Draft Horse|adoptadrafthorse.com
Dec
10
Filed Under (Online Gambling) by drafthorse
Neil Parnham asked:
Online gambling has many risks, aside from the risks on the game there are also the risks of scams and frauds. In the internet, these arent really uncommon. The internet reaches far and wide and it is no wonder that our dishonest brothers have finally found a way to again con our more honest brothers out of the money that theyve worked hard for.
Online gambling risk comes in many shapes and sizes, aside from the addiction risk, there are of course the risk of scams.
Therefore you should know if the online casino youre entering is legitimate or not. In todays day and age, that is very hard to do. Scammer Casinos need only to copy the layouts of legitimate casinos and adopt them as their own, including memberships and certifications. Logos and banners are very easy to copy so be weary of these.
The only way to make sure that you dont get scammed is to go to online casinos approved by trustworthy organizations like the Interactive Gaming commission. If however, you get invited, to a site, dont make any deposits yet. Look up their certifications and make sure that these are indeed true by doing a quick search on the organization that gave the certification.
Most online gaming organizations have a quick search function that allows you to search for members. Usually, scammer casinos dont take the time to become members because they usually change names in short periods, usually when their scam gets discovered.
Like any form of gambling, the risk doesnt necessarily come in the game. The risk is part of the game, but risks that we are talking about here go beyond winning and losing money.
The highest risk is getting addicted.
Gambling should be a form of entertainment, and shouldnt be viewed otherwise. It isnt a living and it definitely isnt a gold mine. This is whats wrong about todays gamblers; they view it as a fast way to get money.
You should know that a low risk gambler views playing in casinos, online or offline should be only a form of entertainment. Once you think that its a living, its already the onset of addiction.
To lower your gambling risk, make sure that you limit yourself. Never play for more than you thought you would, or for longer than you thought you will. Draft the length of time and the amount of money you would play, kind of like scheduling dinner or a trip to the movies.
Legal forms of gambling are those that are being run directly by charitable institutions, companies for profit or government agencies.
Whereas illegal forms of gambling are those by which bets are placed on underground gambling services, the internet, being such. Gambling among peers or associates such as playing poker or pool that includes real money betting is also considered illegal.
Each City or State has complex rules that dictate legal or illegal gambling. Here are different forms of gambling:
*Casino. This is a form of gambling rapidly growing especially in the internet, as an online gaming site. This is a set up, usually referred to as “the house” wherein players can play in such games of chance, which include slot machines, poker, black jack, keno and roulettes.
*Sports betting. In other parts of the world, this is considered legal. Here in the United States, betting on individual sports events is accepted only as legal in Nevada. This is partly because of the possibility for such events to be “fixed”. As certain cases does happen when gamblers pay sports teams to lose in the game.
*Horse racing is the most common type of legal gambling. This is presided over by the pari-mutuel, or French for mutual stake. This system works in such a way that all the betting is place in a fund, where it will be divided among winning bettors, minus a certain percentages that will go to the track.
*Lotteries. This works such that tickets are being sold for a certain set of amount. A portion of the proceeds is given back to the winners, through random draw process. In most cases, while other players choose their own numbers, others allow the computer to pick numbers for them.
Such type of gambling offers different games. There are instant scratch tickets, wherein an individual may win instantly with the right combinations on the ticket and super lotto’s that offer increasing jackpots until such time that there is a winner. Eighty percent of States in the U.S. have laws that allow lotteries run by government. Thus, twenty five percent of all legal gambling revenues are from lottery.
*Other forms of gambling include bingo, dog races, pool, playing mah jong and the stock market.
Gambling can be seen everywhere, especially today, where the internet offers a lot of sites where such forms of gambling can easily be accessed. This is why it is important to carefully assess the site or the place that you are in, before making any move.
FRANCESCO
Online gambling has many risks, aside from the risks on the game there are also the risks of scams and frauds. In the internet, these arent really uncommon. The internet reaches far and wide and it is no wonder that our dishonest brothers have finally found a way to again con our more honest brothers out of the money that theyve worked hard for.
Online gambling risk comes in many shapes and sizes, aside from the addiction risk, there are of course the risk of scams.
Therefore you should know if the online casino youre entering is legitimate or not. In todays day and age, that is very hard to do. Scammer Casinos need only to copy the layouts of legitimate casinos and adopt them as their own, including memberships and certifications. Logos and banners are very easy to copy so be weary of these.
The only way to make sure that you dont get scammed is to go to online casinos approved by trustworthy organizations like the Interactive Gaming commission. If however, you get invited, to a site, dont make any deposits yet. Look up their certifications and make sure that these are indeed true by doing a quick search on the organization that gave the certification.
Most online gaming organizations have a quick search function that allows you to search for members. Usually, scammer casinos dont take the time to become members because they usually change names in short periods, usually when their scam gets discovered.
Like any form of gambling, the risk doesnt necessarily come in the game. The risk is part of the game, but risks that we are talking about here go beyond winning and losing money.
The highest risk is getting addicted.
Gambling should be a form of entertainment, and shouldnt be viewed otherwise. It isnt a living and it definitely isnt a gold mine. This is whats wrong about todays gamblers; they view it as a fast way to get money.
You should know that a low risk gambler views playing in casinos, online or offline should be only a form of entertainment. Once you think that its a living, its already the onset of addiction.
To lower your gambling risk, make sure that you limit yourself. Never play for more than you thought you would, or for longer than you thought you will. Draft the length of time and the amount of money you would play, kind of like scheduling dinner or a trip to the movies.
