House OKs Retooled Betting Sports Plan

House OKs Retooled Betting Sports Plan
ESPN.com news services
A reworked sports betting bill passed the Delaware House of Representatives last week, greatly improving the odds that the First State will become the only state east of the Mississippi to allow legal gambling on sporting events.
An earlier version of the bill that would have authorized sports betting fell two votes short of a needed three-fifths majority. But the proposal, backed by Gov. Jack Markell as a means to address the state's fiscal crisis, was amended to address some concerns of the state's three racetrack/casinos.
"My administration worked with the leadership in the house and senate to get this done," Markell said in a prepared statement. "We never stopped fighting to do what was right for the taxpayers of Delaware."
Under the new proposal, the racetrack/casinos will eventually be allowed to conduct table games -- currently, only slot machines and other electronic gaming are allowed -- and will see a larger share of sports betting revenues than what was initially proposed.
The reworked bill passed the House 30-4. It still requires passage in the state Senate and Markell's signature to become law.
Markell said the current proposal bill will bring in an estimated $52 million in fiscal 2010, but added that could increase if table games are running by early next year, according to The News Journal of Wilmington. Markell is already proposing an 8 percent wage decrease for state workers as Delaware deals with budget woes.
Major sports leagues and the NCAA have opposed the proposal. Delaware, which briefly experimented with a sports lottery in the 1970s, is one of four states grandfathered under a 1992 law that bars states from establishing legal sports betting. Montana, Oregon and Nevada are the others.


House OKs Retooled Betting Sports Plan

Win Big at Online Betting Sports

Win Big at Online Betting Sports
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Legal or illegal, Betting Sports is still big business

Legal or illegal, Betting Sports is still big business
China's lottery could topple those of the United States and become the world's first hundred billion dollar lottery, according to China Center for Lottery Studies at Peking University.
It has the potential to grow more than tenfold from its current level of $15 billion sales with more than 100 million players to one worth $150 billion.
Wang Xuehong, executive director of the China Center for Lottery Studies and a senior research fellow, Ministry of Finance, said the China Lottery has huge potential for growth, if it could capture some of the illicit gaming market.
"The challenge has to be to win back the 300 billion yuan spent on illegal lottery games and that is where a lot of China's immediate lottery growth could come from,” she said.
"This can be achieved by making a lot of the China lottery games more exciting and interesting to play. I think if this can be done then China's lottery could easily grow to a thousand billion yuan in a relatively short time frame."
If China's lottery was to grow to $150 billion, it would be almost three times the size of that of the combined state lotteries of the United States, the world's largest lottery market, which generated sales of $53.7 billion in 2007, according to US lottery games giant Scientific Games.
It would dwarf those of Italy with annual sales of $21.1 billion, Spain with $14.7 billion, France with $13.7 billion and the United Kingdom with $9.6 billion.
It would also be of equivalent size to the entire economic output of countries such as Egypt and New Zealand.
There has been speculation within the global lottery industry that the Chinese government could be set to issue a third major lottery license, its first in 15 years, to raise revenue for cultural and educational projects.
A new license would coincide with the drafting of China's first Lottery Act, which received the backing of the State Council last week.
Gary Newman, chairman and chief executive officer of Global Lottery Corporation (GLC), based in Las Vegas, Nevada, one of the world's leading lottery technology providers, said talk of a new license in China is currently the major talking point in the world's lottery industry.
"It will be dramatic. Rumors are all out there to lottery service providers that a third license has been issued and it is a national license,” he said.
"We have heard they (the Chinese government) want to go the cellular route. It would mean a person's cell phone would be a retail lottery terminal and it would open up big revenue streams for the government."
A government source, however, told China Daily there was no plans for a third license to be issued.
A move towards being able to play the lottery on mobile phones would be a logical move for the Chinese government, however.
One of the big problems for the existing lottery, which has been running for 22 years, is the relatively small number of participants.

Last year, China's lottery amassed revenues of just $15.6 billion (105.1 billion yuan), compared to an estimated $45 billion (300 billion yuan) spent on illegal lotteries and around $150 billion (1.03 trillion yuan) spent in total on illegal forms of betting.
It is estimated that only 18 percent of China's 1.3 billion people have ever played the lottery and the fact that there are 500 million mobile phone users in China would considerably widen the access.
Newman at GLC, which has offices in San Diego, Vancouver, London and Hong Kong, said he believes cellular is a potential way forward for China.
"The key advantage would be speed, ease and the fact that almost everyone has got a cellphone. There are real problems in such a vast country of doing it through retail outlets since it is immensely expensive," he said.
Tang Namei, a 25-year-old financial manager who lives in Shenzhen and is a regular lottery player, said she would welcome other distribution channels to play the lottery.
"I would play the lottery on my mobile phone if I was too busy to go and buy a ticket because it would be more convenient," she said.
Some such as Huang Yi, 27, a bank accountant from Luxian County in Sichuan province, would still prefer the security of a paper ticket.
"I don't like the idea of playing the lottery on my mobile phone because I like the security and certainty of being able to hold onto a ticket," he said.
China issued the first license for a welfare lottery in 1987 and a second one for sports in 1994.
Wang, who studied gaming management at the University of Nevada in Reno and is involved in drafting China's Lottery Act, said she believes that if China's lottery is to grow and develop it needs the right regulatory framework in place.
"If the lottery is to grow, much depends on the policy of the government. Sometimes decisions can be taken overnight which are not based on either the industry's or the market's needs and there is a need for a much longer-term approach," she said.
"If there are the right laws in place, people feel confident playing the lottery and this leads to greater consumer confidence among players," she said.
The lottery has been a consistent revenue earner for the government. The sports lottery, which celebrated its 15th anniversary this month, provided $400m (2.75 billion yuan) toward last year's Beijing Olympics. It has also funded 8,728 park-based fitness areas, 132 fitness centers and 12 sports parks under China's national fitness program.
Wang Jun, deputy director of the China General Administration of Sport, said it had made a major contribution to sports.
"Without the public welfare fund from the sports lottery, we won't be having such excellent fitness facilities for the ordinary citizens in such a short time," he said.
"It serves as a strong impetus in our effort to let ordinary Chinese do exercise and keep healthy."
Wang at the China Center for Lottery Studies insisted this sort of funding would massively increase if the lottery was made more exciting for players.
"If it doesn't come up with interesting games then people will graduate to the illegal lottery and other forms of gambling," she said.
"There needs to be more products provided to the market. There always needs to be more advertising and promoting of the lottery."
"The key change, however, needs to be in the distribution network. It needs to be enhanced and made better and become much more market-orientated."
For Chinese lottery players, however, winning is everything. Tang, the financial manager from Shenzhen, said she still hopes to win the jackpot one day.
"I have been buying welfare tickets for a year and got several 10 yuan prizes, although a colleague of mine won a big prize a couple of weeks ago. I'll keep buying until some day I win the jackpot," she said.


Legal or illegal, Betting Sports is still big business

A New Chance for Online Betting Sports in the U.S.

