Sports betting is the general activity of predicting sports results by making a wager on the outcome of a sporting event. Perhaps more so than other forms of gambling, the legality and general acceptance of sports betting varies from nation to nation. In North America, for example, sports gambling is generally forbidden, while in many European nations, bookmaking (the profession of accepting sports wagers) is regarded as an honorable occupation and, while highly regulated, is not criminalized. Proponents of legalized sports betting generally regard it as a hobby for sports fans that increases their interest in particular sporting events. Opponents fear that, over and above the general ramifications of gambling, it threatens the integrity of amateur and professional sport, the history of which includes numerous attempts by sports gamblers to fix matches.
Types of bets
Aside from simple wagers--betting a friend that one's favorite baseball team will win its division, for instance, or buying a football "square" for the Super Bowl--sports betting is commonly done through a bookmaker. Legal sports bookmakers exist throughout the world (perhaps most notably in Las Vegas). In areas where sports betting is illegal, bettors usually make their sports wagers with illicit bookmakers (known colloquially as "bookies") and on the Internet, where thousands of online bookmakers accept wagers on sporting events around the world. (In the United States, the legality of Internet wagering is ambiguous, due to the fact that online bookmakers generally operate outside of the U.S.) The bookmaker earns a commission or "vigorish" (normally 10 percent) on all losing wagers, and pays out a predetermined amount to winning bets. Odds on teams or opponents are quoted in terms of the favorite (the team that is expected to win, thus requiring a riskier wager) and the underdog.
Bookmakers generally offer two types of wagers on the winner of a sporting event: a straight-up or moneyline bet, or a point spread wager. Moneylines and straight-up prices are used to set odds on sports such as soccer, baseball and hockey (the scoring nature of which renders point spreads impractical) as well as individual vs. individual matches, like boxing. For these sports, bookmakers in Europe and Asia generally use straight-up odds, which are quoted based on a payout for a single bet unit; for example, a 2-1 favorite would be listed at a price of 1.50, whereas an underdog returning twice the amount wagered would be listed at a price of 3.00. American bookmakers generally use moneylines, which are quoted in terms of the amount required to win $100 on a favorite, or the amount paid for a $100 bet on an underdog. For example, a baseball game between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs might have a moneyline on St. Louis (the favorite) at -200 and Chicago (the underdog) at +180. A bettor looking to take St. Louis must risk $200 for every $100 he wishes to win. A person wagering on Chicago will win $180 for every $100 he bets. Bookmakers generally use a "dime line" with moneylines to calculate the vigorish they receive on losing wagers. For favorites of -120 to -150, the difference between the favorite and underdog is 10 cents; i.e., the underdog to a -120 favorite is priced at +110. The discrepancy between prices rises for favorites of -160 or higher. Unlike point spread bets, a moneyline wager requires only that the team wagered upon win the match. In sports such as baseball, where certain teams can be heavy favorites against weaker opponents (sometimes as much as -350 or higher), the moneyline system requires that a hefty sum be risked on the favorite, while enticing underdog players with a higher payout.
In sports such as basketball and American football, rather than varying the money odds (which can be substantial in lopsided matches), the point spread is used. A point spread wager typically requires a bettor to risk $110 to win $100, the extra $10 being the bookmaker's vigorish if the wager loses. However, bettors backing the favorite collect only if their team wins by more than a specific victory margin, which is set at the time of the wager. Similarly, underdog bettors can collect even when their team loses, as long as they cover the point spread by losing by fewer points than were quoted by the bookmaker. For example, suppose that a college football game between Oklahoma and Kansas had Oklahoma as a 27 point favorite (quoted as Oklahoma -27, or Kansas +27):
- If Oklahoma defeats Kansas by more than 27 points, bettors on Oklahoma would receive $100 on a $110 bet. Kansas bettors lose the $110 they wagered.
- If Kansas defeats Oklahoma, bettors on Kansas would receive $100 on a $110 bet. Oklahoma bettors lose the $110 they wagered.
- If Kansas loses by less than 27 points, they have covered the spread. Bettors on Kansas are then treated exactly as if Kansas had won the game.