Legal forms of gambling are those that are being run directly by charitable institutions, companies for profit or government agencies.
Whereas illegal forms of gambling are those by which bets are placed on underground gambling services, the internet, being such. Gambling among peers or associates such as playing poker or pool that includes real money betting is also considered illegal.
Each City or State has complex rules that dictate legal or illegal gambling. Here are different forms of gambling:
*Casino. This is a form of gambling rapidly growing especially in the internet, as an online gaming site. This is a set up, usually referred to as “the house” wherein players can play in such games of chance, which include slot machines, poker, black jack, keno and roulettes.
*Sports betting. In other parts of the world, this is considered legal. Here in the United States, betting on individual sports events is accepted only as legal in Nevada. This is partly because of the possibility for such events to be “fixed”. As certain cases does happen when gamblers pay sports teams to lose in the game.
*Horse racing is the most common type of legal gambling. This is presided over by the pari-mutuel, or French for mutual stake. This system works in such a way that all the betting is place in a fund, where it will be divided among winning bettors, minus a certain percentages that will go to the track.
*Lotteries. This works such that tickets are being sold for a certain set of amount. A portion of the proceeds is given back to the winners, through random draw process. In most cases, while other players choose their own numbers, others allow the computer to pick numbers for them.
Such type of gambling offers different games. There are instant scratch tickets, wherein an individual may win instantly with the right combinations on the ticket and super lotto’s that offer increasing jackpots until such time that there is a winner. Eighty percent of States in the U.S. have laws that allow lotteries run by government. Thus, twenty five percent of all legal gambling revenues are from lottery.
*Other forms of gambling include bingo, dog races, pool, playing mah jong and the stock market.
Gambling can be seen everywhere, especially today, where the internet offers a lot of sites where such forms of gambling can easily be accessed. This is why it is important to carefully assess the site or the place that you are in, before making any move.
FRANCESCO
Jun
01
Filed Under (Online Gambling) by drafthorse
Arthur Prudent asked:
The topic of the USA struggle against on-line gambling industry disturbs the gambling community. There is the old Wire Act (1961) in force in the USA which prohibits to stake with the help of the phone, telegraph and other wire communication facilities outside the bounds of one’s own state. Gamblers consider that this ban does not apply to the Internet, whereas the official establishment has another opinion. American DOJ has forbidden advertising of casinos in search systems and on television, bank deposits in online casinos (not even forbade, rather than recommended very insistently, but it was a proposal which was not to be refused from). At the same time Antigua through the court of WTO reached a decision according to which the USA either has to forbid its citizens to play in any on-line casinos by law or push aside all obstacles with regard to gambling. Several years ago a try to adopt a prohibitive law failed in the parliament of the USA still at the level of the House of Representatives.
At the beginning of 2006 there was no considerable progress on the front of struggle with on-line gambling in the USA, but in the course of the current year there are a number of serious causes to talk about stronger measures against on-line casinos. It all began with a new bill on prohibition of gambling games in the Internet. The same senators Kyl, Leach and Goodlatte who joined them proposed another draft (known now as HR4777) on prohibition for the citizens of the USA of on-line gambling games (all the types of gambling, including stakes on sport, casinos, poker, except for horse racing stakes and fantasy sport). In accordance with this law banks are to fully block any opportunity for gamblers to make deposits in casinos, and gamblers themselves are under threat of a large fine or a sentence up to 10 years in prison. Despite the fact that numerous polls show that the majority of the population in the USA does not support the given law, it was adopted by the House of Representatives of the USA Congress by the majority of 3/4 of votes. It was planned that it would be considered by the Senate, after which it would be passed for signature of George Bush who, as it is known, does not feel any sympathy towards games of chance. Fortunately, there appeared some difficulties with the bill in the Senate; hearings were transferred to the autumn session. There appeared the information that the bill may not pass the Senate from the first, in this case there will be created a conciliation commission of the two Houses of the Congress that will at the minimum delay adoption of the law for a considerable term.
Successful passing of the bill in the lower House of the Congress was, evidently, promoted by a scandal around a quite famous lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He was accused of non-payment of taxes and fraud with the money of real casinos. It was his active position that in many aspects contributed to failure of the previous anti-on-line bill, but at the same time after the scandal a lot of legislators are trying to distance themselves from it supporting a new bill.
Struggle against gambling in the USA is carried out not only on the level of the country on the whole, as well as in individual states. The first signs appeared in the state of Washington (not to confuse with the capital of the USA, the city of Washington which was the first to pass its own anti-on-line legislation as an extension of Wire Act. From now on gambling through the Internet or other communication facilities (mobile phones, palms are meant here and etc) threaten the inhabitants of the state of Washington with a fine up to 10 000 dollars and (or) prison for a term up to five years. Also, any sites informing of on-line games are banned. The Law took effect on the 7th of June, 2006, though, there have been no cases of its application for two months.
One more blow was delivered by the USA DOJ. On the 20th of July David Carruthers was arrested, Chief Executive of one of the biggest on-line gambling companies BetonSports, at that it happened in the airport of Dallas where David was taken from the transit flight from England to Costa-Rica. He was presented a number of accusations, including racket and non-payment of taxes, he was refused to be let out on bail. This case also concerns several people, including one of the owners of the company Gary Kaplan. Interestingly, but David himself is a citizen of Great Britain, and the company is registered in Costa-Rica. By the way, the authorities of Costa-Rica have refused to cooperate with Americans with regard to this case, having explained that David and BetonSports have not broken the laws of their country. BetonSports itself ceased work till the 14th of August, and dismissed David Carruthers trying to distance itself from the scandal.