A New Chance for Online Betting Sports in the U.S.
By ERIC PFANNER
New York Times
PARIS — Is online gambling coming in from the cold?
When the U.S. Congress cracked down on Internet betting in 2006, the big, publicly traded European companies that had dominated the business closed up shop in the United States. Growth in the booming industry shifted away from these companies, once the darlings of the stock market, to private operators in offshore locations like Antigua and the Isle of Man.
But now, executives of some of the European companies whisper excitedly that they may soon get a second chance in the United States. Meanwhile, a number of European countries that have long maintained barriers are moving, under pressure from regulators, to legalize, and tax, online gambling.
“There’s still a lot of gambling going on, where there’s no revenue coming in to the governments,” said Gavin Kelleher, an analyst at the research firm H2 Gambling Capital in Ireland. “They realize they could use the revenue.”
The biggest potential change would be in the United States, where, perhaps within days, Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, is expected to introduce legislation aimed at overturning the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.
“He supports the repeal and wants to move forward on it,” said Steve Adamske, communications director for the House Financial Services Committee, of which Mr. Frank is chairman.
Mr. Frank tried and failed to do so once before, in 2007. But advocates of liberalization think they might get a friendlier hearing in Washington this time around. President Barack Obama, they note, boasted of his poker prowess during the election campaign. And the Democrats, who are seen as less hostile to Internet gambling than the Republicans, have tightened their grip on Congress.
A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers says the U.S. government could raise more than $50 billion over 10 years from taxes on legalized online gambling.
“I’d be amazed if it didn’t happen over the next two or three years,” said Clive Hawkswood, chief executive of the Remote Gambling Association, a trade group based in London. “It’s just a question of what exactly the regulations will say.”
Some analysts say that may be getting a little bit ahead of the game. Opponents of a repeal, including the Christian Coalition of America and the National Football League, have vowed to fight any new effort to end the ban.
Michele Combs, a spokeswoman for the Christian Coalition, said the group was gearing up for a “massive campaign” of letter-writing and lobbying to try to prevent any loosening of the law.
“We’re not saying people shouldn’t go to Las Vegas,” she said. “But when it’s in your home, it’s too easy. It breaks up families.”
U.S. sports leagues, meanwhile, worry that the ease of online betting increases the chances of game-fixing. Even the most bullish advocates of online gambling acknowledge that Internet sports betting — as opposed to poker or casino games — is highly unlikely to be legalized.
“There’s a better chance now for some sort of gaming legislation to be approved,” said Nick Batram, an analyst at KBC Peel Hunt, a brokerage firm in London. “But it took longer than expected to put anti-gaming legislation in place, and it will probably will take longer than expected to remove it.”
Since the 2006 law was passed, North America, once the biggest market, has been passed by Europe and Asia, according to figures from H2 Gambling Capital. The law makes it illegal for financial institutions to handle payments to online gambling sites. But enough people have found ways around it, some by using overseas payment processors, to ensure that online gambling remains a thriving business. H2 says online gambling generated revenue of $6 billion last year in North America, more than a quarter the global total of $22.6 billion, up from $17.6 billion in 2006.
Pulling out of the United States cost PartyGaming about three-quarters of its business. Its position as the biggest online poker provider has been taken over by PokerStars, a privately held operator based on the Isle of Man.
This month, PartyGaming agreed to a $105 million settlement with the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, involving the period before 2006, when it acknowledged that its activities had been “contrary to certain U.S. laws.” In turn, the U.S. authorities agreed not to prosecute the company, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, or its executives.
The agreement fueled speculation that PartyGaming might be trying to position itself for a return to the U.S. market, if online gambling were legalized.
Analysts say one possibility for European companies like PartyGaming, should the ban be lifted, would be to form partnerships with American casino operators. That would allow the European companies to share their online expertise. Operating alone, they might struggle to obtain licenses, given their history of run-ins with U.S. law enforcement, analysts said.
“It’s my feeling that even if the market were opened up, the U.S. government, in a palatable way, would probably find a way to give local companies a favorable position,” Mr. Batram said.
So far, Las Vegas executives have maintained a cautious stance about legalization of online gambling. Steve Wynn, chief executive of Wynn Resorts, said in an e-mail message that he thought it would be “impossible to regulate.”
“Even though it would be a benefit to our company, we are strongly opposed,” he said.
But speculation that Las Vegas casino operators were looking into the possibilities was fueled by recent reports that Harrah’s Entertainment, which owns Caesars Palace and other casinos, recently hired Mitch Garber, former chief executive of PartyGaming, for an unspecified role. Harrah’s did not return calls.
Mr. Ryan said that PartyGaming planned to focus on acquisition opportunities to increase its market share in Europe and elsewhere, something that was difficult as long as investors were worried about the U.S. litigation. “We think Mr. Frank’s efforts are quite meaningful to the sector,” he said.
Several other online gambling companies whose shares are traded in London, including 888 Holdings and Sportingbet, are still in talks with the U.S. Justice Department. Analysts expect them, along with companies like Bwin International, whose stock is traded in Vienna, to be involved in a round of consolidation in the industry — along with a possible eventual move back into the United States.
As they await developments in Washington, online gambling companies are looking for growth in Europe and Asia. Under pressure from regulators in Brussels, several European Union members, including France, Italy, Spain and Denmark, have been moving to legalize some kinds of online gambling, turning it into a regulated and taxed business. Britain was the first big European country to do so, in 2005.
Other countries, like Germany, Greece and the Netherlands, continue to hold out, though, in what the European Commission sees as an effort to protect government-sponsored gambling monopolies from private competition.
The commission in March published a report arguing that the United States was violating World Trade Organization rules by keeping out European online gambling companies, given that online betting on horse racing is permitted in the United States. But the commission said that it favored negotiations, rather than legal action, to end the dispute.
Also in March, however, the European Parliament adopted a separate measure supporting the right of individual E.U. member states to make their own rules on online gambling.
“It’s interesting that the European Commission is telling the U.S. it’s persecuting European companies when it can’t even get its own house sorted out,” Mr. Batram said.



A New Chance for Online Betting Sports in the U.S.

Betting Forum Sports: New Book focuses on internet gambling

Betting Forum Sports: New Book focuses on internet gambling
The future of sports broadcasting encapsulated, on to gambling. A fine book has just come out (and if there is one thing that you need to survive The Crucible it is a fine book) called Free Money by Declan Lynch in which the author details, bet by bet, a year spent gambling on the internet. Like many brought up in the days when betting shops were required by law to be decorated like a circle of hell, Lynch has not lost his "sense of wonder that something so brilliant and so potentially catastrophic can be available in his own home to every man who can get himself an internet connection and a credit card".
Interleaving his bets with entertaining anecdotes on how he became a keen gambler, and what that means, Lynch's book cracks along at a merry pace. But it soon reveals its remorseless side in the sheer accumulation of bets that are made in order to win or lose increasingly insignificant (in terms of time spent to secure them) amounts. That is often the downside of gambling, not the amount one loses but the amount of time wasted limiting those losses. Lynch closes his book with a quote from Girolamo Cardano, author, in the 1560s, of Liber Di Ludo Aleae, "the greatest advantage in gambling lies in not playing at all". Easy to say in the mid-16th century when the incitements to play were limited by there being neither internet gambling nor red-button viewing.


Betting Forum Sports: New Book focuses on internet gambling

Betting Sports Tip: Ping Pong will gain popularity quickly in U.S.

Betting Sports Tip: Ping Pong will gain popularity quickly in U.S.
By MATTHEW FUTTERMAN
Walled Street Journal
A group of sports and entertainment marketers is betting ping pong will be the next game to sweep the nation, and Anheuser-Busch InBev's U.S. unit is getting into the action.
Anheuser-Busch, one of the biggest advertisers in the U.S., has signed on as the lead sponsor of the Bud Light Hard Bat Ping Pong Tournament, which started last month.
The big brewer is backing Robert Friedman, president of media and entertainment for New York commercial-production company Radical Media, and several major partners, who think ping pong could be the next Texas Hold 'Em, the card game featured in the highly successful World Series of Poker.
The nostalgia factor, made keener by the recession, is one reason they are confident of ping pong's appeal. "This is about the residual goodwill we all feel for the better times we grew up with," says Mr. Friedman. "This conjures up family."
As the idea for the new tourney began to jell, Anheuser-Busch was re-evaluating, and even shedding, several longtime deals with athletes and major sports teams. It removed the familiar Budweiser sign from atop Chicago's Wrigley Field and ended a 30-year relationship with drag-racing legend Kenny Bernstein.

In came ping pong. With exclusive sponsorships for mainstream teams and sports becoming ever more expensive, Anheuser-Busch needed to strike a balance. Keith Levy, the brewer's vice president of marketing, says his company has to do big, brand-building campaigns attached to major events and teams, but also reach beer drinkers at the grass-roots level.
"Bud Light has always been a fun brand," Mr. Levy says. "This fits in with what we've done with it in the past."
More is at stake than fun, however. The brains and the money behind the tournament come not just from Anheuser-Busch and Radical Media but also from Mark Gordon Co., which produces "Grey's Anatomy" and other hits, and FremantleMedia Enterprises, producer of "American Idol," which see it as a potentially major moneymaker.
"Table tennis is ripe for reinvention," says Keith Hindle, executive vice president of London-based Fremantle, who foresees a variety of revenue streams from live ping-pong events, branded merchandise, sponsorships and league memberships.
The organizers know they have to come up with an innovative approach to televising a game that in the past has been hard to follow because of the speed and the size of the ball. Even if they can, could this really be the next poker?
Poker already had a long-established mystique, built on images of high rollers in deluxe Las Vegas hotel suites, before Internet gambling and the World Series of Poker inspired a wider appreciation of the mental calculations taking place around the table behind low-brimmed caps and sunglasses.
Ping pong, by contrast, is more closely associated with suburban basements and harsh fluorescent lights. Even so, the International Olympic Committee says table tennis is the world's leading participation sport, with 40 million competitive players world-wide and tens of millions more playing for fun.
Hard-bat ping pong is played with old-style wooden paddles covered with dimpled rubber that produce an unmistakable knocking sound. They also make for a slower game with longer rallies than the foam or sponge paddles that yield the fast-paced, spin-crazy brand of table tennis in which most points end within a few shots. Using the hard-bat paddles levels the playing field, giving a standout barroom player a chance to topple a pro, especially with the handicap system the Bud Light tournament will use.
Competition started in March, with local Anheuser-Busch distributors supplying Bud Light-branded ping pong tables to some 4,600 bars where regional competitions are under way. Winners can land an invitation to the tournament finals and play for the $100,000 prize in Las Vegas in late June. K-Swiss, the tennis outfitter, has agreed to be the official clothing and footwear supplier for the event.
That event, which will also include professionals, will be the focus of a two-hour television special that the organizers plan to air on Walt Disney's ESPN in September.
Mr. Friedman and Jordan Wynn, executive of Mark Gordon Co., say they noticed ping pong re-emerging in popular culture over the past year. The posse on the HBO series "Entourage" played during an episode, for example, and hip-hop star 50 Cent had a ping-pong theme at his birthday party.
"The question was could we take this game out of the basement and the cluttered garages," says Mr. Friedman. "We think the timing is just right."
Mr. Wynn goes so far as to suggest ping pong has sex appeal. "It's taking on this cool cultural space of short-shorts and retro headbands, and it's kind of goofy, but it's also got people who take it very seriously," Mr. Wynn says. "It's poker eight years ago."


Betting Sports Tip: Ping Pong will gain popularity quickly in U.S.

