Sportsbook at Wynn Las Vegas, during Super Bowl XLII, February 2008
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.
Online casinos, also known as virtual casinos or internet casinos, are online versions of traditional (“brick and mortar”) casinos. Online casinos enable gamblers to play and wager on casino games through the Internet.Online casinos generally offer odds and payback percentages that are comparable to land-based casinos. Some online casinos claim higher payback percentages for slot machine games, and some publish payout percentage audits on their websites. Assuming that the online casino is using an appropriately programmed random number generator, table games like blackjack have an established house edge. The payout percentage for these games are established by the rules of the game.
Reliability and trust issues are commonplace and often questioned. Many online casinos lease or purchase their software from well-known companies like Wager Works, Microgaming, Realtime Gaming, Playtech and Cryptologic in an attempt to “piggyback” their reputation on the software manufacturer’s credibility. These software companies either use or claim to use random number generators to ensure that the numbers, cards or dice appear randomly.
The Kelly Criterion or as it is sometimes referred to as the Kelly formula is a formula used to maximize the long-term growth rate of repeated plays of a given gamble that has positive expected value. The formula specifies the percentage of the current bankroll to be bet at each iteration of the game. In addition to maximizing the growth rate in the long run, the formula has the added benefit of having zero risk of ruin, as the formula will never allow a loss of 100% of the bankroll on any bet. An assumption of the formula is that currency and bets are infinitely divisible, though this is met for practical purposes if the bankroll is large enough.The most general statement of the Kelly criterion is that long-term growth rate is maximized by finding the fraction f* of the bankroll that maximizes the expectation of the logarithm of the results. For simple bets with two outcomes, one involving losing the entire amount bet, and the other involving winning the bet amount multiplied by the payoff odds, the following formula can be derived from the general statement:
f* = (bp - q) / b
where
f* = percentage of current bankroll to wager;
b = odds received on the wager;
p = probability of winning;
q = probability of losing = 1 - p.
As an example, if a gamble has a 40% chance of winning (p = 0.40), but the gambler receives 2:1 odds on a winning bet, the gambler should bet 10% of her bankroll at each opportunity, in order to maximize the long-run growth rate of the bankroll.
For even-money bets (i.e. when b = 1), the formula can be simplified to:
f* = 2p - 1
The Kelly Criterion was originally developed by AT&T Bell Laboratories physicist John Larry Kelly, Jr, based on the work of his colleague Claude Shannon, which applied to noise issues arising over long distance telephone lines. Kelly showed how Shannon’s information theory could be applied to the problem of a gambler who has inside information about a horse race, trying to determine the optimum bet size. The gambler’s inside information need not be perfect (noise-free) in order for him to exploit his edge. Kelly’s formula was later applied by another colleague of Shannon’s, Edward O. Thorp, both in blackjack and in the stock market.
Point shaving, in organized sports, 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 a sports team. 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.Point shaving occurs most frequently in amateur and collegiate sports, whose athletes are presumably more vulnerable to a gambler’s bribery than professionals. Professional-level players earn significant sums of money each year, whereas collegiate players are prevented by strict regulations from earning compensation for their play.
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.
Point shaving perpetrators
Henry Hill
Benny Silman
Stevin Smith
Richie Perry
Matthew Wood
References in popular culture
The 1974 movie The Longest Yard features a main character, Paul Crewe, who is thrown out of the NFL for point shaving. There was also a remake of The Longest Yard in 2005 staring Adam Sandler.
In an episode of The Sopranos, “The Rat Pack”, it is mentioned that New York mob boss Carmine Lupertazzi invented point shaving.
An Asian Handicap is a sports betting term used to describe spread betting in football (soccer). Described as Asian because of its Eastern origins, the phrase has little else to do with the region. This form of soccer betting has gained increased popularity over the last few years and is now offered by a variety of mainstream bookmakers.Football bets can be made using a few different formats. From a gambler’s standpoint, Asian handicap odds provide many benefits. For starters, the Asian handicap system eliminates any chance for loss due to a tie, which increases the gamblers chances of success. Secondly, bookmakers typically charge less Vigorish than with other bets.
Description
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. Take a look at this example:
Example
Match: Everton vs. Newcastle United
Handicap: 0 : 1 1/2
Explained: This handicap states that Everton is “giving” Newcastle one and one half goal for the match.
This means is that Newcastle is starting the game with a 1.5-0 lead. If the final score of the game is 2-1, then a bet on Newcastle wins the with the final score (considering handicap) as 2-2.5.
Quarter Handicaps
Subsequently, many matches are handicapped in 1/2 and 1/4 intervals; both of which eliminate the possibility of a tie since no one can score a half-goal. Quarter (1/4) handicaps split the bet between the two next closest 1/4 intervals. For instance, a $1000 bet with a handicap of 1 3/4 is the same as betting $500 at 1 1/2 and $500 at 2. With 1/4 handicap bets, you can win and tie (win 1/2 of wager) or lose and tie (lose 1/2 wager).