On the whole, the situation around BetonSports is rather controversial. However, this arrest has brought down the market of gambling shares which went down in price by 20-40% in the course of one day, though now the shares are repairing an omission. Apart from that, a large marketing conference was canceled in Las Vegas which had been planned by another big online bookmaker BoDog. All in all, it is not recommended for a manager of gambling sites to come to the USA. Just in case. Several gambling sites after the arrest of David refused access for the citizens of the USA. Thus, the accounts of Americans are closed in the poker network B2B, in the casino/bookmaker/poker Coral/Eurobet and Victor Chandler, though, all these are the companies oriented to Europe, and Americans’ share is not high among their clients.
A few prognoses at the end. Hopefully, the Senate will not approve the bill in its current form, and it will be sent for a long revision at the minimum. Though, Americans have to hurry up with their final decision, for they are affected by the decision of WTO, and Antigua has already repeatedly applied to the organization with a request to control the USA actions. If the prohibition is not introduced or a decision will be made to permit on-line games in the USA, the gambling community will certainly breathe with relief, but no particular changes will take place. It will be much more interesting if the law is passed for all that. For at present up to 50% of all the money on-line is presented by players from the USA. Certainly, not all the Americans will leave online casinos, but outflow of customers will painfully hit the majority of gambling companies. Surely, the situation will worsen on the market of poker where it is the USA that is the main supplier of “fish”.
© Copyright 2006-2007 www.Bonus-Map.com
CHONG
The topic of the USA struggle against on-line gambling industry disturbs the gambling community. There is the old Wire Act (1961) in force in the USA which prohibits to stake with the help of the phone, telegraph and other wire communication facilities outside the bounds of one’s own state. Gamblers consider that this ban does not apply to the Internet, whereas the official establishment has another opinion. American DOJ has forbidden advertising of casinos in search systems and on television, bank deposits in online casinos (not even forbade, rather than recommended very insistently, but it was a proposal which was not to be refused from). At the same time Antigua through the court of WTO reached a decision according to which the USA either has to forbid its citizens to play in any on-line casinos by law or push aside all obstacles with regard to gambling. Several years ago a try to adopt a prohibitive law failed in the parliament of the USA still at the level of the House of Representatives.
At the beginning of 2006 there was no considerable progress on the front of struggle with on-line gambling in the USA, but in the course of the current year there are a number of serious causes to talk about stronger measures against on-line casinos. It all began with a new bill on prohibition of gambling games in the Internet. The same senators Kyl, Leach and Goodlatte who joined them proposed another draft (known now as HR4777) on prohibition for the citizens of the USA of on-line gambling games (all the types of gambling, including stakes on sport, casinos, poker, except for horse racing stakes and fantasy sport). In accordance with this law banks are to fully block any opportunity for gamblers to make deposits in casinos, and gamblers themselves are under threat of a large fine or a sentence up to 10 years in prison. Despite the fact that numerous polls show that the majority of the population in the USA does not support the given law, it was adopted by the House of Representatives of the USA Congress by the majority of 3/4 of votes. It was planned that it would be considered by the Senate, after which it would be passed for signature of George Bush who, as it is known, does not feel any sympathy towards games of chance. Fortunately, there appeared some difficulties with the bill in the Senate; hearings were transferred to the autumn session. There appeared the information that the bill may not pass the Senate from the first, in this case there will be created a conciliation commission of the two Houses of the Congress that will at the minimum delay adoption of the law for a considerable term.
Successful passing of the bill in the lower House of the Congress was, evidently, promoted by a scandal around a quite famous lobbyist Jack Abramoff. He was accused of non-payment of taxes and fraud with the money of real casinos. It was his active position that in many aspects contributed to failure of the previous anti-on-line bill, but at the same time after the scandal a lot of legislators are trying to distance themselves from it supporting a new bill.
Struggle against gambling in the USA is carried out not only on the level of the country on the whole, as well as in individual states. The first signs appeared in the state of Washington (not to confuse with the capital of the USA, the city of Washington which was the first to pass its own anti-on-line legislation as an extension of Wire Act. From now on gambling through the Internet or other communication facilities (mobile phones, palms are meant here and etc) threaten the inhabitants of the state of Washington with a fine up to 10 000 dollars and (or) prison for a term up to five years. Also, any sites informing of on-line games are banned. The Law took effect on the 7th of June, 2006, though, there have been no cases of its application for two months.
One more blow was delivered by the USA DOJ. On the 20th of July David Carruthers was arrested, Chief Executive of one of the biggest on-line gambling companies BetonSports, at that it happened in the airport of Dallas where David was taken from the transit flight from England to Costa-Rica. He was presented a number of accusations, including racket and non-payment of taxes, he was refused to be let out on bail. This case also concerns several people, including one of the owners of the company Gary Kaplan. Interestingly, but David himself is a citizen of Great Britain, and the company is registered in Costa-Rica. By the way, the authorities of Costa-Rica have refused to cooperate with Americans with regard to this case, having explained that David and BetonSports have not broken the laws of their country. BetonSports itself ceased work till the 14th of August, and dismissed David Carruthers trying to distance itself from the scandal.
