When an item in the company’s local paper, the Vancouver Sun, leads with “The Bodog online gambling empire continues to crumble,” it is certainly a good time to keep your balances low and avoid further deposits.

This time it is a marketing support company critical to Bodog’s operations laying off 200 staff members.   Last month it was a Forbes report that $24 million had been confiscated from Bodog controlled American accounts by U.S. government.

I’m told that the withdrawal process from Bodog is currently taking some people over a month.  While much of the online wagering world continues to prosper out of the limelight, the spotlight that marketer extraordinaire Calvin Ayre drew to the company over the past few years continues to bring Bodog attention that they don’t desire today.

Comments(0)

While much of the online gaming world continues to thrive quietly, without the publicity and advertising storm of a few years ago, the same can’t be said for the industry’s premier publicity hounds.

Calvin Ayre’s penchant for thumbing his nose at the US Government has, as most expected, come back to haunt online gaming leader Bodog. Forbes reports tonight that the heat is on Bodog, with $24 million confiscated from accounts kept by the company and their payment processors. Further action would be no surprise.

Bodog founder Ayre supposedly left the company this summer, though there’s a surprising lack of information in his Wikipedia entry on the controversy that has surrounded the mercurial gaming entrepreneur. You get the sense that Wikipedia Sanitizer was a full time position in Vancouver.

Comments(0)

The state of Delaware is considering the addition of a sports wagering component to their state lottery. It would probably be a hideously unfavorable parlay card offering of some sort. Despite the fact that it would only be available in 1954 of the nearly 3,600,000 square miles in the United States, the NFL is coming after this thing guns blazing, with a full page ad in a Delaware newspaper against the proposal.

The Preakness seems a walkover after the performance of Big Brown in the Kentucky Derby, but there are a couple of things that might make it worth checking out the past performances on Saturday.

Steve Crist of the Daily Racing Form pointed out earlier in the week that only 6 of the 14 odds-on Preakness favorites in the last 50 years have won the second jewel of the Triple Crown.

Additionally, the seeming overconfidence of Big Brown’s trainer Richard Dutrow before the Derby is gone, and Dutrow seems pretty realistic heading in this race. One of the horse’s owners expects him to bounce off the huge Derby effort. Dutrow admits that Big Brown won’t run as well on two weeks rest, though he does consider him to be the likely winner based on the lack of competition.

It is still tough to see Big Brown getting much of a challenge, but anything could happen, and that’s why they run around the track.

Comments(0)

This is the story about an obscure baseball betting rule, Congress, the resurgence of local bookies, and why it is more important than ever before to understand the betting rules of the sports that you wager on.

I have a guy who handicaps baseball for my customers (totals only, no sides) and he does an excellent job, winning every week this season so far with just about 15 net winners after juice at this point. He called me one night last week to chat. As I wasn’t following the scores, I asked him how we were doing that night.

He was worried about our under in the Twins/ChiSox game, which had gone into extras after being 2-2 in regulation. The game was in the 12th inning with the score 3-3, but was in a rain delay. While we chatted, the game was suspended. “What happens now?” I asked.

He was pretty sure that the ruling would be that the total would stand, but not 100% certain, as it was such a rare situation for a game to rained out while tied in extra innings. Sure enough, a check of the rules and regulations for baseball betting confirmed that we would be credited with a winner.

Here’s the rule. “The following applies for over/under and run line wagering. If a game is called or suspended in extra innings, the score will be determined after the last full inning unless the home team scores to tie, or takes the lead in the bottom half of the inning, in which case the score is determined at the point of the game being called.”

So in this instance, since the score had been 3-3 at the end of the 11th, the winner was the under (as well as +1.5 for run line players). Those who played either the Twins or White Sox would have their wager refunded as “no action”.

But with so many bettors once again playing with local bookies, would bettors playing with Jimmy or Tony (those first names combine to make up over 40% of all local bookes) be properly credited with the win?

Being aware of the rules is more important than ever. Congressional legislation getting in the way of banking relationships between offshore wagering entities and American banks has led to a resurgence of local bookies to fill the void. Bookmakers coast-to-coast who had left the business, or were on the verge of leaving the business, are now serving their local bettors in large numbers once again.

While a legit, reputable, offshore sports book will know how to grade something in unique circumstances, some locals are ignorant of when a game is official for betting purposes and when it a bet is to be “no action”. Other local bookies may understand the rules, but are simply not predisposed to giving the bettor a fair shake unless he asserts himself.

So bettors should always be on top of their daily results, and that is doubly true if they are back to dealing with local bookies, as so many are these days.

Getting back to my baseball guy, after winning his only Thursday play we are now 46-28 (62%+) on the season with our Strategic Sports Publishing over/unders (as documented by The Sports Monitor). The record is even a little better than that for some of us. Why? The plays are released by 9AM EDT every morning, and playing early has many of us with a slightly better record than the current documented mark.