Whole Handicaps and Ties
Handicaps that are whole numbers still allow for the possibility of a tie. Sportsbooks will refund both bets in the event of a game tied by the handicap.
Reference & Payout Charts
Asian Handicap Betting Article from DragonBets.com
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Video: NFL Football Best Bet of the Week with Odds from Gamblers Television
Big and small is a dice game of pure luck. It is a popular gambling game in China and is still offered in some casinos in Asia, notably in Macau. A variation is the common casino game Sic bo.
Rules
The game is played with three dice. Traditionally, the dice are placed on a plate, covered with an inverted bowl and the plate and bowl are then shaken together. After gamblers place their bets, the banker uncovers the bowl, pays the winners and the game continues on to the next round. In modern casinos the dice are shaken mechanically, and the outcome is keyed into a computer which automatically lights up the winning zones on the table.
The game is called “Big and Small” because the main bets are on “high points” (big) or “low points” (small). Other bets are also offered:
Name of Bet
Winning Criterion
Dividend
Odds of Occurrence
House Advantage
Big (大)
Dice Total: 11 to 17 Player loses if “Alls”
1 to 1
48.61%
2.78%
Small (小)
Dice Total: 4 to 10 Player lose if “Alls”
1 to 1
48.61%
2.78%
All 1 (圍一)
All 1
1 to 180
0.46%
16.7%
All 2 (圍二)
All 2
1 to 180
0.46%
16.7%
All 3 (圍三)
All 3
1 to 180
0.46%
16.7%
All 4 (圍四)
All 4
1 to 180
0.46%
16.7%
All 5 (圍五)
All 5
1 to 180
0.46%
16.7%
All 6 (圍六)
All 6
1 to 180
0.46%
16.7%
Any Alls (全圍)
All x
1 to 30
2.78%
16.7%
This is a game in which no skill is required on the players’ part, and the house always has an advantage.
Counting cards in blackjack has become substantially more difficult as a result of casino countermeasures. The most common is the use of more decks, which decreases the player’s advantage, but even in the few remaining single- and double-deck games, dealers will often shuffle prematurely or unusually frequently to defeat a suspected card-counter. However, for the casinos there is a downside to frequent shuffling: It reduces the amount of time that the noncounting players are playing and consequently losing money to the house. It has become common for casinos to use automatic shuffling machines to compensate for this. Some models of shuffling machines shuffle one set of cards while another is in play. Others, known as Continuous Shuffle Machines (CSMs) allow the dealer to simply return used cards to a single shoe to allow playing with no interruption. Because CSMs essentially force minimal penetration, they remove almost all possible advantage of traditional counting techniques. As a result, some blackjack players call for a boycott of tables using CSMs. In the case of online casinos, the deck is shuffled at the start of each new round, ensuring the house always has the advantage. However, some online casinos periodically animate the dealer shuffling the cards to give the illusion that the cards are shuffled infrequently.
Unfavorable rules can cut into a player’s advantage, such as no double down after splitting, and having the dealer hit a soft 17 (ace, six which can play as 7 or 17.) Starting around 2004 a number of casinos began offering a 6:5 payoff on player blackjacks instead of the more traditional 3:2 payoff. These games are generally single-deck, inviting unwary card-counters and other players who believe they have an advantage. The inferior payoff substantially increases the house edge and makes the game unbeatable, even by a card-counter who is practicing the most sophisticated system perfectly.
A pitboss who determines that a player is a card-counter might either “back off” the player by inviting him/her to play any game other than blackjack, or will ban him/her from the casino itself. In jurisdictions where this is not legal, such as Atlantic City, a pitboss can require the player to flat-bet and disallow players from entering in the middle of a shoe. Such countermeasures effectively remove any chance of gaining an advantage from card counting in multi-deck games. The player’s name and photo (from surveillance cameras) may also be shared with other casinos and added to a database of card-counters and cheaters run for the benefit of casino operators. One such blacklist was known as the Griffin Book, and was maintained by a company called Griffin Investigations. However, the Griffin Agency was forced into bankruptcy in 2005 after losing a libel lawsuit filed by professional gamblers.
Many casual card counters make small mistakes that cost the advantage they gain by counting. Two or three mistakes per hour may give back all of the counter’s advantage. Even if one can count perfectly when practicing at home, it is much more difficult in an actual casino. The loud, distracting environments of most casinos, and even the availability of complimentary alcoholic beverages, play roles as casino counter-measures.
Casinos look out for known card counters, who may be banned from play depending on regulatory commission rules. They also look for suspicious actions such as a long series of small bets followed by large one. Monitoring player behavior to assist in this identification falls to on-floor casino personnel (“pit bosses”) and casino surveillance personnel who may use video surveillance (“the eye in the sky”) as well as computer analysis to try to spot playing behavior indicative of card counting; early counter-strategies featured the dealer learning to count the cards themselves to recognise the patterns in the players. In addition, many casinos employ the services of various agencies, such as Biometrica, who claim to have a catalog of advantage players. If a player is found to be in such a database, he will almost certainly be stopped from play and asked to leave regardless of his table play. For successful card counters, therefore, skill at “cover” behavior to hide counting and avoid “drawing heat” and possibly being barred, may be just as important as playing skill.