On the whole, the situation around BetonSports is rather controversial. However, this arrest has brought down the market of gambling shares which went down in price by 20-40% in the course of one day, though now the shares are repairing an omission. Apart from that, a large marketing conference was canceled in Las Vegas which had been planned by another big online bookmaker BoDog. All in all, it is not recommended for a manager of gambling sites to come to the USA. Just in case. Several gambling sites after the arrest of David refused access for the citizens of the USA. Thus, the accounts of Americans are closed in the poker network B2B, in the casino/bookmaker/poker Coral/Eurobet and Victor Chandler, though, all these are the companies oriented to Europe, and Americans’ share is not high among their clients.
A few prognoses at the end. Hopefully, the Senate will not approve the bill in its current form, and it will be sent for a long revision at the minimum. Though, Americans have to hurry up with their final decision, for they are affected by the decision of WTO, and Antigua has already repeatedly applied to the organization with a request to control the USA actions. If the prohibition is not introduced or a decision will be made to permit on-line games in the USA, the gambling community will certainly breathe with relief, but no particular changes will take place. It will be much more interesting if the law is passed for all that. For at present up to 50% of all the money on-line is presented by players from the USA. Certainly, not all the Americans will leave online casinos, but outflow of customers will painfully hit the majority of gambling companies. Surely, the situation will worsen on the market of poker where it is the USA that is the main supplier of “fish”.
© Copyright 2006-2007 www.Bonus-Map.com
CHONG
Mar
18
Filed Under (Online Gambling) by drafthorse
Nick Laurrell asked:
START
I do not understand where the UIGEA came from.
I get that it is supposed to curb illegal youth gaming (because World of Warcraft is so much better for a 17 year old than poker is.) I get that it is supposed to curb money laundering (because there is obviously nothing illegal going on with the Oil, Coffee and Corn Markets.) I even get that it was supposed to help other gaming industries (because if you play poker online than you obviously would never go to Vegas again.)
But for the life of me, I don’t get where it came from.
It seems too stupid to be true – too transparently skewed to be a real piece of legislation. After all, we’re still arguing about just what the UIGEA covers: poker is bad, but inexplicably, horse racing and fantasy sports are fine. And I’m far from the first person to be interested in the origins of the UIGEA. In fact, journalist Ed Brayton requested formal transcripts of a number of the meetings that led up to the writing of the UIGEA, but he was turned down by the US Government because, and I quote:
Please be advised that the document you seek is being withheld in full pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1), which pertains to information that is properly classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958.
So we can’t hear the official version of the UIGEA’s birth because it is a matter of national security.
Instead, why don’t we take a look at the two major exceptions to the UIGEA – horse racing and fantasy sports – let’s take a look [m1] at those that the UIGEA accepts.
Horse Racing:
A lot has been written on the connection between the UIGEA and the horse racing industry, so I’ll be brief – horse racing is OK because the industry bought off a number of politicians. This is a quote from the lobbyist group American Horse Council, itself:
“The provisions protecting horseracing were included in the [UIGEA] package through the support of Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jim Bunning (R-KY), John Kyl (R-AZ) and Representatives Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Mike Oxley (R-OH) and Jim Leach (R-IA),”
That support came on the heels of more than $3 million in donations made to politicians on Capitol Hill.
So it’s far from a mystery as to why horse racing was protected. But the next exception is a little less, shall we say, epistemological in nature.
Fantasy Sports
For people who don’t play fantasy sports, here is how it works. Players draft athletes (NFL players, NBA players, etc, etc.) and go up against other players in their league. The games are decided by counting up the chosen statistics for each team (Touchdowns, receptions, points scored, batting average, etc., etc.) So the more positive statistics each athlete gains in their real game, the more positive statistics the fantasy sports player gains in their fantasy game. Players put money in at the beginning of the season, then, at the end of the season, the winners of each league collect the brunt that money pool as their prize (you have to pay league fees and whatnot, so no one collects all of the money put into the pool by players.) Remember, this is not gambling according to the UIGEA/ US Government.
To give you an idea of how big fantasy sports have become, here are some numbers.
In 2005, the year before the UIGEA came out, 12.6 million people played at least one full season of fantasy sports in the US.
Of those 12.6 million, 92% were male (leaving a healthy one million female players) and 77% were married.
91% of players were Caucasian and 86% owned their own home.
59% made more than $50,000 annually and each player spent an average of $493.60 on Fantasy Sports that year to represent a $4 Billion Industry.
And maybe the most important number, 85% of Fantasy Sports players played fantasy football.
So people who play fantasy sports are generally white, generally wealthy and generally into football.
Ah, the NFL – the biggest sports league in America. From the unquantifiable monetary influx that the Super Bowl represents every year to the only year round single-sport show on ESPN (NFL Live) the NFL is king in the USA – and fantasy sports is no exception.
When it comes to fantasy sports, the NFL occupies an even more lucrative position than the other major sports leagues (MLB, NBA, NHL, PGA and NASCAR.) While just about every fantasy sports league is owned operated by an independent third party, the NFL has its own fantasy league.
In fact, the NFL even collects royalties to the tune of more than $200 million in 2005 from those same independent companies for using NFL players’ names. No other league has this deal and the only reason that the NFL does is due to its notoriously weak Players’ Union which has relegated almost all control of players’ playing careers (and likenesses) to the NFL front office. At any rate, the NFL makes a lot of real money on fantasy football, not to mention the invisible benefits of attracting additional viewership of games by fantasy football players (thereby increasing ratings, thereby increasing ad prices, thereby increasing revenues.)
Enter Bill Frist. In 2006, Senator Bill Frist was the Senate Majority Leader and the major reason that the UIGEA got pushed through Congress while other less important bills (like health care reform) remained on the old Congressional back burner. But the UIGEA almost did not make it through so easily: that was accomplished under the guidance of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.