If you’re interested in following these powerful over/under selections you can take advantage of a tremendous offer. Get the rest of May at no charge when you sign up for our month-to-month All Sports VIP service. Call 1-770-649-1078 for details.

Comments(0)

When it comes to international trade disputes, the US is usually on the free market side while Europe is more likely to be protectionist. The European edition of The Wall Street Journal points out that the roles are reversed when it comes to US interference with the operations of foreign online wagering services. The European Union is not pleased that the US has exceptions for domestic operators like horse betting sites, state lotteries, and the like while it looks to snuff out the opportunity that Americans have to wager with similar services overseas.

The EU has a winning case here, and the trading partnership and diplomatic relations with Europe is infinitely more important to the US than America’s relationship with Antigua, who prevailed with the World Trade Organization against the US last summer in a similar case, the results of which have largely been shrugged off by the US. The hundreds of millions of dollars in value erased from overseas stock markets when publicly-held foreign firms left the US wagering market leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of the European business community, giving the Europeans some resolve in the matter.

With the banks clearly not pleased to be playing “gambling transaction cop” as required by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, Congressman Barney Frank’s proposal to exempt licensed operators from US regulations may be the long term solution. While it is unlikely that ads for online poker rooms and sports books will be flooding the airwaves anytime soon, things may be on the upswing for bettors in the US.

Comments(0)

The New York Stock Exchange erupted in cheers upon hearing of the demise of New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who’s dalliance with a high-priced hooker is now part of the public record. Sports bettors with long memories likely share Wall Street’s sentiments.

Until Bill Frist snuck UEIGA through in the final 20 minutes of the 2006 Congressional session, attaching anti-gambling legislation that couldn’t get passed on it’s merits, Spitzer was the most effective regulatory opponent of online sports bettors and poker players. It was Spitzer who pressured the banking industry to the point where it became very difficult to fund wagering accounts with credit cards.

No love for the bullying Spitzer from this corner, but it is tough to celebrate when you think of his three lovely daughters and the ordeal that their hypocritical and self-righteous father is putting them through.

Comments(0)

In the last 17 years in Las Vegas, the only losing Super Bowl for the books was the 49ers blowout over the Chargers following the 1994 season. Matt Youmans of the Las Vegas Review-Journal offers the Nevada wagering totals on the Super Bowl since the state began tracking sports wagering handle. The preponderance of proposition wagering seems to make it unlikely that the books would lose another Super Bowl. It is worth noting that the three largest hold percentages have occurred in the last four years, showing how healthy the prop betting boom is for the house.

Update: Now after the game, the bookies are howling, claiming substantial losses. While Giants and under, as well as Giants outright, was surely a good result for a lot of small players, the big players were largely on the Patriots, with many professional bettors finding the Pats money line particularly attractive.

It will be interesting to see the results released by the State of Nevada on the sports books Super Bowl balance sheets. Is it the second losing year in the past 18? I predict a small winner for the books, with the proposition wagers offsetting side/total losses.

Comments(0)

“Can you believe these junkies are betting on the coin toss?” is a comment you’ll often hear from media types before the Super Bowl. But in a country where millions of people buy lottery tickets every day, the Super Bowl coin toss is a great bet in comparison.

If you’re laying -110 on either heads or tails, you’re bucking a house edge of less than 5%, meaning the sports book offering the bet expects to win less than 5 cents on the dollar. Compare that to a lottery that immediately extracts 50 cents on every dollar and you’ll see what a far superior bet the Super Bowl coin toss is.

I agree that anyone who bets the coin toss is an action-craving idiot. But what does that make lottery players who play a game with a takeout that is ten times greater? Yet the same media outlets so critical of the coin toss bet promote the lottery incessantly via treating the results and winners as news items.

Comments(0)

Here’s another 25 items of interest to those who don’t mind placing a wager or two on the games they enjoy.