- If Oklahoma wins by exactly 27 points, the wager is called a "push", and neither side wins. Standard practice by U.S. bookmakers is to return the stakes of all bettors on the game in full. To prevent pushes and ensure that they receive their commission on losing wagers, bookmakers typically set point spreads that include a half-point.
Another common wager available for sporting events involves predicting the combined total score between the competing teams in a game. Such wagers are known as "totals" or "over/unders." For example, the University of Oklahoma/Kansas football game described above might have a total of 55 points. A bettor could wager that both teams will combine for over 55 points, and play the "over." Or, she could predict that the score will fall under this amount, and play the "under." As with point spreads, bookmakers frequently set the totals at a number involving a half-point, to reduce the occurrence of pushes.
Many bookmakers offer several alternative bets, including the following:
- Proposition bets. These are wagers made on a very specific outcome of a match. Examples include guessing the number of goals each team scores in a soccer match, betting whether a wide receiver in a football game will net more or less than a set amount of total yardage, or wagering that a baseball player on one team will accumulate more hits than another player on the opposing team.
- Parlays. A parlay involves multiple bets (usually up to 12) and rewards successful bettors with a large payout. For example, a bettor could include four different wagers in a four-team parlay, whereby he is wagering that all four bets will win. If any of the four bets fails to cover, the bettor loses the parlay, but if all four bets win, the bettor receives a substantially higher payout (usually 10-1 in the case of a four-teamer) than if he made the four wagers separately.
- Run line, puck line or goal line bets. These are wagers offered as alternatives to straight-up/moneyline prices in baseball, hockey or soccer, respectively. These bets feature a fixed point spread that offers a higher payout for the favorite and a lower one for the underdog. For example, the above-described Cardinals/Cubs baseball game might offer a run line of St. Louis -1.5 (+100) and Chicago +1.5 (-120). A bettor taking St. Louis on the run line can avoid risking $200 to win $100 on the moneyline, but will collect only if the Cardinals win by 2 runs or more. Similarly, a run line wager on the Cubs will pay if Chicago loses by no more than a run, but it requires the bettor to risk $120 to win $100.
- Future wagers. This bet predicts a future accomplishment by a team or player. One example is a bet that a certain NFL team will win the Super Bowl for the upcoming season. Odds for such a bet generally are expressed in a ratio of units paid to unit wagered. The team wagered upon might be 50-1 to win the Super Bowl, which means that the bet will pay 50 times the amount wagered if the team does so.
Bookmaking
Bookmakers create and publish odds that, from their perspective, will accomplish two objectives: accurately reflecting the likely outcome of a sporting event, and equalizing the number of wagers on both sides of a match. Theoretically, the bookmaker's only financial interest in the bets it accepts is the vigorish it takes from losing wagers, and it simply wants to ensure that the amount of wagers on each side is equal. (This is true only in theory; in reality, wagering on sporting events often is lopsided despite the bookmakers' best efforts, causing them to be "sided" when the heavily-bet team wins or covers the spread.) As bets come in on an upcoming game, bookmakers attempt to equalize the money on each side by adjusting the pointspread, money line or total.
In the case of the Oklahoma/Kansas football game, if a bookmaker observed that more bets were being placed on Oklahoma, it might move the pointspread from 27 to 27.5 or 28. In the example of the Cardinals/Cubs baseball game, lopsided action on St. Louis might prompt a bookmaker to move St. Louis to -220 and Chicago to +200. The idea in both cases, of course, is to encourage more bettors to wager on the team receiving less action. Conversely, if Kansas were receiving more action at +27, the line might be moved to 26.5 or 26; in the case where the Cubs were taking more bets, the moneyline might be dropped to St. Louis -180, Chicago +160.