Frist’s first plan to get the UIGEA through was to attach it to a bi-partisan troop funding bill designed to up the equipment levels of deployed US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. What does making the processing of bets made in online gaming rooms illegal (which is what the UIGEA does) have to do with funding troops? Nothing, and respected Virginian Republican and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner voiced his “strong objection” to the inclusion of such a bill to both Frist himself and the Senate as a whole.
Meanwhile, the NFL had caught wind of the possible regulations and had hired Marty Gold (former counsel to none other than Bill Frist himself) to lobby Congress on their behalf. As an interesting side note, ever wonder why the NFL isn’t under the same type of scrutiny on the steroids issue as Major League Baseball is? After all, the top defensive player in the NFL (Shawn Merriman) was fined and suspended for steroid use while the major MLB culprit (Barry Bonds) has never been found guilty of taking anything. Not to mention the fact that NFL players are OBVIOUSLY on steroids (people don’t get that size and stay that strong and that fast naturally, it is just not in God’s plan.) I wonder if the $700,000 bill that Gold sent to the NFL for “services rendered on Capitol Hill in 2005” had anything to do with it?
Anyways, Gold (who has disavowed all knowledge of this) allegedly reported the situation to Goodell. Goodell then wrote a letter to Warner (a former Navy man and Marine himself) urging him to include the “achievement” that was the UIGEA in the aforementioned soldier funding bill. Warner refused again, but what we are interested in is Goodell’s “unsolicited” letter concerning internet gambling regulations. As it turns out, some time in between Warner’s two refusals, an interesting addendum was made to the UIGEA. That addition was the exclusion of fantasy sports as a form of “illegal internet gambling.”
Eventually, the UIGEA found its way to the back end of the Safe Port Act, which was designed to create a division of the Homeland Security Office to watch after sea ports. The UIGEA made it onto this bill without a vote by any negotiators at the very end of a long Congressional session. While the Bill’s author, House Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Pete King (R-NY) was not a proponent of the UIGEA, he needed the votes of Sen. Frist and the other Senators he would bring with him to pass through the piece of Homeland Security legislation. King said of the UIGEA:
“I’m not going to stop a bill because of Internet gambling… That was their final offer of the day.”
While I still don’t get why it was so important for Frist and friends to stop Internet gambling (maybe it really is a moral objection) it is pretty apparent how it got passed through Congress. And it is exceptionally apparent why horseracing and Fantasy Sports were declared exceptions to the law. As a rule, whenever you want to unearth cause on Capitol Hill, all you have to do is follow the money trail.
FELIX
START
I do not understand where the UIGEA came from.
I get that it is supposed to curb illegal youth gaming (because World of Warcraft is so much better for a 17 year old than poker is.) I get that it is supposed to curb money laundering (because there is obviously nothing illegal going on with the Oil, Coffee and Corn Markets.) I even get that it was supposed to help other gaming industries (because if you play poker online than you obviously would never go to Vegas again.)
But for the life of me, I don’t get where it came from.
It seems too stupid to be true – too transparently skewed to be a real piece of legislation. After all, we’re still arguing about just what the UIGEA covers: poker is bad, but inexplicably, horse racing and fantasy sports are fine. And I’m far from the first person to be interested in the origins of the UIGEA. In fact, journalist Ed Brayton requested formal transcripts of a number of the meetings that led up to the writing of the UIGEA, but he was turned down by the US Government because, and I quote:
Please be advised that the document you seek is being withheld in full pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(1), which pertains to information that is properly classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order 12958.
So we can’t hear the official version of the UIGEA’s birth because it is a matter of national security.
Instead, why don’t we take a look at the two major exceptions to the UIGEA – horse racing and fantasy sports – let’s take a look [m1] at those that the UIGEA accepts.
Horse Racing:
A lot has been written on the connection between the UIGEA and the horse racing industry, so I’ll be brief – horse racing is OK because the industry bought off a number of politicians. This is a quote from the lobbyist group American Horse Council, itself:
“The provisions protecting horseracing were included in the [UIGEA] package through the support of Senators Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Jim Bunning (R-KY), John Kyl (R-AZ) and Representatives Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Mike Oxley (R-OH) and Jim Leach (R-IA),”
That support came on the heels of more than $3 million in donations made to politicians on Capitol Hill.
So it’s far from a mystery as to why horse racing was protected. But the next exception is a little less, shall we say, epistemological in nature.
Fantasy Sports
For people who don’t play fantasy sports, here is how it works. Players draft athletes (NFL players, NBA players, etc, etc.) and go up against other players in their league. The games are decided by counting up the chosen statistics for each team (Touchdowns, receptions, points scored, batting average, etc., etc.) So the more positive statistics each athlete gains in their real game, the more positive statistics the fantasy sports player gains in their fantasy game. Players put money in at the beginning of the season, then, at the end of the season, the winners of each league collect the brunt that money pool as their prize (you have to pay league fees and whatnot, so no one collects all of the money put into the pool by players.) Remember, this is not gambling according to the UIGEA/ US Government.
To give you an idea of how big fantasy sports have become, here are some numbers.
In 2005, the year before the UIGEA came out, 12.6 million people played at least one full season of fantasy sports in the US.
Of those 12.6 million, 92% were male (leaving a healthy one million female players) and 77% were married.
91% of players were Caucasian and 86% owned their own home.