Online Betting Sports Now Family Entertainment

Online Betting Sports Now Family Entertainment
To win over the odds, using only your intelligence and basic instincts…To live on intuition, it's a process that gets the blood flowing and a sense of wonder when you finally beat that downward trend. To start this experience you can open an online-betting account, and start betting immediately on just about anything. If you start winning, you can withdraw your winnings instantly to your credit card by pressing a button.
Things have come a long way since the days when you actually had to go to a bit of trouble to get to some side-street bookie's office, and hand over real money to make your bet. There was nothing that might encourage you to linger or to have a pleasant experience. This was generally the domain of men, the days are gone when it took a fair amount of guts to go downtown and find a card game in a smoked filled, cigar chewing, whiskey drinking sort of place. Now the online gaming experience can take the form of a well lit living room with your cup of tea next to you and a firm grip on the mouse.
The urge to gamble is being facilitated at every turn by the interplay between sports, television, and online betting, a devastatingly powerful combination. Many sports are now sponsored by betting corporations, and are televised almost entirely for betting purposes.
Mother can now play a friendly game of bingo, Dad can bet on his favourite sports team and the kids can learn how to be a poker champions before puberty wears off. It sounds like family entertainment to most of us. A sage with some obvious wisdom once said, 'The subject of gambling is all-encompassing. It combines man's natural play instinct with his desire to know about his fate and his future.'




Online Betting Sports Now Family Entertainment

Betting Sports Tip: List of U.S. friendly casinos online

Betting Sports Tip: List of U.S. friendly casinos online
There is no denying it. It's getting harder to find quality U.S. friendly online casinos these days. Due to the many hurdles stemming from various laws, lack of regulations and the fact that the U.S. states are left with the role to find creative and Chinese-like ways to ban their residents from gambling online, there have been no new online casinos coming out lately that could be deemed U.S.-friendly. But if you are new to the whole online gambling thing, you still have plenty of options. Depending on what you are looking for in an U.S.-friendly online casino, whether it's the bonus, fast payouts or easy deposits, we have created this quick guide to getting the job done. This guide to finding U.S. friendly online casino is for informational purpose only, always check your laws before gambling on the internet.
Bodog Casino - best overall U.S.-friendly online casino: The Bodog Casino comes atop our rank list of US friendly online casinos for many reasons. It's still the online casino with the highest success of credit card deposits, Bodog has the decade+ experience in the online gambling scene and it offers a nice package of gambling services, including sports betting and poker room. It offers 10% bonus on every deposit the player makes in his or her casino account and various ongoing bonuses and specials are also posted every week. The casino looks great, the graphics are lively and as real as it gets, depositing is easy and withdrawals have been coming like clockwork since 1997. This U.S. friendly online casino is also home of the Cleopatra's Gold popular slot machine, which has made many of players rich. This is a quality online gambling company, although foreign players should be aware that residents from Canada and Turkey are not allowed to gamble here.
And if the bonus is what you are looking for, Golden Casino got you covered. This U.S. friendly online casino offers a whopping $555 match-up bonus on your first deposit, but the bonus train doesn't stop here. Extra free money will be disbursed for using various ewallets, although credit card payments are also an option, the casino has a comprehensive loyalty program which helps generate comp points and then turn them into real money, weekly out-of-the-blue bonuses and more. The Golden Casino remains honest and secure, with customer service on top of its game 24/7 via phone, email or chat sessions. What the Golden Casino is most famous for is the many slots tournaments it runs every week. A large number of those slots tourneys are free to enter, while winners get real money as a prize. Those that require buy-ins on the other side give the players chance to win large amount of cash, some slots tournaments with purses of over $100K.
Las Vegas USA Casino - and if you are looking for the best RTG software U.S. friendly online casino, Las Vegas USA is the first stop one should make. The RealTime Gaming (RTG) software is boosting over 100 different games, large number of slots, all casino table games and video poker machines you would find at a B&M Las Vegas casino, hence the name. This is the online casino that will get you as close to the Vegas-style gambling on the Internet as it's possible with the current technology. Well worth downloading all the games.
These are the current best U.S.-friendly online casinos. Of course, if you need to see a larger number of online casino websites friendly to U.S. players, you can always visit our list of online casinos for US players here. All the casinos listed there are of great quality and any country restrictions are noted for each casino. You can also read reviews of the internet casinos, see the current bonus offers and more.



Betting Sports Tip: List of U.S. friendly casinos online

Betting Sports Forum: Poker Organization to Spend $3 Million to Lobby for Online Poker

Betting Sports Forum: Poker Organization to Spend $3 Million to Lobby for Online Poker
By Joseph Ewens
Permalink
One of poker world’s most high profile pressure groups has committed itself to a multimillion dollar lobbying campaign over the next 6-8 months. The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) has told the Associated Press that they have a war-chest of $3 million to utilize during this Congressional session.
The PPA’s one million members have done their part raising the money, although much of the fund arrived courtesy of industry group The Interactive Gaming Council. This session of Congress began in January and concludes on October 30th for the winter adjournment. The vast majority will be spent trying to convince Washington politicians to repeal the UIGEA. The bill, which came into effect in 2006, effectively bans all forms of online gambling, forcing many lucrative businesses to move off-shore.
Although $3 million sounds like an excessive sum, PPA coffers may be stretched to their limits as they fight off opposition from America’s major sporting leagues. The NFL in particular was instrumental in attaching the UIGEA to the unrelated Safe Port Act in 2006. Last year it stepped up its anti-gambling activities, hiring a full time activist called Jeff Miller to represent its interests in Washington. These organizations claim that online sports betting threatens the integrity of their games and have vowed to oppose any efforts to see the ban repealed. The Christian Coalition also has a history of taking political action to further the cause of the UIGEA.
The timing of this announcement may well be timed to coincide with the activities of House Financial Services Committee Chairman, Barney Frank. During the last two years he has introduced a number of bills designed to re-legalize online gambling. His latest attempt, slated to appear before the end of April, will seek to reintroduce online gambling to legality along with legislation and taxation. Assuring a fair and even industry that contributes to the national economy is seen as a key part in its reintroduction.



Betting Sports Forum: Poker Organization to Spend $3 Million to Lobby for Online Poker

Betting Sports Works Great for NFL QB's Model Wife

Betting Sports Works Great for NFL QB's Model Wife
Tom Brady's wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen, has reportedly won $1 million in the last three months gambling on soccer matches.
The National Football League may have a policy to oppose all sports gambling, and even online casinos which do not handle sports betting, but one prominent player is richer, due to his wife's wagering on sports. Tom Brady's wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen, has reportedly won $1 million in the last three months gambling on soccer matches.

The Metropolitan Post says Mrs. Brady is a fan of Italian championship team Internazionale Milano, and has already pocketed $1 million in winnings if Inter continues its winning ways. Gisele apparently has future bets placed on Inter repeating as winners of the Scudetto, the "little shield" that signifies the champion of Serie A, Italy's premier soccer league.

Bundchen, according to the Post, is placing weekly bets on Inter, and will collect if the team wins the Scudetto, a likelihood as it enjoys a comfortable lead.

The NFL contends any gambling at all, let alone sports betting, creates corruption and a loss of integrity for its games. Yet soccer suffers no loss in public confidence or prestige by sports gambling, even though Bundchen has a connection to Inter Milan.

Before marrying Brady, Bundchen dated former Inter player Fancesco Coco. She also professes complete faith in coach Jose Mourinho, another personal acquaintance.

No comment has yet been released from the offices of the NFL about the sports gaming habits of the wife of Brady, one of the best-known players in the league. The New England Patriots quarterback is not alleged to have placed bets of his own.

One wit suggests that the NFL might want to lock up Gisele in the same cell as Janet Jones-Gretzky, also noted for her looks and gambling hobby. "Then," the wag said, "we could experience one of those women-behind-bars movies come to life."


Betting Sports Works Great for NFL QB's Model Wife

Facts Versus Faith Dominate Online Betting Sports Debate

Facts Versus Faith Dominate Online Betting Sports Debate
By Christopher Nole
General Online Casino News
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! In this supposedly enlightened age, many US citizens still claim their right to believe articles of faith, even when all scientific investigation and existing facts prove otherwise. The argument over legalized online gambling falls in the center of this phenomenon, as baseless assertions are refuted by scientific study, yet many continue to spread the falsehoods as beliefs beyond impeachment.

"It [Internet gambling] is so seductively habit-forming that individuals can in short order lose their homes and jobs and, indeed, their families and futures. And the effects on individuals rebound into society," says Former US Representative Jim Leach.

But objective scientific study finds otherwise.

“On a theoretical level, online gaming’s increased accessibility should make it more dangerous than traditional gaming. But... it does not seem to be the reality,” says Professor Dan Ross, director of research at the National Responsible Gambling Program in South Africa.

"The very first thing we learned (studying Internet gambling patterns), which we didn't expect, was that the vast majority, the overwhelming majority of gamblers online gamble in a very moderate and mild way," says Dr. Howard Shaffer after conducting a two-year study as director of the Division of Addictions at Harvard Medical School.

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said, "However, we can exercise our right to oppose Internet betting on our games. ... Gambling on our games -- online or off line -- threatens the integrity of our games and all the values they represent."

But years of legal Las Vegas sports gambling have not hurt the NFL, and European sports leagues have found cooperation with online casinos essential to prevent corruption and undue influence.

Professor Earl Grinois of the Baptist school Baylor University says social ills of casino gambling do more damage than the revenue produced offsets. Grinois says introducing a casino into a neighborhood causes crime to increase five to eight percent, with the primary jump in violent crime like burglary and murder.

But actual facts show otherwise. Casinos were brought to Bossier City, Louisiana, fifteen years ago. "There were fears, even from all of us, about the crime," Bossier City Police Chief Mike Halphen said. "But, so far, crime (in Bossier City) has actually dropped."

In the meantime, Bossier City has beautified itself, redone infrastructure, funded social aid programs, seen decreased unemployment, and created a trust fund with over $30 million for future civic needs.

In Florida, Hallandale Representative Joe Gibbons testified in front of Grinois that casinos had come to his district two years earlier. `And in those last two years, our crime rate has gone down.''