1. First downs aren’t the most valuable stat in football, but they can tell you a lot about a team’s ability to sustain offense. In an average performance an NFL team will get 18 or 19 first downs in a game. A look at some first down numbers show some abominable offensive performances last weekend. Five NFL teams had 11 first downs or less. The Vikings had 11 yet somehow managed to beat the Niners. The Rams, Raiders, and Panthers had 10 each in losing by a combined 94-23. The Chiefs were held to a putrid 7 first downs in their 41-7 shellacking at the hands of the Broncos.
2. So what did these clubs have in common? They were all on the road. But more importantly, their starting quarterbacks were Tarvaris Jackson, Brock Berlin, Josh McCown, Vinny Testaverde, and Brodie Croyle. There is simply a dearth of quality quarterbacks in the NFL.
3. The fact that the pass-first quarterback is not exactly the rage in college football isn’t going to do anything to feed better young quarterbacks into the league.
4. In a not-unrelated note, favorites went 12-4 in the NFL last weekend.
5. For a while it looked like Jack Pardee was going to get hired to replace Art Briles (moved on to Baylor) at Houston. And they were serious. Briles will turn 72 during spring practice.
6. Neither of the two “finalists” in the article on Pardee was hired. Instead the Cougar job goes to Oklahoma co-offensive coordinator Kevin Sumlin, who becomes the eighth minority coach in Division 1-A football.
7. While still calling them Breeders’ Cup races, Friday appears to becoming the Cup’s version of the Busch Series. Was there that big of a need for a race for two-year old turf fillies? A mile-and-a-half dirt marathon? Not that I mind having more races to bet on, but there’s some dilution of the title “Breeders’ Cup Champion”, isn’t there?
8. Clemens? Of course. Tejada? Obviously. But I wouldn’t have taken 200-1 odds that Hal Morris would have been on that list. Hal Morris had 76 home runs in 3,998 career at bats. It would be a challenge to find a first baseman who played 10+ years in the majors with lower power numbers than Hal Morris. I guess there’s juicing and then there’s juicing correctly.
9. Still no test for HGH in MLB.
10. It is easy to forget exactly how quiet “exam week” is in college basketball. Including the “added” board, there are only 18 total bettable games from Monday through Friday in all of college hoops.
11. My Strategic Sports Publishing basketball selection service is off to another great start this season. We’re hitting over 60% in both college (65.7%) and pro (61.5%) hoops. Since the start of last season in the Sports Monitor’s regular season college basketball rankings we’ve notched a 113-64 (64.5%) mark. For information on this service, call 1-770-649-1078 for rates and details.
12. The vast majority of our college hoops plays are sides, but you may have noticed that college totals are going up later and later, at lower and lower limits, and are moving quicker and quicker?
13. The International Olympic Committee considers illegal gambling to be a significant threat and is eager to work with legal wagering firms in an effort to track the action on Olympic sports. The IOC understands that the paper trail that legal, licensed wagering provides is essential.
14. Yet here in the US, street bookies are once again flourishing due to Bill Frist’s ill-conceived legislation from last fall.
15. Of course offshore and online sports books really aren’t doing that badly, and it isn’t nearly as difficult to withdraw and collect as the media suggests.
16. We’ve been telling you for months now how important the Antigua vs. US case is in front of the World Trade Organization. It looks like a decision may be imminent in the online gambling dispute.
17. Southern Miss hired Larry Fedora as their new head coach. A tip of the hat to Fedora, the former Oklahoma State offensive coordinator.
18. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I actually stole that line from Marc Lawrence, who used it while I was guesting on his radio show.
19. The “calling of the hogs” was the most entertaining part of the Bobby Petrino press conference, but the lack of challenging questions from the “reporters” in Arkansas was the most striking. Tony Barnhart has a few that could have been asked had the sports media in Fayeteville not been so compliant.
20. Petrino’s old boss, Tom Jurich, the AD at Louisville, says that his former coach is now “five for five”, actively looking for a new job each of the past five seasons. That’s just one of the nuggets in Pat Forde’s terrific takedown of Petrino.
21. There are some bad actors on the Falcons, but Warrick Dunn and Joey Harrington, good soldiers throughout a difficult year, offer some illuminating examples of Petrino as a guy who was completely overmatched.
22. Petrino overshadowed a couple of other coaching moves in the SEC this week. A couple of years ago Al Borges was the toast of the town in Auburn, Alabama. But the offensive coordinator was let go by Tommy Tuberville this week.
23. After not capturing the Southern Miss job, Tyrone Nix becomes the defensive coordinator at Ole’ Miss for Houston Nutt. It is a lateral move in title, but a $100,000 raise for Nix. Steve Spurrier might not mind Nix’s departure after the injury-fueled late season collapse by his defense.
24. Handicappers Matty Baiungo and Erik Scheponik share a well-done and successful free selection phone. Call this 24-hour voice mail broadcast at 1-404-250-7555 for solid winning information. I’m a contributor on a similar effort at 1-770-618-8700.
25. Back next week with a bowl-heavy effort. Have a great weekend.

Comments(0)

As we head into the weekend, here are 25 more observations from the sports and wagering worlds.