59% made more than $50,000 annually and each player spent an average of $493.60 on Fantasy Sports that year to represent a $4 Billion Industry.
And maybe the most important number, 85% of Fantasy Sports players played fantasy football.
So people who play fantasy sports are generally white, generally wealthy and generally into football.
Ah, the NFL – the biggest sports league in America. From the unquantifiable monetary influx that the Super Bowl represents every year to the only year round single-sport show on ESPN (NFL Live) the NFL is king in the USA – and fantasy sports is no exception.
When it comes to fantasy sports, the NFL occupies an even more lucrative position than the other major sports leagues (MLB, NBA, NHL, PGA and NASCAR.) While just about every fantasy sports league is owned operated by an independent third party, the NFL has its own fantasy league.
In fact, the NFL even collects royalties to the tune of more than $200 million in 2005 from those same independent companies for using NFL players’ names. No other league has this deal and the only reason that the NFL does is due to its notoriously weak Players’ Union which has relegated almost all control of players’ playing careers (and likenesses) to the NFL front office. At any rate, the NFL makes a lot of real money on fantasy football, not to mention the invisible benefits of attracting additional viewership of games by fantasy football players (thereby increasing ratings, thereby increasing ad prices, thereby increasing revenues.)
Enter Bill Frist. In 2006, Senator Bill Frist was the Senate Majority Leader and the major reason that the UIGEA got pushed through Congress while other less important bills (like health care reform) remained on the old Congressional back burner. But the UIGEA almost did not make it through so easily: that was accomplished under the guidance of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and former Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.
Frist’s first plan to get the UIGEA through was to attach it to a bi-partisan troop funding bill designed to up the equipment levels of deployed US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. What does making the processing of bets made in online gaming rooms illegal (which is what the UIGEA does) have to do with funding troops? Nothing, and respected Virginian Republican and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner voiced his “strong objection” to the inclusion of such a bill to both Frist himself and the Senate as a whole.
Meanwhile, the NFL had caught wind of the possible regulations and had hired Marty Gold (former counsel to none other than Bill Frist himself) to lobby Congress on their behalf. As an interesting side note, ever wonder why the NFL isn’t under the same type of scrutiny on the steroids issue as Major League Baseball is? After all, the top defensive player in the NFL (Shawn Merriman) was fined and suspended for steroid use while the major MLB culprit (Barry Bonds) has never been found guilty of taking anything. Not to mention the fact that NFL players are OBVIOUSLY on steroids (people don’t get that size and stay that strong and that fast naturally, it is just not in God’s plan.) I wonder if the $700,000 bill that Gold sent to the NFL for “services rendered on Capitol Hill in 2005” had anything to do with it?
Anyways, Gold (who has disavowed all knowledge of this) allegedly reported the situation to Goodell. Goodell then wrote a letter to Warner (a former Navy man and Marine himself) urging him to include the “achievement” that was the UIGEA in the aforementioned soldier funding bill. Warner refused again, but what we are interested in is Goodell’s “unsolicited” letter concerning internet gambling regulations. As it turns out, some time in between Warner’s two refusals, an interesting addendum was made to the UIGEA. That addition was the exclusion of fantasy sports as a form of “illegal internet gambling.”
Eventually, the UIGEA found its way to the back end of the Safe Port Act, which was designed to create a division of the Homeland Security Office to watch after sea ports. The UIGEA made it onto this bill without a vote by any negotiators at the very end of a long Congressional session. While the Bill’s author, House Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Pete King (R-NY) was not a proponent of the UIGEA, he needed the votes of Sen. Frist and the other Senators he would bring with him to pass through the piece of Homeland Security legislation. King said of the UIGEA:
“I’m not going to stop a bill because of Internet gambling… That was their final offer of the day.”
While I still don’t get why it was so important for Frist and friends to stop Internet gambling (maybe it really is a moral objection) it is pretty apparent how it got passed through Congress. And it is exceptionally apparent why horseracing and Fantasy Sports were declared exceptions to the law. As a rule, whenever you want to unearth cause on Capitol Hill, all you have to do is follow the money trail.
FELIX
Jan
25
Filed Under (Online Gambling) by drafthorse
Johnny Detroit asked:
Introduction to Futures
You may or may not have already learned that future bets are wagers placed far in advance of a sporting event after reading our Overview of Sports Gambling Bet Types. The basics are all there, so the purpose of this article is to explain why futures offer such strong value and give tips on improving your chances to win when betting futures.
The main advantage of futures is that you can get appealing odds by betting when oddsmakers first release them or well before an event is decided. For example, placing a future wager on the Kentucky Derby a month ahead of time can get you a much better price on a horse than betting much closer to the race when the real contenders are revealed for all to see. Future odds are not set and can be adjusted by sportsbooks periodically, but the odds at the time of your wager are the odds you are locked into.
A futures bet example with major team sports would be NFL futures, where you often can get much higher odds on a team by betting before the season starts. An NFL future bet on a team to win the Super Bowl might be 20/1 in the preseason, but by midseason, those odds might decrease to 10/1 if the team turns out to be a legitimate championship contender.
It’s important to note that sportsbooks can change futures at any time, and they are available to be bet all the way until the event gets underway. Future bets are also not restricted to the championship game, as you can bet on who will win a conference or division too.
Future bets in NFL and college football, NBA and college basketball and MLB baseball are team-oriented in that you bet on the team’s performance while proposition bets on non-team future events that involve individuals like boxing, tennis, golf and NASCAR are also available. Keep in mind that with futures you are always betting that the event will happen, on whether the team will accomplish something such as a championship and not against their chances of doing so. For example, if Duke is 5/1 to win the NCAA Basketball Championship, you can bet $100 on Duke and will win $500 if they win it all - but with standard future betting you cannot bet against Duke winning it all.