Grinois responded that crime rates go up starting in the third year.One witness guessed if Gibbons had said four years, Grinois would have said five is the measure.

Michelle Combs of the Christian Coalition lobbies for the UIGEA, saying, "We’re not saying people shouldn’t go to Las Vegas. But when it’s in your home, it’s too easy. It breaks up families.”

Yet every bit of evidence is that this is not so. Dr. Shaffer's and Dr. Ross's research shows play at online gambling sites to be controlled and budgeted by the overwhelming majority of patrons. Religious groups like to relate horrible anecdotal stories of a single incident, disregarding the statistical insignificance of the occurrence. According to statistician Frederick Felson, "Saying Internet gambling caused one horror story and is therefore evil and must be barred is the equivalent of banning cell phones because one person was beaten with a cell phone."

US Representative Spencer Bachus tried to use scientific proof to back up his belief that Internet gaming leads to mental issues by asserting a survey proved that one in four teenagers who gambled online attempted suicide. Unfortunately for Bachus, the author of the study denounced his interpretation, saying he had totally misrepresented the facts. That seems to be a common position for religious right-wingers opposing online gambling.


Facts Versus Faith Dominate Online Betting Sports Debate

New Jersey Residents Overwhelmingly Want Legal Sports Betting

New Jersey Residents Overwhelmingly Want Legal Sports Betting
The poll, conducted by Farleigh Dickinson University, shows that people living in New Jersey support bringing legal sports gambling to Atlantic City casinos by a spread of better than two to one.
A new survey of public thinking has found that residents of the state of New Jersey favor legalizing sports gambling by a decisive margin. The poll, conducted by Farleigh Dickinson University, shows that people living in New Jersey support bringing legal sports gambling to Atlantic City casinos by a spread of better than two to one.

Sixty-three percent of residents says sports books should be legal at AC casinos. The same number supported allowing horse tracks to take sports bets, while opposition fell even lower, from thirty-two to thirty percent.

The numbers fell to roughly even as to whether to permit sports betting at off-track betting venues. Forty-eight percent said yes, while forty-three percent said no, just outside the poll's four percent margin of error.

New Jersey state Senator Ray Lesniak and the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association have filed a lawsuit against the US Department of Justice, alleging that the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act unconstitutionally treats four states differently than the rest in outlawing sports gambling in most of the US.

"Here is an issue in which the voice of the public has clearly spoken. Any politician who votes against his constituents must surely be seen as serving special interests, any claim to the contrary notwithstanding,“ says legislative observer Thomas Riordan.


New Jersey Residents Overwhelmingly Want Legal Sports Betting

Betting Forum Sports: Florida may gamble on casinos for revenue

Betting Forum Sports: Florida may gamble on casinos for revenue
BY CHARLIE PATTON

Beginning in 1978, Florida voters three times rejected constitutional amendments that would have made forced the state to allow casino gambling.

But Florida’s political leaders have allowed legal gambling to gradually increase throughout the state anyway. Now the Legislature is debating whether to authorize full-scale casino gambling in Tampa and in South Florida.

“People say Florida isn’t a gambling state,” said state Sen. Jim King, R-Jacksonville. “That’s a nice thing to say but it isn’t backed by the facts.”
Since the 1930s, the state has had legal betting on horse races, dog races and jai alai. Poker is now legal in most of those facilities.
In the early 1980s, cruise ships began operating out of Florida ports like Mayport, making day trips for gamblers into international waters.

In 1986, the year voters defeated casino gambling for the second time, they approved a different form of legalized gambling, the Florida lottery.

Slot machines have been legal in Miami-Dade and Broward counties for more than a decade.
And for more than year, as a result of an agreement Gov. Charlie Crist made with the Seminole tribe in 2007, casino games like blackjack and baccarat have been played in the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Tampa and in Hollywood.

Although, the state Supreme Court ruled last summer that such games aren’t legal in Florida, the games go on, even as the Legislature debates changing the law. Despite the court ruling, the state has not attempted to stop the Seminole casinos from offering the games but instead has asked the Legislature to allow them to continue.

The Tampa Hard Rock is like “a little Las Vegas,” said Howard Korman, president of the Jacksonville Greyhound Club.

With the state facing a severe budget crisis, Crist told reporters last week he has worked out a revised proposal that will accelerate some of the tribe’s payments to the state if the Legislature approves a gambling compact. That would bring about $1.1 billion going into state coffers in the next two years, he said.

In 2007, Crist argued the deal was needed in order to ensure that Florida got a share of Indian gambling revenues. Under federal law, Indian tribes are exempt from taxation unless a specific arrangement is made. Some legal experts believe the Seminoles can offer Las Vegas-style casino games even without the state’s agreement.

“If we don’t give the Seminoles a compact, they’re going to continue to operate and we’re going to continue to get nothing,” King said.

State Sen. Steve Wise, R-Jacksonville, noted that if the Seminoles do end up operating Vegas-style casinos, which he doesn’t want, it will be partly because of past sins against them. “We took their land and it is coming back to haunt us,” he said.

In this spring’s Legislative session, which is scheduled to end Friday, the House and Senate have approved different versions of a bill that would expand legal gambling in the state.

The House version would change things slightly. It would require the Seminoles to stop offering games like blackjack while allowing them to continue to offer Las Vegas-style slot machines. It would ban slots from the rest of the state, except Broward and Miami-Dade. The bill calls for the Seminoles to pay $100 million to the state annually in exchange.

The House bill would also expand the hours and the betting limits at facilities like the two poker rooms operated by the Jacksonville Greyhound Club.

The Senate version calls for more dramatic change. It gives the Seminole tribe full-fledged casinos, including roulette, craps, slot machines, blackjack and other banked card games as well as poker without limits in return for at least $400 million annually. It would give Miami-Dade and Broward counties blackjack and other casino card games as well as Vegas-style slots. Horse and dog tracks and jai alai frontons would get video lottery terminals.

King said the decision to give the Seminoles the opportunity to run full-scale casinos was made with the idea they would become tourist destinations the way casinos in Nevada are tourist destinations. He believes if the Senate bill is approved, the state could eventually realize $1 billion a year in new revenue.

Wise, who sits on the Senate committee that deals with gambling, said he thinks the Senate passed an expansive version of the bill in order to establish a bargaining position. Their version actually gives the Seminole casino more new games than Crist’s compact did, including roulette and craps.

“The guys threw in the kitchen sink just to be able to give up something,” said Wise, who opposes gambling on moral grounds.

Both Wise and King said it’s unclear which version or what compromise will ultimately emerge.
Anything that expands gambling in the state will disappoint some people.

“From a biblical perspective” gambling is not a good thing, said Tom Messer, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church.
He said that while researching a sermon, he found a report that Americans were spending more money gambling than on movies, theme parks, cruises and spectator sports combined.

“That would tell me we have a problem,” said Messer, who added he is particularly bothered by the Florida lottery.
“The lottery is nothing more than a tax on poor people.”

Paul Mason, a University of North Florida professor who has studied the economics of lotteries and casino gambling, said he agrees that legalized gambling is not the solution to the state’s economic woes.

“I don’t believe that the Legislature should try to raise tax dollars by any form of gambling,” he said, noting that such revenues are unreliable.

Besides there is no guarantee that creating Vegas-style casinos would generate more revenue for the state, he said.

“If they can draw people into the state ... who would not have otherwise come, it could have an impact,” he said. “But if people go to the casino and spend $500 instead of going to Disney World and spending $500, you haven’t gained anything.”

While many of the gambling facilities in South and Central Florida have complained their business is being damaged by the Seminole casinos, Korman said the Jacksonville Greyhound Club continues to do well.
Competition from Tampa shouldn’t be any more of a threat than the competition from South Florida or from the casinos in Mississippi, he said.

“This isn’t as important to us as some people think,” he said. “I only feel threatened if exclusivity comes in. The thing we are most concerned about is any deal that excludes us from doing anything new.”

Jacksonville Suns executive Peter Bragan Jr., who describes himself as a serious poker player, said he believes legalized gambling leads to a “less civil the society.”

“But when the state is laying off teachers, I’d say any kind of unusual proposal is worth a look,” he said.



Betting Forum Sports: Florida may gamble on casinos for revenue

Fantasy Sports and Betting Sports Overlap Tremendously

Fantasy Sports and Betting Sports Overlap Tremendously
“It's just a fantasy. It's not the real thing. But sometimes a fantasy is all you need.” That is what Billy Joel tells us. I thought it was Kenny Rogers who was the gambler.
Yes, it can remunerate to be a fantasy/rotisserie geek because it is a good dry run for excelling in the more important pursuit of gambling. I know our good friend Rick Ballou of Sportingnews Radio does not play fantasy sports because he does not want to have that rooting brain-teaser of betting on one side and having a player on the other side to applaud.

The cheering conflict of interest aside, the make-believe general manager can get a lot of insight from the fantasy world. In the ancient times before the World Wide Web, I found that fantasy football had been analyzing from an extraordinarily different and favourable viewpoint than before I met gambling’s cousin.

I had situations like having Emmitt Smith in his prime when he was the inimitable running back in the league. I can for example remember one week when two offensive linemen were out and the pokes were on the road. Plus I had Chris Warren when he was in Seattle and he was playing a team without their two best run stoppers. Should I consider benching the world’s best running back because his match-up in not favorable? For the record, I stuck with Emmitt, but scrutiny like that actually refined me into dissecting games like few handicappers had ever before.

