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Totalisator
Thursday, February 12th, 2009
A totalisator or totalizator (tote board in common parlance) is the name for the computerised system which runs parimutuel betting, calculating payoff odds, displaying them, and producing tickets based on incoming bets.The first totalisator was an entirely mechanical system invented by the Australian George Julius of Julius Poole & Gibson Pty Ltd. It was installed [...]
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Daily double
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009
A daily double is a type of wager offered by horse and dog racing tracks. It requires bettors to select the winners of two consecutive races. Because of the increased diffculty of picking two straight winners, wining daily double bets often pay off at relatively high odds.The daily double was the first so-called “exotic” wager [...]
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Risk premium
Monday, February 2nd, 2009
A risk premium is the minimum difference between the expected value of an uncertain bet that a person is willing to take and the certain value that he is indifferent to. Example Suppose a game show participant may choose one of two doors, one that hides $1,000 and one that hides $0. Further suppose that [...]
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Vigorish
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
Vigorish, or simply “vig“, or “juice“, is the amount charged by a bookmaker for his services. The term is Yiddish slang originating from the Russian word for “winnings,” vyigrysh. The concept is also known as the overround.Bookmakers use this concept to make money on their wagers regardless of the outcome. Because of the vigorish concept, [...]
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Martingale
Monday, January 26th, 2009
Originally, martingale referred to a class of betting strategies popular in 18th century France. The simplest of these strategies was designed for a game in which the gambler wins his stake if a coin comes up heads and loses it if the coin comes up tails. The strategy had the gambler double his bet after [...]
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Dutch book
Sunday, January 25th, 2009
In gambling a Dutch book or lock is a set of odds and bets which guarantees a profit, no matter what the outcome of the gamble. It is associated with probabilities implied by the odds not being coherent.In economics a Dutch book usually refers to a sequence of trades that would leave one party strictly [...]
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Bookmaking
Tuesday, January 20th, 2009
Most people believe that bookmakers attempt to “balance” their action, by adjusting their prices so that they get the same amount of money on both sides of a game. 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 [...]
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Internet sportsbooks
Monday, January 19th, 2009
While internet sportsbooks lack face-to-face transactions, they can handle more customers than land based sportsbooks and operate more cost effectively. They pass lower costs on to customers in the form of reduced vigorish (cheaper prices) or bonus incentives. They can also offer similar products, such as casino games, bingo, and poker to their existing clients. [...]
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SP bookmaking
Wednesday, January 14th, 2009
Starting price or SP bookmaking literally refers to taking bets at fixed odds, i.e. a fixed starting price, as opposed to the totalisator model of betting. This form of gambling was only legal in Australia for bookmakers operating on the course or racetrack, and so a large telephone based SP bookmaking industry started, leading to [...]
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Types of bets
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
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 [...]
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Bank job
Friday, November 21st, 2008
In gambling, a Bank Job is a term for putting all of your money on a particular betting option, for instance “Yankees to beat the Kansas City Royals is a Bank Job”It is often mocked by statements claiming people have “Multiple Banks” on a particular bet, for instance “I have 4 Banks on Chelsea to win the [...]
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Sportsbook
Thursday, November 13th, 2008
A sportsbook (sometimes abbreviated as book) or a race and sports book is a place where a gambler can wager on various sports competitions, including football, basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer, horse racing and boxing. The method of betting varies with the sport and the type of game. The more prominent the event, the more wagering [...]
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Parimutuel betting
Thursday, October 30th, 2008
Parimutuel betting (from the French language: pari mutuel, mutual betting) is a betting system in which all bets of a particular type are placed together in a pool; taxes and a house take are removed, and payoff odds are calculated by sharing the pool among all placed bets.The parimutuel system is used in gambling on [...]
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Bookmakers
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008
A bookmaker, bookie or turf accountant, is an organisation or a person that takes bets and may pay winnings depending upon results and, depending on the nature of the bet, the odds. Bookmaking may be legal or illegal, and may be regulated; in the United Kingdom it was at times both regulated and illegal, in [...]
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Betting strategy
Saturday, October 4th, 2008
Betting strategies or betting systems are approaches to gambling intended to increase the odds of winning. Independent Events The following betting strategies have been recorded as being applied to games which operate on independent events. For such games, the odds of a particular outcome are identical for every bet played. No such strategy can beat [...]