Tips to Win
The key to betting futures is realizing their true value and using the right Tips to Win. The most important consideration is determining what changes a team has made to enhance their chances of vying for a championship like the Super Bowl or World Series. Draft choices, coaching changes, free-agent signings, trades and returning starters all impact a team’s ability to compete, so each aspect should be considered when making your future bet.
The Draft
The draft is a much bigger factor in NBA basketball and NFL football since a rookie can approach superstar status much earlier (i.e. LeBron James) than other sports like MLB baseball where it can take years for players to develop. Of course the way the drafts are structured, the weaker teams almost always select players higher than the stronger teams. However, elite teams like the San Antonio Spurs and New England Patriots are well-known for making the most of their picks despite poor draft positioning.
Player Movement
Nothing has changed the landscape of sports over the past 20 years more than free agency. Superstars like Shaquille O’Neal can simply walk away at the end of their contracts, forcing their teams to decide the likelihood of their re-signing and potentially trading them before their contracts are up to get something in return.
O’Neal is a perfect example to examine since he left the Orlando Magic as a free agent to join the Los Angeles Lakers in 1996, leaving the Magic with nothing in return. Eight years later, he forced the Lakers to trade him to the Miami Heat so the Lakers could get something in return while he was still under contract since he made it known he would not re-sign with them.
O’Neal’s status changed the balance of power between the Eastern and Western Conference in both situations, with the Heat becoming serious title contenders in his first year with the team. A smart NBA futures bettor would have put money on the Heat to win the NBA title or Eastern Conference right after the trade was made.
In NBA basketball and MLB baseball, the midseason trade deadline could also be very critical to a team’s improvement. The New York Yankees tried very hard to yank ace pitcher Randy Johnson from the Arizona Diamondbacks at the 2004 deadline and probably would have won the World Series if they had done so. Instead, they were forced to wait until the offseason to make the trade for Johnson and didn’t have enough pitching to get past the Boston Red Sox, who went on to win the World Series.
In college football and basketball, there is the added dimension of a team’s returning starters. Graduation or early defection of players to the pros play a critical role in the team’s makeup for the next season and should be examined. However, while losing a Heisman Trophy winner like quarterback Carson Palmer in 2003 seemed to be a blow to USC’s chances of winning a national title, it also allowed another Heisman Trophy winner to shine in Matt Leinart, so not all losses hurt an NCAA program.
Timing is everything with player movement. Sometimes these moves pay off, sometimes they don’t, but they often seem to give teams a fighting chance in bettor’s minds and make future bets more interesting.
Coaching Moves
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers made big news during the 2002 offseason when they pried Jon Gruden away from the Oakland Raiders to be their head coach. Tampa Bay management felt like they had the right players in place and just needed the right person to put all the pieces together and lead the way.
After a series of hiring mishaps, including the failed recruitment of coaching legend Bill Parcells, Gruden turned out to be their man and proved to be the difference. It wasn’t cheap since it cost the Buccaneers a number of draft picks and money, but nobody could argue it wasn’t worth the price when they won their first Super Bowl. The best futures price on the Bucs turned out to be before the regular season started and the full impact of Gruden was felt in Tampa and throughout the rest of the NFL.
Measuring True Value
Once you put all of the Tips to Win together, you need to try to measure the true value of a team’s future bet chances. But your perception of how well a team will perform and how you interpret the significance of the Tips to Win will determine whether or not a team is worth betting on.
Sometimes a team comes along like the 1999 St. Louis Rams, who won the Super Bowl that year despite entering the season as a longshot at incredible 200/1 odds. When such longshots come in it demonstrates another strong appeal of future bets, that a fan can make a small bet on a longshot, enjoy following their results all season, and just maybe cash a huge ticket! A safer approach is to pick a playoff team or one that just missed out from the previous year and made some smart moves to turn them into a contender.
Betting the preseason favorite like last year’s champs is a bit risky since their odds are already so low and a lot more money would need to be wagered to make it worthwhile. However, there is still some value in instances like this if you feel strongly that they can go deep into the playoffs again. The further they go, the smaller their odds will likely get along the way and the more value you will have by betting far in advance.
That’s the bottom line with any futures bet - the true value comes down to how you feel about a team compared to the oddsmaker’s projections. If your Tips to Win point to a team worth betting on and that team ultimately follows through, you’ll have a rooting interest all season long and will get the very most out of your futures wager!
Pregame.com provides sports betting rules, basics, advice, systems, and strategy, online for free, covering NFL Football, NCAA college basketball, NBA, pro MLB baseball wagering from gambling experts.
ALDEN
Introduction to Futures
You may or may not have already learned that future bets are wagers placed far in advance of a sporting event after reading our Overview of Sports Gambling Bet Types. The basics are all there, so the purpose of this article is to explain why futures offer such strong value and give tips on improving your chances to win when betting futures.
The main advantage of futures is that you can get appealing odds by betting when oddsmakers first release them or well before an event is decided. For example, placing a future wager on the Kentucky Derby a month ahead of time can get you a much better price on a horse than betting much closer to the race when the real contenders are revealed for all to see. Future odds are not set and can be adjusted by sportsbooks periodically, but the odds at the time of your wager are the odds you are locked into.