Fantasy sports managing helped me breakdown big match-up mismatches that occur in sports betting. It especially facilitated my acumen when it came to betting overs/unders. Quite often imprudent handicappers deduce that an injury to a key offensive player may mean fewer points or a key defensive player more points.

But in my fantasy breakdowns it became quite apparent that if a run blocker on the offensive line was hurt, it might mean the team has to pass more. Kindred to that if a team’s leading rusher were out and his backup were an ample drop-off. Often teams to compensate will have to fiddle with their game plan and in such examples open up their offense.

A depreciated offense does not mean lower scoring. So many sports speculators and general football fans fall prey to the myth that the better an offense is, the more points they will number.

One of my favorite all-time examples was in 2001, once Edgerrin James went down for the Colts. It glaringly repressed their offense, but with a great weapon in WR Marvin Harrison and QB Peyton Manning, there clearly was one way to offset his loss: throw more often. Suckers determined losing such a weapon would mean lower scoring games. I knew while it depleted their offense, it meant they would have to be much more high-octane. They exceeded the total in 14 of 16 regular season games.

Let us say that a defense is lacking their two best run stoppers because of injuries and the total is high, I further investigate to see if it correlates to their opponent having motivation to run more. If so, the end result would be longer possessions, which also means fewer possessions. Fewer possessions mean fewer scoring opportunities.

Luckily though in the hypothetical state of affairs, the total is likely posted higher because of the injuries.

A better offense is not necessarily a high scoring offense and to a lesser extent a superior defense is not inexorably going to give up more points. A great defense, whose strength is stopping the run, may force the opponent to take more risks. A bad defense that has a decent secondary may be run against more often. Ergo the posted totals would be over-adjusted.

Hence the top fantasy sports advice sites can be priceless tools for sports cognation. Rotowire.com is the oldest and still the best all-around. Consummate in all sports, their judicious view for the roto player can also be incalculable for us.

Footballinjuries.com is also fantastic for the NFL. Many sites do stupendous jobs of player against team or often better yet, player against coach career statistical examinations. For example Bill Belichick coached teams have such done extremely well shutting down certain quarterbacks. We have found that player history statistics can be of great handicapping value as so long as one also analyses how much the parameters have or have not changed. Everything in handicapping must be taken in its proper framework.

In fact, now every major sports site, from ESPN to Yahoo has fantasy information of some kind. For the most part, if it is of value to the fantasy player, a handicapper should take note.

But there are compelling contrasts, too. The world’s best fantasy player could be a dreadful handicapper, and visa versa, if one probes them as one and the same.

We handicappers must explore games one at a time, while the fantasy players must query long-term performances. Really this seems to happen more in baseball with hotshot pitchers up from the minor leagues, but can also apply in football. Joey Harrington may be great for your keeper league, but there will be peaks and valleys along the way. Actually a head-to-head league in which a participant changes his line-up is more conducive to handicapping than the rotisserie style leagues, but both are sources of knowledge.
Using fantasy sports and the foremost sites dedicated to such can make a winning football betting season more than just a fantasy. That’s the real thing.


Fantasy Sports and Betting Sports Overlap Tremendously

Sports Betting Forum: NFL Declares War on Poker

Sports Betting Forum: NFL Declares War on Poker
By Dan Boone
(Columnist)

The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling.—Ambrose Bierce

Mark Twain once wrote that nothing needs reforming more than other people's habits.
And the NFL wants to reform your online habits.
The NFL, always a bright beacon of morals in a blighted land, has decided to self-righteously step into the public morals debate. The NFL does not want a bill allowing online gambling, that is a current bill legalizing poker, to pass.
The NFL behemoth is so against people playing online poker that they have hired a high priced Washington Lobbyist, opened a DC office, and set up a PAC Donation committee to help its noble cause.
So that's where ticket increase money goes. That's why the stadium beers are nine bucks and the exhibition games are full priced flops. Perhaps that explains the PSL's. The league needs just craves some spare change to pay some politicos for favors.
Nah, the PSL's are pure greed. Nothing more nothing less.
But give it to Roger Goodell, a senator's son, who knows the Beltway better then the ball field. And he does not want folks wagering on the internet on his football games.
The NFL has thrown its vast wealth and political power into the anti-poker fray.
The old battle cry, of course, is to maintain the integrity of the game. Online Poker will be the straw that breaks the NFL camel's back. Corruption will take hold across our fair land and shame our national game.
But the battle to set the public morals has made some mighty strange bedfellows for the NFL.
Fearing that the evils of online gaming are sapping its failing strength in a fading economy, the NFL has found a strong moral ally in North American and Native American tribal casinos.
Both casino organizations throw a lot of money, and junkets, at the politicos trying desperately block online gaming.
Online poker is, of course, a severe threat to the core values of America.
A sleeper cell buried on the internet.
And everyone knows the boys in Vegas and Atlantic City have always been men highly concerned with the moral makeup of American society...
The last gambling threat to so shake the foundations of the NFL were likely the frogmen who took Baltimore Colts/LA Rams owner Robert Irsay for his last swim or maybe the bookies that took San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie Debartolo's weekly massive 49er bets.
The politicians agree. The integrity of the scared game itself is at stake. It's time for a stand.
It's time for Johnny Unitas to go for six and the cover and skip the easy three and the win.
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, a friend of the casino boys in Vegas, fights immoral online poker with one hand, and with the other, lobbies hard for a tax payer built Vegas Mob Museum.
The long awaited Vegas Mob Museum!
No poker on the computer in your basement, boys, but for $15, we will show the kids where Bugsy Siegal's brains were scattered in Vegas. Frank Costello says keep your mind off the showgirls, kids.
How about the real story of Tony "the Ant" Spilotro and the Stardust and Circus Circus? Child, did you ever hear of a man monikered Mad Sam DeStefano?
Look kids: This is where the bomb lifted Lefty Rothenstein out of his car. This is the very seat that saved him. Want to sit on it for a $5 picture?
Put in $5, press the play button, and hear the sad song of Sonny Liston.
Charming, eh?
Maybe.
I'd go to it. It certainly is no worse, morally, then online poker. But neither should be monitored or made by the government.
The old ale soaked scribe at the bar once scribbled that the government that governs best governs least.
Another odd NFL poker ban pal is the Christian Coalition.
The congressman most concerned about the effect of poker and football betting on the morals of America is the honorable Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, via Massachusetts.
Congressman Goodlatte, a member of the Christian Coalition, loves his cyber security task force, perhaps because they give him a secret Dick Tracey badge or watch. The congressman is a powerful member of the Agriculture Committee.
Oddly enough, he can combine his pair of politico power toys.
See, Senator Goodlatte also loves the slaughter of horses, but he denounces online poker as a threat to the very soul of America.
I guess he missed Gable and Monroe in The Misfits.
Goodlatte, after securing lots of donations from casino owners and their ilk, raged against internet gambling.
The same folks that sent Senator Bob piles of cash also have a vested interest in some racetracks and thoroughbred operations around the nation.
Some of those folks like selling their used up race horses to slaughter. Some of these same folks also do not want gaming competition for their casinos. Some of those same folks still have some skim and swag to spend to set their agenda.
So Senator Bob also became a key player in supporting horse slaughterhouses around the United States. He actually personally blocked a law banning slaughtering horses, while still leading the fight against internet poker.
And what would the restless ghost of Colonel Mosby think of a carpet-bagging Yankee promoting horse killing and poker slaying in his home state of Old Virginia?
Goodlatte, in these trying economic times, is a man with serious issues on his brain and in his billfold. I mean, in this terrifying economic tempest, it's good to know a stern man of morals in Washington is bravely fighting to stop poker and start horse slaughterhouses.
Someday, likely outside a seedy second rate casino with a rundown sleazy track, someone might build a bird shit-stained statue of the moral law maker.
Then sacrifice a healthy horse under it.
Still, the good senator has formed an odd alliance with the NFL, the Christian Coalition, Casino Owners, Donald Trump, Donald Trump's hair, and the gambling tribes of North America.
Who would have thought the linear descendants of Francis Lightfoot Lee, Cotton Mather, Elmer Layden, George Halas,Tecumseh, Neamathla, PT Barnum, Bugsy Siegel, Frank Costello, and a dead, dyed, rotting raccoon (the closest thing I could think of for Trump's hair) would join hands to battle online poker?
Granted, greed unites, politics have no relation to morals and, of course, the covetous are always in want, but that's still a strange brew to be passing the peace pipe and moaning about the loose morals of online gaming, or of anything for that matter.
Other politicos, with, apparently, not much else on their plate, have also stepped into the fray.
Iowa republican Jim Leach called online gaming "a double-whammy for society. It is so seductively habit-forming that individuals can in short order lose their homes and jobs and, indeed, their families and futures. And the effects on individuals redound into society."
At first I thought Senator Leach meant crack cocaine or the stock market. Somehow I did not know internet poker or a football bet threatened the very fabric of the republic.
Currently, banks must regulate credit card transactions to assure that the money is not being used for online gambling.
Banks can't even regulate the billions of bailout bucks they have ravenously gobbled up, and now they are the online gaming morals cops?
And really, don't banks have enough to worry about besides bets on poker or football?
Sure, sweet Sir J. Allen Stanford, that crooked Texas banker man, stuck a lot of banks in Antigua. Offshore banks that handle a lot of poker and gambling action.
But is that gambling action worse than Wall Street speculation? Surely, Sir J. Allen Stanford dealt with some shady characters with Slavic accents, but perhaps Sir J. Allen will learn the meaning, at long last, of buy the ticket, take the ride.
Why not say good-bye to all that nonsense and legalize it and tax it.
States are desperate for revenue. What's the difference between betting on a horse or a numbers drawing and wagering on football or poker, except that your odds are better?
Sports gambling is accepted throughout Europe, Asia, and exotic Canada.
Why must Americans cling to Puritan morals and make it illegal? Why must we protect the cash flow of a cartel of special interests groups, Vegas, Atlantic City, tribal casinos, the NFL, and corrupt politicians?
Why not legalize it and tax it?
And why outrage over poker, which is the quiescent American pastime?
And why does Roger Goodell care if I play online poker? Why must the NFL interfere with our lives? Why is it using fan generated money against its fan base?
Presidents as diverse as US Grant, Warren Harding, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Barack Obama enjoyed poker.
At the funeral of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, jokes were made about his fondness for his monthly poker games and gambling with the other Supremos and select DC insiders.
The states run various lotteries, rip off tickets, race tracks, casinos, slot parlors, dice games, and keno.
All are worse bets then wagering on sports or playing poker.
Betting lines of NFL games are published in papers nationwide. Betting on NFL games is mentioned on most NFL pregame shows and on countless Web sites.
Poker and football betting are two of the most popular American pastimes. Well, they were anyway, when folks still had jobs.
Each year the Super Bowl is the most highly wagered on event nationwide.
Why not make it all legal?
And again, why doesn't the NFL and Goodell mind their own damn business about people's private poker habits?
Why doesn't a revenue starved state take a wild leap and legalize sports betting?
Delaware: I'm talking to you.
What's Goodell going to do to Delaware, anyway? Take away its NFL Sunday Ticket? Invade and vandalize it with his Visigoth-like Cincinnati Bengals?
Or will the NFL just be outraged?
Folks are very good at outrage these days. But can't they find something else to be outraged about than poker?
And can't Roger Goodell find something better to do with his time and the fan's money?
But most of all, Mister Goodell, why don't you mind your own damn business?