Casinos may alter the game’s dynamic against card counters by raising the minimum or lowering the limit on a table with a suspected counter, or by reshuffling sooner than the normal end of the shoe if they think that the player is offering a large bet on a positive count.
There have been some high-profile lawsuits involving whether the casino is allowed to bar card-counters. Essentially, card-counting, if done in your head and with no outside assistance from devices such as blackjack computers, is not illegal, as making calculations within one’s own mind is not an arrestable offence. Using an outside device or aid, however, was found illegal in a court case in Nevada involving Keith Taft, a professional gambler known for his innovations in blackjack computers and other gambling technology. In this case, two members of Keith Taft’s team were convicted of cheating for using a video device to gain knowledge of a blackjack dealer’s hole card. At the time of the Taft team trial, however, there was no anti-device law in Nevada, and the law that was written after this case is considered by many attorneys to be unconstitutionally vague. Still, the law has been adopted by most other states with casinos, and no player has yet tried the constitutionality of the law.
Casinos don’t tolerate card counters or practitioners of other legal professional gambling techniques willingly and, if permitted by their jurisdiction, may ban counters from their casinos; in Nevada, where the casinos are ruled to be private places, the only prerequisite to a ban is the full reading of the Trespass Act to ban a player for a year. Some skilled counters try to disguise their identities and playing habits; however, some casinos have claimed that facial recognition software can often match a camouflaged face with a banned one. In the experience of most professional gamblers, this is untrue, and a 2004 book by a Las Vegas casino surveillance director, The Card Counter’s Guide to Casino Surveillance, also declares this assertion to be an overstatement. Approximately 100 casinos in the United States used the Griffin Investigations consulting firm to help them track down and monitor card counters, before the firm’s bankruptcy as a result of a lawsuit for libel filed by professional gamblers.
Other modern technology that has been marketed as an aid in catching card counters includes the MindPlay system and Blackjack Survey Voice software.
Compulsive gambling is an urge or addiction to gamble despite harmful negative consequences or a desire to stop. A preferred term among many professionals is problem gambling, as few people described by the term experience true compulsions in the clinical sense of the word. 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.
Pathological gambling
Extreme cases of problem gambling may cross over into the realm of mental disorders. Pathological gambling was recognized as a psychiatric disorder in the DSM-III, but the criteria were significantly reworked based on large-scale studies and statistical methods for the DSM-IV. As defined by American Psychiatric Association, pathological gambling is an impulse control disorder that is a chronic and progressive mental illness.
Pathological gambling is now defined as persistent and recurrent maladaptive gambling behavior meeting at least five of the following criteria, as long as these behaviors are not better explained by a manic episode:
Preoccupation. The subject has frequent thoughts about gambling experiences, whether past, future, or fantasy.
Tolerance. As with drug tolerance, the subject requires larger or more frequent wagers to experience the same “rush.”
Withdrawal. Restlessness or irritability associated with attempts to cease or reduce gambling.
Escape. Subject gambles to improve mood or escape problems.
Chasing. Subject attempts to win back gambling losses with more gambling.
Lying. Subject attempts to hide the extent of his or her gambling by lying to family, friends, or therapists.
Loss of control. Subject has unsuccessfully attempted to reduce gambling.
Illegal acts. Subject has broken the law in order to obtain gambling money or recover gambling losses.
Risked significant relationship. The subject gambles despite risking or losing a relationship, job, or other significant opportunity.
Bailout. Subject turns to family, friends, or another third party for financial assistance as a result of gambling.
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.
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. This screen is undoubtedly the most cited instrument in psychological research liturature.
Incidence
According to the National Council on Problem Gambling, incidence of problem gambling is 2-3% and pathological gambling is 1% in the United States, though this may vary by country. By contrast, 86% of Americans have gambled in their lives and 60% gamble in a given year.
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—as opposed to the availability of a particular game 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 poker 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.
Dopamine agonists, in particular pramipexole (Mirapex), have been shown to cause compulsive gambling (PMID 16009751).
Jueteng (pronounced wet-teng) is an illegal numbers game played in the Philippines. Jueteng came from China and it means flower (jue) and bet (teng). Although illegal, it is a widely popular game with participation that crosses most, if not all social and economic boundaries, played by rich and poor alike. With long odds and no limits on minimum or maximum bets, the lure of quick riches through a lucrative payout is by far its strongest appeal.The game relies heavily on having a large number of wagers, and there is no limit to the amount of the bet(s). Usually the gambler selects two numbers from 1 through 37, and the winning number is determined by selecting a pair of numbers from a set of 37 numbered balls. Thus the theoretical odds of winning on any one play are one in 37C2, or 1/666. This is unlike the numbers games in the U.S. during the early part of the 20th century, where the last digit of the winning pay out or the number of the winning horse for three consecutive races determined the winning combination.