A futures bet example with major team sports would be NFL futures, where you often can get much higher odds on a team by betting before the season starts. An NFL future bet on a team to win the Super Bowl might be 20/1 in the preseason, but by midseason, those odds might decrease to 10/1 if the team turns out to be a legitimate championship contender.
It’s important to note that sportsbooks can change futures at any time, and they are available to be bet all the way until the event gets underway. Future bets are also not restricted to the championship game, as you can bet on who will win a conference or division too.
Future bets in NFL and college football, NBA and college basketball and MLB baseball are team-oriented in that you bet on the team’s performance while proposition bets on non-team future events that involve individuals like boxing, tennis, golf and NASCAR are also available. Keep in mind that with futures you are always betting that the event will happen, on whether the team will accomplish something such as a championship and not against their chances of doing so. For example, if Duke is 5/1 to win the NCAA Basketball Championship, you can bet $100 on Duke and will win $500 if they win it all - but with standard future betting you cannot bet against Duke winning it all.
Tips to Win
The key to betting futures is realizing their true value and using the right Tips to Win. The most important consideration is determining what changes a team has made to enhance their chances of vying for a championship like the Super Bowl or World Series. Draft choices, coaching changes, free-agent signings, trades and returning starters all impact a team’s ability to compete, so each aspect should be considered when making your future bet.
The Draft
The draft is a much bigger factor in NBA basketball and NFL football since a rookie can approach superstar status much earlier (i.e. LeBron James) than other sports like MLB baseball where it can take years for players to develop. Of course the way the drafts are structured, the weaker teams almost always select players higher than the stronger teams. However, elite teams like the San Antonio Spurs and New England Patriots are well-known for making the most of their picks despite poor draft positioning.
Player Movement
Nothing has changed the landscape of sports over the past 20 years more than free agency. Superstars like Shaquille O’Neal can simply walk away at the end of their contracts, forcing their teams to decide the likelihood of their re-signing and potentially trading them before their contracts are up to get something in return.
O’Neal is a perfect example to examine since he left the Orlando Magic as a free agent to join the Los Angeles Lakers in 1996, leaving the Magic with nothing in return. Eight years later, he forced the Lakers to trade him to the Miami Heat so the Lakers could get something in return while he was still under contract since he made it known he would not re-sign with them.
O’Neal’s status changed the balance of power between the Eastern and Western Conference in both situations, with the Heat becoming serious title contenders in his first year with the team. A smart NBA futures bettor would have put money on the Heat to win the NBA title or Eastern Conference right after the trade was made.
In NBA basketball and MLB baseball, the midseason trade deadline could also be very critical to a team’s improvement. The New York Yankees tried very hard to yank ace pitcher Randy Johnson from the Arizona Diamondbacks at the 2004 deadline and probably would have won the World Series if they had done so. Instead, they were forced to wait until the offseason to make the trade for Johnson and didn’t have enough pitching to get past the Boston Red Sox, who went on to win the World Series.
In college football and basketball, there is the added dimension of a team’s returning starters. Graduation or early defection of players to the pros play a critical role in the team’s makeup for the next season and should be examined. However, while losing a Heisman Trophy winner like quarterback Carson Palmer in 2003 seemed to be a blow to USC’s chances of winning a national title, it also allowed another Heisman Trophy winner to shine in Matt Leinart, so not all losses hurt an NCAA program.
Timing is everything with player movement. Sometimes these moves pay off, sometimes they don’t, but they often seem to give teams a fighting chance in bettor’s minds and make future bets more interesting.
Coaching Moves
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers made big news during the 2002 offseason when they pried Jon Gruden away from the Oakland Raiders to be their head coach. Tampa Bay management felt like they had the right players in place and just needed the right person to put all the pieces together and lead the way.
After a series of hiring mishaps, including the failed recruitment of coaching legend Bill Parcells, Gruden turned out to be their man and proved to be the difference. It wasn’t cheap since it cost the Buccaneers a number of draft picks and money, but nobody could argue it wasn’t worth the price when they won their first Super Bowl. The best futures price on the Bucs turned out to be before the regular season started and the full impact of Gruden was felt in Tampa and throughout the rest of the NFL.
Measuring True Value
Once you put all of the Tips to Win together, you need to try to measure the true value of a team’s future bet chances. But your perception of how well a team will perform and how you interpret the significance of the Tips to Win will determine whether or not a team is worth betting on.
Sometimes a team comes along like the 1999 St. Louis Rams, who won the Super Bowl that year despite entering the season as a longshot at incredible 200/1 odds. When such longshots come in it demonstrates another strong appeal of future bets, that a fan can make a small bet on a longshot, enjoy following their results all season, and just maybe cash a huge ticket! A safer approach is to pick a playoff team or one that just missed out from the previous year and made some smart moves to turn them into a contender.
Betting the preseason favorite like last year’s champs is a bit risky since their odds are already so low and a lot more money would need to be wagered to make it worthwhile. However, there is still some value in instances like this if you feel strongly that they can go deep into the playoffs again. The further they go, the smaller their odds will likely get along the way and the more value you will have by betting far in advance.
That’s the bottom line with any futures bet - the true value comes down to how you feel about a team compared to the oddsmaker’s projections. If your Tips to Win point to a team worth betting on and that team ultimately follows through, you’ll have a rooting interest all season long and will get the very most out of your futures wager!
Pregame.com provides sports betting rules, basics, advice, systems, and strategy, online for free, covering NFL Football, NCAA college basketball, NBA, pro MLB baseball wagering from gambling experts.
ALDEN