Sports Betting Forum: NFL Declares War on Poker

A New Chance for Online Betting Sports in the U.S.

A New Chance for Online Betting Sports in the U.S.
By ERIC PFANNER
PARIS — Is online gambling coming in from the cold?
When the U.S. Congress cracked down on Internet betting in 2006, the big, publicly traded European companies that had dominated the business closed up shop in the United States. Growth in the booming industry shifted away from these companies, once the darlings of the stock market, to private operators in offshore locations like Antigua and the Isle of Man.
But now, executives of some of the European companies whisper excitedly that they may soon get a second chance in the United States. Meanwhile, a number of European countries that have long maintained barriers are moving, under pressure from regulators, to legalize, and tax, online gambling.
“There’s still a lot of gambling going on, where there’s no revenue coming in to the governments,” said Gavin Kelleher, an analyst at the research firm H2 Gambling Capital in Ireland. “They realize they could use the revenue.”
The biggest potential change would be in the United States, where, perhaps this month, Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, is expected to introduce legislation aimed at overturning the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.
“He supports the repeal and wants to move forward on it,” said Steve Adamske, communications director for the House Financial Services Committee, of which Mr. Frank is chairman.
Mr. Frank tried and failed to do so once before, in 2007. But advocates of liberalization think they might get a friendlier hearing in Washington this time around. President Barack Obama, they note, boasted of his poker prowess during the election campaign. And the Democrats, who are seen as less hostile to Internet gambling than the Republicans, have tightened their grip on Congress.
A study by PricewaterhouseCoopers says the U.S. government could raise more than $50 billion over 10 years from taxes on legalized online gambling.
“I’d be amazed if it didn’t happen over the next two or three years,” said Clive Hawkswood, chief executive of the Remote Gambling Association, a trade group based in London. “It’s just a question of what exactly the regulations will say.”
Some analysts say that may be getting a little bit ahead of the game. Opponents of a repeal, including the Christian Coalition of America and the National Football League, have vowed to fight any new effort to end the ban.
Michele Combs, a spokeswoman for the Christian Coalition, said the group was gearing up for a “massive campaign” of letter-writing and lobbying to try to prevent any loosening of the law.
“We’re not saying people shouldn’t go to Las Vegas,” she said. “But when it’s in your home, it’s too easy. It breaks up families.”
U.S. sports leagues, meanwhile, worry that the ease of online betting increases the chances of game-fixing. Even the most bullish advocates of online gambling acknowledge that Internet sports betting — as opposed to poker or casino games — is highly unlikely to be legalized.
“There’s a better chance now for some sort of gaming legislation to be approved,” said Nick Batram, an analyst at KBC Peel Hunt, a brokerage firm in London. “But it took longer than expected to put anti-gaming legislation in place, and it will probably will take longer than expected to remove it.”
Since the 2006 law was passed, North America, once the biggest market, has been passed by Europe and Asia, according to figures from H2 Gambling Capital. The law makes it illegal for financial institutions to handle payments to online gambling sites. But enough people have found ways around it, some by using overseas payment processors, to ensure that online gambling remains a thriving business. H2 says online gambling generated revenue of $6 billion last year in North America, more than a quarter the global total of $22.6 billion, up from $17.6 billion in 2006.
Pulling out of the United States cost PartyGaming about three-quarters of its business. Its position as the biggest online poker provider has been taken over by PokerStars, a privately held operator based on the Isle of Man.
This month, PartyGaming agreed to a $105 million settlement with the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, involving the period before 2006, when it acknowledged that its activities had been “contrary to certain U.S. laws.” In turn, the U.S. authorities agreed not to prosecute the company, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, or its executives.
The agreement fueled speculation that PartyGaming might be trying to position itself for a return to the U.S. market, if online gambling were legalized.
Analysts say one possibility for European companies like PartyGaming, should the ban be lifted, would be to form partnerships with American casino operators. That would allow the European companies to share their online expertise. Operating alone, they might struggle to obtain licenses, given their history of run-ins with U.S. law enforcement, analysts said.
“It’s my feeling that even if the market were opened up, the U.S. government, in a palatable way, would probably find a way to give local companies a favorable position,” Mr. Batram said.
So far, Las Vegas executives have maintained a cautious stance about legalization of online gambling. Steve Wynn, chief executive of Wynn Resorts, said in an e-mail message that he thought it would be “impossible to regulate.”
“Even though it would be a benefit to our company, we are strongly opposed,” he said.
But speculation that Las Vegas casino operators were looking into the possibilities was fueled by recent reports that Harrah’s Entertainment, which owns Caesars Palace and other casinos, recently hired Mitch Garber, former chief executive of PartyGaming, for an unspecified role. Harrah’s did not return calls.
Mr. Ryan said that PartyGaming planned to focus on acquisition opportunities to increase its market share in Europe and elsewhere, something that was difficult as long as investors were worried about the U.S. litigation. “We think Mr. Frank’s efforts are quite meaningful to the sector,” he said.
Several other online gambling companies whose shares are traded in London, including 888 Holdings and Sportingbet, are still in talks with the U.S. Justice Department. Analysts expect them, along with companies like Bwin International, whose stock is traded in Vienna, to be involved in a round of consolidation in the industry — along with a possible eventual move back into the United States.
As they await developments in Washington, online gambling companies are looking for growth in Europe and Asia. Under pressure from regulators in Brussels, several European Union members, including France, Italy, Spain and Denmark, have been moving to legalize some kinds of online gambling, turning it into a regulated and taxed business. Britain was the first big European country to do so, in 2005.
Other countries, like Germany, Greece and the Netherlands, continue to hold out, though, in what the European Commission sees as an effort to protect government-sponsored gambling monopolies from private competition.
The commission in March published a report arguing that the United States was violating World Trade Organization rules by keeping out European online gambling companies, given that online betting on horse racing is permitted in the United States. But the commission said that it favored negotiations, rather than legal action, to end the dispute.
Also in March, however, the European Parliament adopted a separate measure supporting the right of individual E.U. member states to make their own rules on online gambling.
“It’s interesting that the European Commission is telling the U.S. it’s persecuting European companies when it can’t even get its own house sorted out,” Mr. Batram said.


A New Chance for Online Betting Sports in the U.S.

Support Building for Legal Online Sports Betting

Support Building for Legal Online Sports Betting
By David Stratton
Although it can hardly be called a groundswell, the movement to legalize online gambling in the U.S. seems to be gaining momentum.
Harrah’s Entertainment reportedly has hired the former top executive of an online poker company, apparently in anticipation of the possible repeal of the current ban on Internet gambling.
According to published reports, Mitch Garber, the former CEO of Party Poker, was hired to head Harrah’s Internet Operations and World Series of Poker Division.
Before the current crackdown on Internet gambling, Party Poker was a title sponsor of the World Series of Poker.
In the U.S. Congress, Rep. Barney Frank this month may introduce legislation that would effectively repeal the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) and create a complete licensing and regulatory framework for the online gambling industry.
The UIGEA was passed in late 2006 and requires U.S. financial institutions to block payments from U.S. citizens to Internet gambling companies. It didn’t go into effect until this year.
In California, elected officials aren’t waiting on Congress to act. They’re putting together a rough draft of a bill, The California Online Poker Law Enforcement Compliance and Consumer Protection Act, which would establish an intrastate, online poker network for California players.
But the critical legislation is Barney Frank’s Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act, which he originally introduced in 2007, but it was never acted upon.
In an interview with The Hill, Frank said he planned to re-introduce the bill "definitely" in April. Frank is chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, whose industry members are banks and credit card companies that have been charged with the nearly impossible task of interpreting how to enforce the UIGEA.
Although a final text of Frank’s bill has yet to be released, political insiders have said his bill would remove the ban on Internet gambling, and would regulate the practice as well as tax it, providing new revenues for the federal government.
A recent study released by PricewaterhouseCoopers revealed that taxing and regulating the Internet gambling industry could bring up to $52 billion in revenue for the U.S. government over a 10 year period.
The amount, however, would be contingent on whether professional sports leagues choose to allow betting on their games. Historically, the NFL, NBA and NCAA have been vehemently opposed to any form of betting on their contests.
Because of the opposition from college and most professional sports, some have argued that a bill that legalizes only online poker would stand a better chance of being passed than blanket legislation like Frank’s bill.
In 2007, Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida introduced the Skill Game Protection Act, which would have exempted poker, bridge, chess, mah jong and other player versus player games from the UIGEA and the Wire Act.
The bill underscored a key distinction between online casinos, in which the betting is mostly the player versus the house, and online poker, where contestants battle each other. Like Frank’s bill that year, Wexler’s bill was not acted upon.
The regulations of the UIGEA went into effect on Jan. 19, 2009, but the banks and other financial institutions have until Dec.1 to come into compliance.
Some members of the banking and credit card industry have complained that they’re not equipped to serve as a law enforcement agency, and that it’s nearly an impossible task determining which payments are legal and which aren’t.
For instance, the blocking of Visa and MasterCard payments has led to complications for state lotteries in North Dakota and New Hampshire, where customers trying to buy lottery tickets are often declined.