Although much has been done to curtail or eradicate this form of unregulated gambling by government and community leaders, it appears that such efforts have fallen by the wayside due to its vast popularity, and the poverty which cripples the country.
Scandals
Jueteng was brought to notoriety in 2000 during the impeachment proceedings of deposed Philippine President Joseph Estrada, who was accused of receiving illegal payoffs from gambling profits. Another political scandal erupted in June 2005 involving allegations that relatives of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo received payouts from jueteng operators.
Availability error, related to the gambler’s fallacy, is the distortion of one’s perceptions of reality due to the tendency to remember one alternative outcome of a situation much more easily than another.For example, if surrounded by slot machines people are more likely to continue feeding money into their machine, because they will occasionally see someone else win and think their chances are high of winning: they remember others winning much more readily than they remember all the times they and others have lost. The fact that somebody has won does not change the actual probability of winning, and concentrating on the number of wins fails to take into account the number of losses. People consistently make this mistake, even though the odds of winning are just as bad for the group as for the lone machine. It’s just easier to remember winnings in large groups than for the lone machine.
Other examples:
“Sorry I’m late — I hit every red light on the way here.”
Anti-”country X” sentiment escalating due to occasional unethical actions of country X.
“My friend is a choleric, a typical Aries”. (the person does not remember hundreds of untypical Aries he has met that were not choleric and falsely believes in the relation between character and the Zodiac Sign)
Availability Effects in Lethal Events
When asked to rate the probability of a variety of causes of death people tend to rate more “newsworthy” events as more likely. People often rate the chance of death by plane crash higher after plane crashes, and death by natural disaster as too likely only because these events are more reported than more common causes of death.
Similarly, in certain rare situations, safety equipment meant to save lives (e.g. seat belts) may instead hamper life-saving efforts and cause serious injury or death. Although these devices may save many more lives than they cost, only the fatalities are reported by the media, creating controversy about the risks of the safety device.
The MIT Blackjack Team, as the name suggests, was a group of students and ex-students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who attempted to beat casinos at blackjack worldwide. The team and its successors operated from 1979 through the beginning of the 21st century.
The plan and operation
Blackjack gives the house a low statistical advantage compared to other casino games. Beyond the basic strategy of when to hit and when to stand, individual players can use a combination of betting strategy, card tracking, and card counting to improve their odds. Accurate card counting is a fairly difficult skill, but since the early 1960s a large number of schemes have been published — and casinos have adjusted the rules of play to counter the most popular methods.
The chance to make large amounts of money card counting appealed to some mathematically minded students at MIT. The university had card playing clubs, but some students decided to develop their hobby. The group combined the individual player advantages with a team approach of counters and players to maximise any opportunities and disguise the betting patterns card counting produces. In a 2002 interview in Blackjack Forum magazine, MIT team manager Johnny Chang reported that, in addition to classic card counting and blackjack team techniques, the group at various times made use of advanced shuffle tracking and ace tracking techniques. While the card counting techniques used by the MIT team can give players an overall edge of up to about 2%, some of the MIT team’s methods have been established as gaining players an overall edge of up to about 4%. However, in his interview Chang reported that the MIT team had difficulty attaining such edges in actual play, and their overall results had been best with straight card counting.
The original team recruited students through flyers posted around campus. The team tested interested students to find out if they were suitable candidates, and if they were, the team thoroughly trained the new members. A corporate called Strategic Investments bankrolled the team. With the backing of the corporation, they were able to play with a bankroll of hundreds of thousands of dollars, far larger than would normally be available to college students. Eventually, with team morale suffering after a series of large losses, the corporation closed shop, and the original team disbanded, to be replaced by several new teams founded by alumni of the first group.
The team approach used by the MIT groups was originally developed by Al Francesco, elected by professional gamblers as one of the original 7 inductees into the Blackjack Hall of Fame. Blackjack team play was first written about by Ken Uston, an early member of Al Francesco’s teams. Uston’s book on blackjack team play, Million Dollar Blackjack, was published shortly before the founding of the first MIT team. The team methods devised by Al Francesco, and later used by the MIT team, at first made it more difficult for casinos to detect card counting at their tables. Unfortunately, Uston’s books alerted casinos to the methods of blackjack team play, and several MIT team members were identified and barred. These members were replaced by fresh MIT students, and play continued. Investigators hired by casinos eventually realized that many of those they had banned had addresses in or near Boston, and the connection with MIT became clear. The detectives obtained copies of recent MIT yearbooks and added photographs from it to their image database.
With most of the original team barred, most members retired, having made an amount variously reported as $1 million to $10 million. Some members have used reports of their successes to start public-speaking careers or businesses selling blackjack card counting systems or running blackjack seminars.
In the media
The story of the MIT Blackjack Team was told in the documentary Breaking Vegas, in the book Bringing Down the House, and on an episode of the Game Show Network documentary series, Anything to Win. The private investigation firm referred to as Plymouth in Bringing Down the House was Griffin Investigations.
Originally, martingale referred to a class of betting strategies popular in 18th century France. The simplest of these strategies was designed for a game in which the gambler wins his stake if a coin comes up heads and loses it if the coin comes up tails. The strategy had the gambler double his bet after every loss, so that the first win would recover all previous losses plus win a profit equal to the original stake. Since a gambler with infinite wealth is guaranteed to eventually flip heads, the martingale betting strategy was seen as a sure thing by those who practiced it. Unfortunately, none of these practitioners in fact possessed infinite wealth, and the exponential growth of the bets would quickly bankrupt those foolish enough to use the martingale after even a moderately long run of bad luck.
Analysis
Suppose that someone applies the martingale betting system at an American roulette table, with 0 and 00 values; a bet on either red or black will win 18 times out of each 38. If the player’s initial bankroll is $160 and the betting unit is $10, the player will make a win in approximately 96% of sessions, gaining an average of $4.30 from each winning session. In the remaining 4% of sessions, the player will “bust”, exhausting his bankroll, for a loss of $160. It follows then that the average session losses of a gambler employing this strategy are $2.27. Given a larger bankroll, the odds of making a win before running out of cash increase; however, the average winnings grow more slowly than the average losses, so the game remains a losing proposition.
Modern casinos generally have table minimums and maximums to prevent players from doubling their bets more than five or six times, rendering the martingale system obsolete.
A bookmaker, bookie or turf accountant, is an organisation or a person that takes bets and may pay winnings depending upon results and, depending on the nature of the bet, the odds. 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. Bookmaking is generally illegal in the United States, with Nevada being a notable exception.
In some countries, such as Singapore and Canada, the only legal bookmaker is state-owned and operated. In Canada, this is part of the lottery program and is known as Sport Select.
Most bookmakers in the USA bet on college and professional sports, though in the UK they offer a wider range of bets, notably on political elections. The probability that it will snow on Christmas day is another common event for betting in the UK.
By adjusting the odds in his favour 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.
Traditionally, bookmakers have been located at the racecourse, but improved TV coverage and laxer laws have allowed betting in shops and casinos in most countries. In the UK, bookies still chalk up the odds on boards beside the race course and use tic-tac to signal the odds between their staff and to other bookies.
In 1961, Harold Macmillan’s Conservative Government legalized 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 U.K. Now, through consolidation, they have been reduced to about 8,500. Currently there are four major bookmakers in the United Kingdom: William Hill, Ladbrokes, Coral, and state-owned ToteSport.
Increasingly, gamblers are turning to the use of betting exchanges which automatically match Back and Lay bets between different bettors, thus effectively cutting out the bookmaker’s traditional profit margin. Some bookmakers have even taken to using betting exchanges as a way of laying off unfavourable bets and thus reducing their overall exposure.
Sometimes, savvy individuals set up an illegal book in an attempt to make money – a scene often seen in films, sitcoms and so on. One of the most infamous real-life illegal bookmakers was Robert Angleton of Houston, Texas. Not only was he a bookie, but he also was a police informant about his smaller rivals. When they were shuttered, he took their business. His bookmaking scheme ended with the death of his wife, Doris Angleton.
Though many participate in gambling as a form of recreation or even as a means to gain an income, gambling, like any behavior which involves variation in brain chemistry, can become a psychologically addictive and harmful behavior in some people. Reinforcement phenomena may also make gamblers persist in gambling even after repeated losses. Because of the negative connotations of the word “gambling”, casinos and race tracks often use the euphemism “gaming” to describe the recreational gambling activities they offer.
The Russian writer Dostoevsky portrays in his novella The Gambler the psychological implications of gambling and how gambling can affect gamblers. He also associates gambling and the idea of “getting rich quick”, suggesting that Russians may have a particular affinity for gambling. Dostoevsky shows the effect of betting money for the chance of gaining more in 19th-century Europe. The association between Russians and gambling has fed legends of the origins of Russian roulette.
Historically, sports betting has been associated with a number of unsavory characters, which has a lot to do with its desultory legal treatment throughout the world. Organized crime notoriously has relied upon sports betting for money laundering or funding purposes. The corruption or threat of a boxer to take a dive at the x round is a frequent theme in mafia-related movies. All of the American professional sports leagues, as well as the National College Athletic Association (NCAA), take stringent measures to disassociate themselves from sports gambling. Nevertheless, sports history is riddled with several incidents of athletes conspiring with gamblers to fix the outcomes of sporting events, or criminals acting against athletes whose on-field performance affected their wagers.
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”.
In 1978, mobsters connected with the New York Lucchese crime family, among them Henry Hill and Jimmy Conway, organized a point shaving scheme with key members of the Boston College basketball team.
Andrés Escobar, a Colombian defender, was murdered shortly after his return from the 1994 World Cup, where he scored an own goal, the first of a 2-1 defeat to the USA that knocked out the Colombians at the first phase. In the most believed explanation, the Medellín drug cartel bet large sums of money that Colombia would advance, and blamed the Medellín-born Escobar for the loss.
