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Sports betting (sometimes punting) is the name given to the general activity of predicting sports results, while betting on the believed outcome. While for many participants it's just an hobby, others develop an addiction and bet large sums of money regularly. In addition, individuals are sometimes accused of attempting to fix matches to ensure their bets pay off.
Types of bets
Betting can be done either locally (such as commonplace NCAA office tournament bets) or against a friend, but also with betting agencies. While the first usually are done with change or small values, with the winner(s) "taking all", the later are much more organized and work on odds rather than the amount of money betted.
Other bets are done by guessing the outcome of a number of matches, usually over 10. The Spanish Quiniela (guessing the winner) and the Portuguese Totogolo (guessing the number of goals each team scores) are good examples of these kind of bets, which have very high prizes for those who guess all results.
Simple betting
The most simple bets are done between friends or patrons in a pub, usually by betting the same amount on the predicted outcome of a match. The winner(s) collect the pot, but if there are no winners, the value either carries to the next match or the punters are allowed to collect their bet.
Pools
There are a variety of pool bets, allowing several or dozens of people to wager on an event. Most are run by amatuers for entertainment. Common types include:
- Football squares -- a ten by ten matrix of squares is sold for a fixed amount per square (often $1 or $2, but sometimes $100 a square for a special event such as the Super Bowl). Each row and column of the matrix is assigned a digit, and the rows one team, the columns the other team. At the end of the game (often at the end of each quarter), the last digit in the score of each team determines the winner.
- Pick the winners -- each player picks the winner (can be either outright or against "the spread") of all the games scheduled for a particular week (or a predetermined set of games). The individual picking the most winners wins the pool.
- Pick the bracket -- common for the NCAA basketball tournament. The challenge is to pick the winner of each game in each round before the tournament begins. Points are assigned, with later rounds winning higher points. This may be winner take all, or there may be payoffs for second and third.
Professional betting
When agencies started using the Internet as a fast way to advertise and accept bets, the business increased and now most houses have their own websites where punters can risk on sometimes hundreds of events from several sports on the same day.
Unlike "office" or "pub" bets, those done in an agency are done against the odds, which are calculated accordingly to a number of factors, with the less likely outcomes earning more than those more bound to happen. For instance, on most agencies, the Greece odds for the Euro 2004 were on the bottom end of the table before the beginning of the competition (only second to Latvia) with 1/250 odds, favourites and Euro 2000 finalists France and Italy were in the top with 1/4. Anyone who betted £5 on Greece before the start of the tournament won £1250. If France or Italy had won, punters would only collect £20. On the other hand, if the bet was made after the first game (where Greece beated Portugal 2-1), odds decreased to roughly 1/75. There is usually a mid-range bet called the Black Horse, a bet not at all unlikely with good odds.
Most agencies do not take bets for friendly matches, as the result can be rigged or tampered by other means.
Sports
Most sports can be subjected to betting, but football (soccer), horse racing and boxing are the most popular in Britain. Although most bets are done to determine the result of a game, there are bets for the winner of several competitions or goalscorers. One agency once even had a bet on David Beckham's hair style.
Betting scandals
Although betting is a harmless hobby for thousands of people, crime organizations soon took advantage of it for money laundry or funding purposes. The corruption or threat of a boxer to take a dive at the x round is a frequent theme in mafia-related movies.
- In 1919, gamblers bribed several members of the Chicago White Sox to throw the World Series. This became known as the Black Sox Scandal and was recounted in book and movie form as "Eight Men Out".
- Andrés Escobar, a Colombian defender, was shot down shortly after his return from the 1994 World Cup, where he scored an own goal, the first of a 2-1 defeat to the USA that knocked out the Colombians at the first phase. In the most believed explanation, the Medellín drug cartel bet large sums of money over a qualification, and blamed the Medellín-born Escobar for the loss. 1 (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/world/2002/world_cup/hof/escobar/)
- On 10 February 1999, a plot to disable the floodlights of The Valley during a Charlton-Liverpool match was discovered. Three individuals were arrested, and the scam tracked to Malaysia, where the Premiership is very popular, and bets frequent. 1 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/426148.stm)
- In late 2004, the game between Panionios and Dinamo Tblissi for the 2004-05 UEFA Cup was suspected of being fixed after British bookmakers detected one unusually high number of half-time bets for a 5-2 win for the Greek side, which was trailing 0-1. As the final result ended up being 5-2, suspicions of fixing quickly emerged, but were quickly denied by both clubs, although UEFA started an investigation. 1 (http://in.sports.yahoo.com/041203/137/2i9dc.html) 2 (http://www.uefa.com/competitions/UEFACup/news/Kind=1/newsId=264703.html)
- In early 2005, the German Football Association (DFB) revealed that referee Robert Hoyzer was under investigation for suspected betting on a first-round German Cup tie between regional league side Paderborn and Bundesliga club Hamburger SV in August 2004, and possibly fixing the match. In the match, HSV took a 2-0 lead, but Hoyzer sent off HSV striker Emile Mpenza in the first half, and later awarded Paderborn two penalties. Paderborn went on to win 4-2. 1 (http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?slug=reu-germanyreferee&prov=reuters&type=lgns) Several days later, Hoyzer admitted to having fixed that match, as well as several others he worked. He has since implicated other referees and several players in the spreading scandal.
See also
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