Support Building for Legal Online Sports Betting

NCAA Hypocritical in Stance on Sports Betting

NCAA Hypocritical in Stance on Sports Betting
By Greg Couch
The NCAA will tell you that college students are in trouble. On campuses across the country, they are subject to a dangerous gambling culture.

Student bookies, gamblers and fixers are everywhere, knowing just how to tap into a poor victim. So college athletes can find themselves in trouble, and asked to shave points or throw games for money. It's not just a sports issue regarding the integrity of games, but also the NCAA will tell you it's a human issue.

So it's no shock, really, to see the point-shaving scandal at Toledo.

We've seen them in campuses everywhere, from Boston College to Northwestern, from Arizona State to Fresno State. From Maryland to Toledo. Big, small, east, west, north, south.

The FBI has been looking into point-shaving allegations at Toledo for at least four years. It now alleges that former running back Adam Cuomo, with the help of a Detroit-area gambler in 2003, recruited teammates to take part in a point-shaving scheme over a three-year period. He also is said to have recruited basketball players to fix Toledo hoops games.

Years ago, the NCAA started talking tough about the scourge of gambling. And years later, it's still talking, talking, talking, even putting up occasional fliers. At the same time, the latest trend at colleges across the country is to sell ads to casinos and place them in stadiums.

So the NCAA will tell you that kids are getting hurt from a gambling environment, but at the same time NCAA schools are in business with the gamblers.

Right side of mouth, meet left side. This is the NCAA's little con, arguing one point for the good of humanity and profiting from the opposite side.

How does this work? I asked Rachel Newman Baker, the NCAAs gambling czar, who passed my request onto a spokesperson, who answered this way in an email:

"Our position on sports wagering has not softened at all; we continue to be stridently opposed to any type of sports wagering. You are not likely to find anyone in the membership who doesn't agree.

"But we have come to understand that there are different perspectives within the membership about commercial activities, including the appropriateness of accepting casino advertising. What some institutions may see as acceptable, other may not. This is an evolving process.

"The NCAA does not interfere in the financial relationships/agreements of its institutions, as long as they do not violate NCAA legislation."

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to call BS here. The NCAA is notorious for this type of doublespeak, a crafty way, basically, of blowing smoke when no legitimate explanation exists.

So the NCAA makes a moral argument, but then polices its morals with economics.

There is money to be made, so ethics are gone?

These are the people educating our kids.

Murray Sperber, a professor at University of California, Berkeley, who has written several books on the excesses of the NCAA, talks about the uncomfortable relationship the NCAA has with gambling.

"A huge part of the NCAA Tournament is the gambling, the office pools, or much-larger pools that [former Washington football coach] Rick Neuheisel was in. Because of gambling, they get good ratings. Who would watch first-round games if, in fact, gambling were outlawed on college basketball. What would happen to the $6 billion they get from CBS?

"At the very core of the NCAA, the mother's milk they live on, the March Madness money, is this deep, deep hypocrisy. I remember their own poll showed that one in five athletes had bet on college sports.

"Should they encourage gambling? Especially when one of the problem groups of gamblers, people who can't control their gambling, are college kids? They get in over their heads."

Meanwhile, last year, the University of New Mexico took $2.5 million for a five-year deal that made the Route 66 Casino Hotel its "exclusive gaming sponsor."

Whatever that means.

"Corporate sponsorships," UNM president David Schmidly said at the time, "are very important to the future growth and success of our athletic department."

Those vulnerable college students the NCAA will tell you about? Not as important.

Some schools have played sporting events in casinos.

And seven of the Pac-10 Conference's 10 schools take casino or lottery advertising, according to the Oregonian, Portland's newspaper. How prevalent is this nationally?

"I would say there are more schools that do have them now than don't," Tim Roberts, president of Oregon Sports Network, part owner of the University of Oregon's media rights, told the paper.

And here comes another problem with gambling and college sports, this time at Toledo.

Yet the NCAA tries to have it all ways at once. It did the same thing with the American Indian mascot issue, saying such images were "hostile and abusive," and basically forcing schools, such as Illinois, to drop the symbol. Meanwhile, Florida State got to keep its hostile and abusive image because it had a financial agreement with the tribe.

Is it hostile and abusive or not? The NCAA will tell you it is.

Look, if the NCAA doesn't care about gambling, then it should stop pretending.

But the guardian of your standards has to be your heart and your conscience. If gambling is hurting college students, then the relationship to gambling has to be cut. It's simple. And it doesn't matter what that does to the NCAA Tournament, or to a university's "financial relationships/agreements."


NCAA Hypocritical in Stance on Sports Betting

The Daily Grind of Betting Sports: It Ain't as Easy as it Used to Be...

The Daily Grind of Betting Sports: It Ain't as Easy as it Used to Be...
By Jay Graziani
About a decade ago, in the heyday of the online gambling industry, would-be sharps seemingly sprouted from the woodwork. Banking a little coin through internet gambling was easy back then; making enough to support oneself was maybe a bit harder. But a relatively intelligent player could grab his fair share of the gambling pie with just a little bit of effort.
There were plenty of "outs" for players to pick up quick bonuses and loose lines, and anyone with access to the Don Best screen could pull in a decent side income just chasing steam, grabbing middles, and hammering slow-moving numbers. And if you got booted for being an undesirable, a steam-chaser or bonus whore? Just move on to the next shop, as new bookmakers were popping their heads up nearly daily.
Nowadays, it's significantly harder for a part-timer to pull in even a meager income consistently. While there are many possible reasons for the decreased profitability of online sportsbetting, a few significant ones stand out:
A more efficient market. Sports markets were once widely spread out, with little cross-talk between bookies. No matter how sharp a particular guy in Florida was, his betting activity had little effect on someone using a different bookie in New York or Los Angeles, especially on game day, where the morning paper was as good a source of lines as anything else. Lines were essentially static outside of Las Vegas. Even at the beginning of the internet age, things were spread out enough that real-time scalps and middles could be found. Now, all bets are essentially fed into the same global market, and sharp action can send ripples throughout the entire industry within seconds. The emergence of betting exchanges has made the sports markets even more interconnected, and the global reach of the internet has brought even more players into the mix. What all this means is increased competition for the best lines and, ultimately, tighter lines that are harder for the average player to beat.
A consolidated sportsbetting industry. At the peak of the industry there were dozens of different sportsbooks open for business, all with bonuses and their own set of lines. Even "clone" books would often be caught with their pants down on a big line move. Now, the power is consolidated in the hands of much fewer players, as the small fish got eaten up after the U.S. gambling crackdown. Less competition means fewer amenities for the players, which is one reason for the recent lack of bonuses, reduced juice, and other incentives. It also means less opportunity for line-shopping, a key factor in winning at sports gambling.
More efficient sportsbooks. Not only are there fewer sportsbooks, the ones that are left are leaner and meaner. They know how to manage lines, handle bonuses, and deal with sharp players. The books that have survived are going to make you work harder to take a profit away from them. They move their lines rapidly, they keep their thumbs on bonuses, and are quick to limit players who are too sharp for their liking. In other words, today's sportsbooks, unlike their predecessors, aren't giving anything away.
Easier access to stats and information. The internet is the greatest media tool in history, providing access to nearly limitless information at the click of a mouse. This information includes historical scores and lines, game and player stats, and reams of other statistical trivia. Anyone with the time and motivation to research an angle now has the power to do so. Spreadsheet and database software, with some versions available for free, have given novices the number-crunching power once reserved for mathematicians. And the advent of internet billboards and other online social networks have allowed knowledge to spread at an unprecedented pace. All of this makes for more-informed gamblers, and that translates into more accurate betting lines.
Increased statistical research. We see more and more sportsbetting-themed research coming out of economics and finance departments at universities, such as those by Prof. Justin Wolfers that have at times found a degree of notoriety. You might argue that not a lot of people read those papers, especially the more obscure ones, but it doesn't take a whole lot of smart money to move lines nowadays. In the widely-connected sports market that exists today, this newly discovered information can work its way into the lines quickly.
No matter what the reason, it sure seems a lot harder to grind out a side income betting sports nowadays. And don't expect it get easier. Ever. If legalized/regulated, the requisite taxes will squeeze the last drops of profit out of the industry, and the nature of the regulation process would mean more power consolidated among even fewer sportsbooks. If left unregulated, the industry is unlikely to ever achieve the same level of magnitude without coming under even more intense government regulation and policing.
Of course good handicappers, those that can make a line better than the oddsmakers, will always find a way to make money. But at some point, even for them, the tighter markets may not provide a good enough return on investment to justify the workload.