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.
On 10 February 1999, a plot to disable the floodlights of The Valley during a Charlton-Liverpool match was discovered. Three individuals were arrested, and the scam tracked to Malaysia, where the Premiership is very popular, and bets frequent.
In early 2000, Hansie Cronje, then highly-regarded captain of the South African cricket team, rocked the cricketing world with frank admissions of match-fixing. Hansie admitted to receiving more than $140,000 USD from London-based bookies to influence aspects of his team’s performance. For example, he convinced Herschelle Gibbs to score less than 20 runs in a One Day International for a $15,000 USD reward. Hansie received a lifetime ban from any involvement in professional cricket but he maintained throughout his numerous trials that he never consipired to fix overall match results. He died tragically in a plane crash in 2002, leaving behind many unanswered questions and a tainted legacy.
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.
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.
In early 2005, the German Football Association (DFB) revealed that referee Robert Hoyzer was under investigation for suspected betting on a first-round German Cup tie between regional league side Paderborn and Bundesliga club Hamburger SV in August 2004, and possibly fixing the match. In the match, HSV took a 2-0 lead, but Hoyzer sent off HSV striker Emile Mpenza in the first half for alleged dissent (a sending-off that many observers considered unwarranted), and later awarded Paderborn two dubious penalties. Paderborn went on to win 4-2. Several days later, Hoyzer admitted to having fixed that match, as well as several others he worked. He went on to implicate other referees and several players in the scandal. Hoyzer himself was arrested on February 12 after evidence emerged that he may have fixed more matches than he had admitted to fixing. On February 16, UEFA announced that it would send an investigator to Athens to investigate possible links between this scandal and the aforementioned Panionios-Dinamo UEFA Cup tie. Eventually, Hoyzer was sentenced to 2 years and 5 months in prison. The Croatian betting syndicate which had paid Hoyzer to fix matches was also found to be linked to the Panionios-Dinamo match.
In late September 2005, two referees (Edilson Pereira de Carvalho and Paulo Jose Danelon) were accused of fixing several matches in the São Paulo championship for an internet betting ring that moved over USD100,000 on each match day, receiving around USD 4,400 for each match. In the following days, Armando Marques, president of the national commission of referees resigned and Nagib Fayad and Vanderlei Pololi, two businessmen, were arrested as suspects of working as middlemen between the referees and the corruption ring. In early October, a court ordered that the matches where Carvalho was the referee would have to be replayed and free to the public. No decision was made about Danelon’s matches.
A gambling affiliate is a commercial entity with a relationship with a peer or a larger entity.
We well define the gambling corporative, a facility that houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. It can be a casino, poker room, bingo halls, lotteries, sports betting agency, as well as hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships and other tourist attractions. It includes also the entities licensed to provide online gambling services.
A gambling corporative may be referred to as an gambling affiliate of another when it is related to it but not strictly controlled by it, as with a subsidiary relationship, or when it is desired to avoid the appearance of control.
Gambling affiliate marketing typically refers to an electronic version of the traditional gambling advertising channel concept. A gambling affiliate is a website which links back to a corporative gambling site like CasinoTropez.com.
However, as the Internet marketring continues to evolve, gambling affiliates are no longer restricted to website owners. Bloggers and members of different online community forums can be affiliates as well. Many emerging affiliate programs are now accepting bloggers and individuals, not necessarily webmasters, to be affiliates.
A good source for a gambling affiliate to buy an already promoted specific or generic domain name, web site or blog, is Gambling Sites For Sale.
Gambling affiliates can also be referred as publishers. Many publishers are very well known gamblers ( Tony G, Daniel Negreanu, etc.).
Illustration of the concept of gambling affiliate marketing
Gambling affiliate marketing is a web-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more gambling affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate’s marketing efforts.
Affiliate marketing is also the name of the industry where a number of different types of companies and individuals are performing this form of internet marketing, including affiliate networks, affiliate management companies and in-house affiliate managers, specialized 3rd party vendors, and various types of affiliates/publishers who promote the products and services of their partners.
Gambling affiliate marketing overlaps with other internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, email marketing and in some sense display advertising (in their own web sites, or on specialized web, sites such as Casino Online Advertising). On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques like publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.
One of the most important action in search engine optimization, is to get links back to your site from other similar web sites. Because Google and the other search engines penalize the reciprocal links, it is widely used the cross-linking methods. The best and most efficient ways to do this and this way to promote your web site and get more traffic, are the banner exchange (See MultiMedia BX) and webring methods. A webring in general is a collection of websites from around the Internet joined together in a circular structure. The best gambling webrings you can find at webring.com (http://u.webring.com/hub?ring=bestonlinecasin3, http://u.webring.com/hub?ring=betgambling, http://r.webring.com/hub?ring=poker).
The rise of blogging, interactive online communities and other new technologies, web sites and services based on the concepts that are now called Web 2.0 have impacted the affiliate marketing world as well. Most of the turnkey web sites from Gambling Sites For Sale include these characteristics.
90% of gambling affiliate programs today use revenue sharing or cost per action (CPA) and the remaining 10% are other methods, such as cost per click (CPC) or cost per mille (CPM). CPM and CPC are today still heavily used in display advertising and paid search.
Cost per mille (thousand) (CPM/CPT) requires the publisher only to load the advertising on his website and show it to his visitors in order to get paid a commission, while PPC requires one additional step in the conversion process to generate revenue for the publisher. Visitors must not only be made aware of the ad, but also pursue them to click on it and visit the advertiser’s website.
Cost per click (CPC/PPC) used to be more common in the early days of affiliate marketing, but diminished over time due to click fraud issues that are very similar to the click fraud issues modern search engines are facing today.
In the case of CPM or CPC, the publisher does not care if the visitor is the type of audience that the advertiser tries to attract and is able to convert, because the publisher already earned his commission at this point. This leaves the greater, and, in case of CPM, the full risk and loss (if the visitor can not be converted) to the advertiser.
CPA require that referred visitors do more than visiting the advertiser’s website in order for the affiliate to get paid commission. The advertiser must convert that visitor first. It is in the best interest for the affiliate to send the best targeted traffic to the advertiser as possible to increase the chance of a conversion. The risk and loss is shared between the affiliate and the advertiser.
For this reason affiliate marketing is also called “performance marketing”. Gambling affiliates are not employed by the advertiser whose gambling entity they promote, but the compensation models applied to affiliate marketing are very similar to the ones used for people in the advertisers’ internal sales department.
Some advertisers offer multi-tier programs that distribute commission into a hierarchical referral network of sign-ups and sub-partners. In practical terms: publisher “A” signs up to the program with an advertiser and gets rewarded for the agreed activity conducted by a referred visitor. If publisher “A” attracts other publishers (“B”, “C”, etc.) to sign up for the same program using her sign-up code all future activities by the joining publishers “B” and “C” will result in additional commission (at a lower rate) for publisher “A”.
This system rewards a chain of hierarchical publishers who may or may not know of each others’ existence, yet generate income for the higher level signup.
Two-tier programs exist in the minority of affiliate programs; most are simply one-tier. Referral programs beyond 2-tier are multi-level marketing (MLM) or network marketing.
Gambling affiliate sites are often categorized by advertisers and affiliate networks. There are no industry-wide accepted standards for the categorization. The following list is very generic but commonly understood and used by gambling affiliate marketers:
Search affiliates that utilize pay per click search engines to promote the advertisers offers
Comparison gambling sites and directories
Loyalty sites, typically characterized by providing a reward system for gambling via points back, cash back or charitable donations
Bonus sites that focus on gambling promotions
Content and niche sites, including gambling review sites
Personal websites (these type of sites were the reason for the birth of affiliate marketing, but are today almost reduced to complete irrelevance compared to the other types of affiliate sites)
Blogs and RSS feeds (See for ex. http://betbloggers.com, where anyone can have a free gambling blog)
Email list affiliates (owners of large opt-in email list(s))
Registration path or Co-Registration affiliates who include offers from other companies during a registration process on their own website.
Gambling directories that list gambling sites by categories without providing bonus, gambling comparison and other features based on information that frequently change and require ongoing updates.
CPA networks are top tier affiliates that expose offers from gambling advertiser they are affiliated with to their own network of affiliates (not to confuse with 2nd tier)
Gambling affiliate networks that already have a number of advertisers usually also have a large number of publishers. This large pool of publishers could be potentially recruited. There is also an increased chance that publishers in the network apply to the program by themselves, without the need for any recruitment efforts by the advertiser.
Relevant sites that attract the same audiences as the advertiser is trying to attract, but are not competing with the advertiser, are potential affiliate partners as well. Even vendors or existing customers could be recruited as affiliates, if it makes sense and does not violate any laws or regulations.
Almost any website could be recruited as an affiliate publisher, although high traffic websites are more likely interested in (for them) low risk CPM or medium risk CPC deals rather than higher risk CPA or revenue share deals.
Affiliate programs directories are one way to find affiliate programs, another method is large affiliate networks that provide the platform for dozens or even hundreds of advertisers. The third option is to check the target website itself for a reference to their affiliate program. Websites, which offer an affiliate program often, have a link titled “affiliate program”, “affiliates”, “referral program” or “webmasters” somewhere on their website, usually in the footer or “About” section of the site.
Even if all those methods seem to indicate that a site does not have an affiliate program, it could still be the case that there exists a non-public affiliate program. The only way to find out for sure, is to contact the site owner directly and ask.
