Archive for the ‘Sports betting’ Category

  • 1910 Chalmers Award

    Monday, August 9th, 2010

    Ty Cobb and Napoleon “Nap” Lajoie Before the 910 Major League Baseball season, Hugh Chalmers of the Chalmers Automobile Company announced a promotion in which a Chalmers Model 30 automobile would be given to the batting champions for Major League Baseball’s American and National Leagues. Controversy At the start of the final day of the [...]

  • Legality of sports betting

    Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

    In the USA, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 makes it 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 [...]

  • Odds

    Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

    Odds for different outcomes in a single bet are presented either in European format (decimal odds), UK format (fractional odds), or American format (moneyline odds). European format (decimal odds) are favoured in continental Europe, Canada, and Australia. They are the ratio of the full payout to the stake, in a decimal format. Decimal odds of [...]

  • Bookmaking

    Sunday, March 21st, 2010

    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 [...]

  • Types of bets

    Sunday, February 28th, 2010

    Aside from simple wagers—betting a friend that one’s favorite baseball team will win its division, for instance, or buying a football “square” for the Super Bowl–sports betting is commonly done through a bookmaker. Legal sports bookmakers exist throughout the world (perhaps most notably in Las Vegas). In areas where sports betting is illegal, bettors usually [...]

  • Sports betting

    Friday, January 29th, 2010

    Sports betting is the activity of predicting sports results by making a wager on the outcome of a sporting event. In the United States, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 makes it illegal to operate a scheme except for in a few states. In many European nations bookmaking (the profession of accepting [...]