The Daily Grind of Betting Sports: It Ain't as Easy as it Used to Be...

Betting Sports: Is it Gambling or Gaming Entertainment or Exploitation

Betting Sports: Is it Gambling or Gaming Entertainment or Exploitation
By Jay Graziani
Gambling is an exciting pastime, and there are many options for enjoying the many aspects of it whether you are at home or in a casino. Many people feel all gambling is wrong, and are quite firm in their belief.
The history of gambling is quite a storied one. Despite the evolution of this popular pastime, gambling isn’t always viewed as socially acceptable. The effects of gambling can be far reaching. Known as ‘gaming’ for around 265 years before the term ‘gambling’ was introduced, the entertainment value of the many types of wagering money or property continues to grow.
Back in 1994, the UK government approved a National Lottery, which helped to make gambling seem more mainstream to the public. The advent of gambling via the Internet, mobile phone and/or television also served to make the gambling laws that were passed in 1968 seem rather old-fashioned. As more people began to enjoy gambling from the comfort of their homes, and the impacts of Internet gambling became apparent, a change of rules was definitely needed!
The gambling industry in the UK was given a thorough review, approved by the government, during the year 2000. Gambling statistics were studied, and the follow-up to this review was dubbed the Bud Report. It recommended that gambling as a whole should be modernized. This report also suggested that current laws be relaxed to let communities have more freedom of choice concerning their gambling habits.
A new Gambling Act went into effect in 2007, and the reaction of a large number of people was anything but positive. They refused to recognize any benefits of gambling. The most vocal criticism of these liberal gambling laws came from the Methodist Church and the Salvation Army. Their concern was that the number of casinos in Britain would grow at an alarming rate. Nevertheless, the new laws remained, and served to regulate not only certain lotteries, bingo, casinos and gaming machines, but also remote gambling and betting.
More than ten various commissions and trade associations have been established to aid in the monitoring process of gambling. They also have the power to impose fines, pull licenses, assess penalties, and can see that those who cheat or gamble illegally are prosecuted. Among these are the National Lottery Commission, the Gambling Commission, British Casino Association, British Horseracing Board, and the Association of British Bookmakers.
Three categories of gambling are prevalent in the UK. These are betting, casino style gambling, and lotteries. In most cases, a person must be over age 18 in order to gamble. The exceptions are fruit machines which pay with tokens, which has no age limit, lotteries that are local, and football pools, with the latter two having an age limit of 16 and above.
Those who are employed within the gambling industry are held to high standards. Some must obtain certificates of approval before they can begin their jobs. Betting shops and bookmakers also play a big role in the UK gambling scene. Sports betting is quite popular, and betting shops offer a location to place a bet via betting terminals, seating to watch the events on television, and enjoy some refreshments as well. Bookmakers have many tasks. They accept the wagers, collect money from those who lost a wager, pay those who won, and turn a profit by striving for a ‘balanced book’. Gamblers can also place a bet on the Internet or by way of a telephone call. The types of sports betting in the UK include horse and dog racing.
Casinos are full of different types of gambling to attract visitors. Slot machines which can deliver a large jackpot, table games with playing cards such as Blackjack, and games of chance like roulette are all popular. The odds always favour the house in casinos. Millions of pounds flow through the coffers of the various British casinos each year. By law, the casinos cannot advertise their addresses, nor can they urge people to come in and gamble.
Fruit machines, also known as slot machines, seem to be very profitable for the casinos, and are hugely popular with the gambling public. Bingo is also popular, especially with institutes and clubs who hold bingo games so that a charity receives the proceeds. Lotteries continue to be a popular way to raise money, or to take a chance on winning a jackpot by buying a ticket. 70% of the UK population enjoy playing the lottery. The draw variety of lottery is well known, and there are also the raffles, scratch cards, sweepstakes, and those lotteries found on the Internet and interactive television. Lottery fraud is becoming a gambling problem that must be solved.
Internet and remote gambling have boosted the profits and also the problems relevant to UK gambling. The increased monetary benefits are seen by some as one of the benefits of gambling, along with giving people a social outlet. Another favorable benefit is the money gambling can raise to profit charity.
However, others are staunchly determined that all types of gambling exploit those who are addicted to the thrill of this pastime, and see this habit as one that is just as damaging as alcoholism. By creating gaming addicts, draining the bank accounts of those who can’t stop gambling, and damaging the lives of those family members who must live with the repercussions of having a gambler in their midst.
There is a big chance that the gambling statistics that zero in on those who have a problem with gambling are going to continue to grow. Many organizations have been formed to look into gambling’s social impact. They have revealed the four reasons people gamble are escapism, the idea that they are doing something glamorous, the thrill of risk taking, and the social aspect.
The liberal laws of the UK will more than likely increase gambling problems. According to the Church of England’s organization, all gambling should be avoided as the risks outweigh the benefits. The Church will not enter into investments with any company who gets more than a 25% turnover from gambling proceeds.

Betting Sports: Is it Gambling or Gaming Entertainment or Exploitation

Kentucky Derby tests your Betting Odds in Sports

Kentucky Derby tests your Betting Odds in Sports
By Melissa Francis
Reporter/CNBC

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - It is America’s longest-running sporting event, the centerpiece of a multi-billion-dollar industry.
But as a crowd of 150,000 gathered last week at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky. for this year’s “Run for the Roses,” the sport of horseracing faces some of the biggest financial and economic challenges in the Kentucky Derby's 135-year history.
Often called the “most exciting two minutes in sports,” the event is also expected to draw some 14 million television viewers to cheer on 20 of the fastest three-year old thoroughbreds as they hit the racetrack.
Horseracing is one of America’s oldest and favorite past times. What started years ago as a small race in a small town, has become one of the most famous horse races in the country.
But a tough economy and increased competition from online gambling sites and casinos has forced changes on the industry. In March 2009, racing giant Magna Entertainment Corporation, filed for bankruptcy protection with plans to sell some of its tracks, including Pimlico, host of the Preakness Stakes. To attract more business, Churchill Downs is experimenting with night races for the first time.
The Derby is Churchill Downs’ biggest moneymaker by far. On most days, live business at the racetrack is at a steady decline. With the exception of days like Derby Day there just aren't that many people at the racetrack anymore.
"So we have these huge coliseums like Church Hill Downs or Hollywood Park or Belmont Park where there might on a weekday only be 2,000 or 3,000 people rattling around a place built for 50,000,” said Steve Crist, publisher and a columnist for Daily Racing Form.
Despite the decline in everyday traffic, the Derby and remains an American sports icon and a major draws for the gambling revenues that fuel the multi-billion dollar horseracing industry. More than $100 million worth of bets are placed each year on the Kentucky Derby alone.
Though racetrack attendance is down overall, tickets to the Kentucky Derby are still some of the toughest tickets to come by. Grandstand and bleacher tickets go for $40 to $200 and sell out within weeks of going on sale. There are also the coveted seats in what’s known as ‘Millionaires Row’, where prices start at $1,000 for a two-day package.
The derby is marketed not only as a famous horse race, but also as “an experience.” Mike Iavarone, co-owner of 2008 winner, Big Brown, says the feeling of winning the Derby “is unexplainable. It is like going to the Super Bowl, winning it and hoisting the trophy over your head.”
It’s also a winning experience for the local economy. In 1956, author John Steinbeck wrote that during Derby week, Louisville is the capital of the world, and for many that still rings true today.
The revenue generated during Derby weekend pumps more than $75 million into Louisville’s economy. That economic boost does not go unnoticed by Louisville-based Yum brands, the parent company of well-known restaurants like Pizza Hut, KFC, and Taco Bell. In 2006, Yum signed on to sponsor the Derby.
"I don’t think that the Yum Brands is going to sell one more piece of chicken because they’re involved with the Kentucky Derby,” said Michael Trager, a television sports consultant. “But what it does do is it – it establishes a relationship between the brand and a major event that’s also nationally televised.
For breeders, raising a Kentucky Derby winner is a bet with the longest odds in sport. Nearly 40,000 thoroughbreds are born in the United States each year. Of those approximately 23,000 will become racehorses, and of those only about 20 will make it to the Kentucky Derby. At their peak, these horses can run up to 40 mph.
"The thoroughbred business is all about dreams,” said Anne Peters at Three Chimneys Farm, a commercial breeding farm in central Kentucky. “Everybody's hoping to breed the next great race horse so every foal that hits the ground could be the one. This could be the one that wins the Kentucky Derby."
When the bet pays off, breeding a derby winner brings prestige - and lots of money.
“If you have a horse that wins the Kentucky Derby, the value of that racehorse exceeds your wildest imagination,” said Iavarone.
A horse that wins the Kentucky Derby can earn millions as its second career as a stallion, because horse owners are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the chance to have their mares mate with a derby winner. These horses are expected to mate with up to 100 to 120 mares each year for the next twenty years following their win.
“For most American breeders, breeding a Kentucky Derby winner is the ultimate goal,” said Peters.
But the long-term pay-off – the increase of a Derby winner’s market value - comes with no guarantees plays a major. In 2004, with the economy strong, Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Smarty Jones earned stud fees of $100,000. By 2008, Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner Big Brown's stud fee was assessed at just $65,000.


Kentucky Derby tests your Betting Odds in Sports