It is about a legal way to win, but take care! Such practice is considered an advantage gambling and, if the casinos see that you are a skillfull or knowledgeable player that can gain an advantage at blackjack by using the card-counting or shuffle tracking, at video poker by using a strategy card devised or not by computer analysis of the game, or at progressive slot machines by taking advantage of a high jackpot, you can end by being listed on the Black Book. And, if you will be listed finally on the Griffin Book shared by the casinos, you will end you career as gambler much sooner that you intended to do, because you will be excluded from all the casinos that have access to the book.
Bonus hunting (bonus bagging, or bonus whoring) makes possible from a mathematically point of view to get a profit. Wikipedia shows as example the house edge in blackjack which is roughly 0.5%. In the example above, $5000 in wagering with a house edge of 0.5% will result in an expected loss of $25. Since the player received a $100 signup bonus, after subtracting the expected loss of $25, the player has an expected profit of $75.
If you play at an online casino, you will take advantage by the signup bonuses, usually one-off bonuses for signing up to the casino and opening an account. There are terms and conditions for each bonus, like restricted games or bets and wagering requirements.
Wagering requirements prevent players from withdrawing the bonus money immediately after receiving it. Before the bonus money can be withdrawn the player must wager a certain amount of money on unrestricted games. The wagering can be spread out over many bets. To meet a $2000 wagering requirement, a player could make 1000 $2 bets on blackjack, provided blackjack is not a restricted game.
Games like blackjack and video poker have a low house advantage. The house advantage for blackjack is ~0.5%. So in the example above, by playing $2000 worth of blackjack with a house advantage of 0.5%, a player is, expected to lose $10 in total. But the expected value is an average value and may be less than the actual value.
Assuming that you only lose an amount close to the expected loss, and the bonus awarded to you after meeting this wagering requirement is greater than $10 then you will have a profit. The process is mathematically calculated. Bad luck could cause a player to lose more than $10 playing blackjack in this situation.
In sports betting, by taking advantage of free bet promotions, you can back the event, and then lay the event on a betting exchange, at similar or same odds, thus ensuring that the free bet is not a bet at all, instead more like a financial trade. No matter the outcome, it is possible (by using a betting / arb calculator) to calculate both the possible outcomes before the sporting event has started. By inputting the odds, the bet calculator then tells you what amount to bet, to ensure that whether the bet wins or loses, the return is the same.
In online poker, the poker player can take advantage by the incentive bonuses offered by the site after a certain number of raked hands are played. For example, a site may offer a player who deposits $100 a bonus of $50 once he plays 500 raked hands. A poker player who can at least break even can become a long-term winner by playing with poker bonuses. This way, a winning poker player can add to their winnings with the use of bonuses.
The Dutch justice ministry introduced new regulations that will held criminally liable the banks and credit card companies that will facilitate online gambling on foreign sites for the Dutch citizens.
In accordance with Dutch News, in some months it will be published a list with the banned web sites (this decision seems to me a stupid idea, because they cannot control all the new gambling sites that are published every day).
Online gambling is already illegal in Netherlands, but the Dutch stats show about 400,000 people that play online, and about 30 foreign companies that target the Dutch gamblers.
The Dutch policy for gambling is in contradiction with the EU rules, Netherlands trying to get absolute state monopoly for all the gambling games, giving to the state-owned Holland Casino exclusive rights to run internet gambling in the Netherlands, and denying license for all the foreign companies that want to build casinos in the Netherlands.
Robert Catalin Pascu, the manager of a Bancpost bank agency in Bucharest, Romania, tried to suicide a on January 4th, because he lost about $120,000 at several casinos (about $60,000 at the Marriott Hotel casino). He tried first to hang up but after he failed, he plunged from the 8th floor of an apartment house
Robert Catalin Pascu, 27 years old, was a pathological gambler. He was very well known in all the Bucharest casinos. Some time ago he pawned the house of his parents to have money for gambling.
Before trying to suicide, he sent a SMS to his girl friend, writing “See you in the other world!”. Than, he sent a SMS specifying the place where it can be found his dead body. His parents, together with his girl friend that warned them, started to search for him.
After some hours, their neighbors found Robert felt down after they heard a bang and than some groaning. He was not dead.
All $120,000 was stolen from Bankpost, and the cams registered him when he took the cash. He knew that he is registered and that his act will be quickly discovered, but it seems that it was a desperate act.
Catalin Robert Pascu was employed as director with the bank agency a month ago. He had very good references.
He entered the safe four times during the holidays, including during the New Year’s Eve, and he knew that on January 3rd, when the bank will be open, the theft of the money will be discovered.
Now, Robert is still in coma at the hospital, but he has good chances to survive
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Sportsbook at Wynn Las Vegas, during Super Bowl XLII, February 2008
Blackjack
The Dutch justice ministry introduced new regulations that will held criminally liable the banks and credit card companies that will facilitate online gambling on foreign sites for the Dutch citizens.
Robert Catalin Pascu, the manager of a Bancpost bank agency in Bucharest, Romania, tried to suicide a on January 4th, because he lost about $120,000 at several casinos (about $60,000 at the Marriott Hotel casino). He tried first to hang up but after he failed, he plunged from the 8th floor of an apartment house