1. Sorry, but no critiques of the BCS here. Rather, the effort will be to give you some stuff you didn’t already know rather than just shoot fish in a barrel.
2. Though Peter King of Sports Illustrated apparently disagrees. Yes, he really wrote, “The BCS worked out. Ohio State-LSU is the game I want to see for all the marbles.” King frequently uncovers worthwhile NFL tidbits, but his college football thoughts couldn’t be any more laughable.
3. It is difficult not to root for the service academies so it is tough to see Paul Johnson leaving Navy.
4. But if he had to leave I’m glad he’s coming here to Atlanta to coach Georgia Tech, I’m looking forward to studying him up close. It will be fascinating to see how he implements an offense that is more pass-oriented than his Navy attack, which would often only feature 4 or 5 passes per game. Johnson is a sharp cookie and the ACC is ripe for the taking, with a lot of programs in real down cycles right now.
5. Some of the decision makers at Georgia Tech wanted to give the job to Will Muschamp, Auburn’s defensive coordinator. He’s a sharp young coach but the concern was that the Tech fan base wouldn’t accept someone who played and coached at Georgia. Worth noting that Vince Dooley was an Auburn man, while Bo Schembechler was an assistant coach at Ohio State for five years before coaching at Michigan (with Miami-Ohio in between.)
6. Muschamp may be Arkansas bound. The Hogs have been turned down by their first four choices to replace Houston Nutt, and Nutt had turned them down, as well, refusing a two-year extension.
7. How does Iowa State lose by 35 to Drake? Everyone got a lot of laughs at the Larry Eustachy Party Pix a few years back, but Eustachy’s fall devastated that basketball program, as he had the Cyclones cooking for a few years.
8. Basketball has extraordinary changes of fortune within individual games. Providence notched a 98-89 win over Boston College last weekend in which they led 62-38, allowed BC to come back with a 38-8 run, and then Providence closed the game through the overtime on a 28-13 tear.
9. The emotion of that comeback took a toll on PC, as the Friars were wiped out by Rhode Island on Tuesday night then lost as a favorite to South Carolina on Thursday.
10. Gauging a team’s emotion is always critical down the stretch in the NFL season, and this season more than ever, as the leaders of all eight divisions are up two games or more.
11. Poker pro Chip Reese, who died this week at the relatively young age of 56, was a phenomenal sports bettor as well. Sports betting is a leak for a lot of “poker pros” but it was a consistent source of income for Reese.
12. Swing..and a miss. For various reasons I liked the Suns/Raptors game under the total on Wednesday night. I lost by a mere half-a-hundred as the Suns were red-hot and uptempo in a 136-123 win.
13. Despite that humiliating loss, basketball is going really well again this year. The NBA is 60% and college is well over 60%, for a combined mark of 64%+. For rates and details on our basketball selection service call 1-770-649-1078.
14. In 84 attempts Dolphin rookie John Beck’s longest completion has been 22 yards. Beck has started three games and Miami has yet to score an offensive touchdown behind the BYU rookie.
15. Miami’s opponent this week, the Bills, haven’t exactly been tearing it up offensively themselves, with an abject refusal to throw the ball downfield. With the forecast reading “snow to ice” on Sunday in Orchard Park, is this an automatic under, or is it the kind of “obvious” play that doesn’t work?
16. Have you ever seen a team show up their coaches like Baltimore did following the Rex Ryan timeout from the sideline on Monday night? As Baltimore Sun columnist Mike Preston opines, this team “constantly complains like a bunch of babies.”
17. I’ve gotten some “what are these betting exchanges you write about?” feedback. A serviceable explanation is offered by the BBC.
18. And while I haven’t been following the race-fixing case over there at all, horse owner Miles Rodgers looks to be quite the action junkie.
19. Remember the “kid on Christmas morning” glee emanating from the nation’s capital when Joe Gibbs was hired. Seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it?
20. I don’t spend a lot of time analyzing rushing statistics in the NFL, and here’s an example why. The two best NFL teams based on net yards per rush differential are the Vikings (run for 5.6, give up 3.0, for a net differential of +2.6) and the Ravens (run for 4.0, give up 2.9, for a differential of nearly +1.2). The two best teams on the line of scrimmage are both struggling.
21. Conversely, the top four teams in net yards per pass differential are the Cowboys (pass for 8.5, give up 5.9, for +2.6), the Steelers (+2.3), the Patriots (+2.1), and the Colts (+1.9). Though we’re dealing with statistics in retrospect, this should tell us something, shouldn’t it?
22. The Steelers passing numbers are impressive, particularly their pass D (4.8 yards per attempt is best in the league), but the Men of Steel have played the easiest schedule in the league according to several power ratings, including Sagarin’s.
23. Handicappers Matty Baiungo and Erik Scheponik share a well-done and successful free selection phone. Call this 24-hour voice mail broadcast at 1-404-250-7555 for solid winning information. I’m a contributor on a similar effort at 1-770-618-8700.
24. Since the average sports fan has so little interest in horse racing, more than ever before the pro bettors are competing against each other, making it hard to make the kind of money that they used to. Not addressed in this article is how these big guns wouldn’t even be playing if it weren’t for rebates, which are more hush-hush than ever before.
25. I’m off to coach the Arizona Wildcats for the rest of the hoops season. Have a great weekend.

Comments(0)