With a match offering a point spread, however, bookmakers must be careful of moving the line too much. Assume, for example, that a large number of Oklahoma bettors caused the line to be moved from 27 points all the way to 29 points. If Oklahoma won the game by 28 points, the bookmaker would have to pay both those who wagered that Oklahoma would win by 27 and those who took Kansas on the 29 point spread. Bookmakers refer to such an event as "being middled." This famously occurred in the 1979 Super Bowl between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys, which American bookmakers still remember as "Black Sunday." For that game, bookmakers opened Pittsburgh as a 3.5 point favorite, and the line closed just before kickoff at Pittsburgh -4.5. Pittsburgh won the game 35-31, enabling both those who took the Steelers -3.5 and those who wagered on the Cowboys +4.5 to collect.
Sometimes, a point spread is set at an amount that equals a common margin of victory for a particular sporting event. For instance, American football games are often decided by 3 points (the amount awarded for a field goal) or 7 points (the amount awarded for a touchdown with a successful extra-point attempt). In the case of a football game where the favorite is -7, moving the line up or down would likely result in a middle if the favorite wins by exactly 7 points. In this situation, the bookmaker may choose to adjust the vigorish in response to unbalanced action, rather than move the point spread. If the 7 point favorite is getting the most wagers, a bookmaker may change the vigorish on that team from -7 (-110) to -7 (-120), and move the underdog to +7 (+100). Once this occurs, bettors looking to wager on the favorite must risk $120 for every $100 they wish to win, while underdog players will get even money for every dollar they wager. As with adjusting the point spread, the bookmaker's objective is to equalize the action on both sides of the match.
A bookmaker's line can be influenced by one or several large wagers made on a match. Bookmakers pay particular attention to the bets of a professional sports gambler, commonly known within the industry as a "sharp" or "wiseguy." A move that occurs several hours (or sometimes days) before the game often reflects the bookmaker's response to a wiseguy bet, as professionals tend to look to exploit perceived weaknesses in the bookmaker's early lines. Some professionals combine their funds and work together in a "syndicate". These syndicates will place large wagers at several books, moving the line at each of them. Observers refer to such line movements as "steam."
Betting scandals
Historically, sports betting has been associated with a number of unsavory characters, which has a lot to do with its desultory legal treatment throughout the world. Organized crime notoriously has relied upon sports betting for money laundering 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. All of the American professional sports leagues, as well as the National College Athletic Association (NCAA), take stringent measures to disassociate themselves from sports gambling. Nevertheless, sports history is riddled with several incidents of athletes conspiring with gamblers to fix the outcomes of sporting events, or criminals acting against athletes whose on-field performance affected their wagers.
- 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 murdered 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
- In 1994, a comprehensive point shaving scheme organized by campus bookmaker Benny Silman and involving players from the Arizona State University mens basketball team was uncovered with the assistance of Las Vegas bookmakers, who grew suspicious over repeated large wagers being made against Arizona State.[1]
- 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
- In late 2004, the game between Panionios and Dinamo Tbilisi in the 2004-05 UEFA Cup was suspected of being fixed after British bookmakers detected an 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 2
- The Italian Football Federation said in October 2000 it had found eight players guilty of match-fixing. Three were from Serie A side Atalanta Bergamo and the other five played for Serie B side Pistoiese. The players were Giacomo Banchelli, Cristiano Doni and Sebastiano Siviglia (all Atalanta Bergamo) and Alfredo Aglietti, Massimiliano Allegri, Daniele Amerini, Gianluca Lillo and Girolamo Bizzarri (all Pistoiese). The charges related to an Italian Cup first round tie between the two sides in Bergamo on August 20, 2000 which ended 1-1. Atalanta scored at the end of the first half and Pistoiese equalised three minutes from full time. Atalanta qualified for the second round. Snai, which organises betting on Italian football, said later it had registered suspiciously heavy betting on the result and many of the bets were for a 1-0 halftime score and a fulltime score of 1-1.
- 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 for dissent, and later awarded Paderborn two dubious penalties. Paderborn went on to win 4-2. 1 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. Hoyzer himself was arrested on February 12 after evidence emerged that he may have fixed more matches than he had admitted to fixing. On February 16, UEFA announced that it would send an investigator to Athens to investigate possible links between this scandal and the aforementioned Panionios-Dinamo UEFA Cup tie. 2