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There are several of us who are old enough to remember the time when sports betting effectively meant betting on the outcome of either a horse race or perhaps a greyhound race. By “outcome” in read this blog post from Novamentis particular context one means simply which runner could be the winner, or which may come in placed.
It was not unheard of for someone to place a bet on a football match or even an important boxing bout. