road teams. Heads and tails each have a 50% probability of landing but if the amount of flips is limited to a small number, it is conceivable to create the illusion of predicting heads will come up 75% of the time.

That, in conjunction with the fact that sportsbooks adjust their odds according to the systems makes it difficult to follow systems indefinitely. The sportsbooks are slower to adjust the odds in some sports versus other sports depending on the number of games played and the amount of money they take in from bettors.

Determining systems

Determining systems is a matter of using computer analysis tools and extracting all the possible games that meet a bettor’s criteria. Then the bettor analyzes the results of those games to make a determination if one team is favored over the other.

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Handicappers commonly use this term to emphasize the value of their play. Since handicappers can focus on a smaller subset of all the possible games, they have the chance to identify soft lines. Soft lines usually exist in the games where the least number of people bet because there is less incentive by the sportsbooks to put an effort into making strong lines.

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Link

• Article detailing several prop bets

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The wager is conducted in parimutuel fashion, with all pick 6 bets going into a separate pool from other kinds of betting. There is one “betting interest” for each available combination, and the number of combinations is equal to the product of the number of runners in all six races. A simplified example: If there are ten horses in each of the six races, then the number of combinations is 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10 × 10, or 1,000,000.

The pick 6 wager actually has two payoffs, one for bettors who pick all six winners, and a smaller payoff for those who pick five out of six. The total pick 6 betting pool is divided by precentage between the two payouts, along the lines of 75% for the six-winner pool and 25% for the five-winner pool.

Because of the sheer difficulty off successfully choosing six straight winners, plus the large number of betting interests, it is common for there to be no winning wager on all six races. When that happens, the six-winner portion of the pool carries over to the following program, and continues to carry over until it is won. This allows the “carryover pool” to grow to large sums, and tracks usually publicize the fact that their carryover pool has grown to six or seven figures. The five-winner pool is paid out each day, however; if no bettors have chosen five out of six winners, then those who have chosen four winners are paid, or even just three winners (which has happened when a series of longshots have won races). The pick 6 pool is also paid out in its entirety on the last day of a race meet; if there are no six-winner tickets, then the pool is split among five-winner tickets.

Because of the huge number of betting interests involved, bettors will often try to increase their chances of winning by selecting multiple combinations. This can be costly — a bettor who wants to cover two horses in each race muct bet on 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 combinations, or 64 combinations, times $2 for each for a total of $128. This method is called “boxing horses,” and is also used with other wagers such as a trifecta or superfecta.

Late scratches

Because all pick 6 wagers must be made before the first of the six races, there are many times when a horse is scratched from a race well after the wager is placed. How this is handled varies according to the rules of the racing jurisdiction. In most cases, the track substitutes the horse that is the post time betting favorite (in the “win” betting pools); if the bettor’s original horse is a late scratch and the post time favorite wins, then the betor is considered to have picked the winner for that race. In other cases, the track may declare combinations involving the scratched horse to have “no action,” and the wager is refunded.

Races moved from turf to dirt

At North American tracks, races which are run on a turf (grass) course must sometimes be moved to the main dirt course, usually due to heavy rain or other adverse weather conditions; sometimes this switch is made after pick 6 wagering is closed. Moving from turf to dirt greatly affects the wagering decisions of astute handicappers, as many horses perform differently according to the racing surface. For pick 6 wagering, different tracks handle this situation in different ways. In New York, a race moved from turf to dirt after pick 6 wagering closes is declared an “all win” race, where picks on any horse in that race are declared successful. If only one race is moved, bettors who successfully pick the other five race winers will win or share the ful six-winner pool, including carryovers. If two races are moved, bettors who pick the other four winners will win or share in that day’s six-winner pool, but no carryover, and the previous carryover pool only goes to the next program. (Few North American tracks schedule more than two turf races in a program.)

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Links

• About.com definition
• Parlay Odds Calculator – Calculate the payout of a potential parlay.

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Statistics

Though this bet is most commonly made with the combined score of the two teams, many other statistics can be used, including:

• A team’s win-loss record for the season
• In football, a player’s or team’s total rushing yards or attempts, first down conversions, third down conversions, interceptions, completions, etc.
• In basketball, a player’s or team’s total assists, blocks, turnovers, steals, field goal percentage, etc.
• In baseball, a player’s or team’s total number of home runs, RBI, etc.

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Taking an event with a 1 in 5 probability of occurring (i.e. 0.2 or 20%), then the odds are 0.2 / (1 − 0.2) = 0.2 / 0.8 = 0.25. If you bet 1 at fair odds and the event occurred, you would receive back 4 plus your original 1 stake. This would be presented in fractional odds of 4 to 1 against (written as 4 : 1 or 4/1), in decimal odds as 5.0 to include the returned stake, in craps payout as 5 for 1, and in moneyline odds as +400 representing the gain from a 100 stake.

By contrast, for an event with a 4 in 5 probability of occurring (i.e. 0.8 or 80%), then the odds are 0.8 / (1 − 0.8) = 4. If you bet 4 at fair odds and the event occurred, you would receive back 1 plus your original 4 stake. This would be presented in fractional odds of 4 to 1 on (written as 1 : 4 or 1/4), in decimal odds as 1.25 to include the returned stake, in craps as 5 for 4, and in moneyline odds as −400 representing the stake necessary to gain 100.

The odds are a ratio of probabilities; an odds ratio is a ratio of odds, that is, a ratio of ratios of probabilities. Odds-ratios are often used in analysis of clinical trials. While they have useful mathematical properties, they can produce counter-intuitive results: in the example above an 80% probability is four times the chance of a 20% probability but the odds are 16 times higher.

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The Nassau bet is a type of bet in golf that is essentially three separate bets. Money is wagered on the best score in the front 9, back 9, and total 18 holes. The Nassau is one of golf’s most classic and most popular wagers.The amount of the bet is established — often $2 or $5 — for each nine with a third bet for the overall 18-hole match. Points are calculated by scoring each hole as a separate match. The player with the lowest score on a hole wins a point. If the scores tie for a hole, this results in a “push,” or no points won or lost.

Nassau Presses

This is a side bet offered during a Nassau match by the side that is losing in an effort to even their money for either the front or back nine. If the player who presses then beats his opponent over the remaining holes on that nine, he wins the press bet. In effect it is a double or nothing proposition. When a side is two or more points down in the match, they may request a press. The opposition has the option to accept or reject the press, although it is usually accepted.

The press bet runs for the remaining holes to be played on either the front or back nine holes only. Press bets can be re-pressed if the player falls two more points behind. The amount of the press bet is the same as the original match bet. For example, in a $2 Nassau, presses are for $2.

As with any golf game, players of greatly different abilities can compete. Handicaps are used to determine how many strokes one player must give another.

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for an optimal betting strategy, where K₀ is the initial capital, K_t is the capital after the tth bet, and H_i is the amount of side information obtained concerning the ith bet (in particular, the mutual information relative to the outcome of each betable event). This equation applies in the absence of any transaction costs or minimum bets. When these constraints apply (as they invariably do in real life), another important gambling concept comes into play: the gambler (or unscrupulous investor) must face a certain probability of ultimate ruin, which is known as the gambler’s ruin scenario. Note that even food, clothing, and shelter can be considered fixed transaction costs and thus contribute to the gambler’s probability of ultimate ruin.

This equation was the first application of Shannon’s theory of information outside its prevailing paradigm of data communications (Pierce).

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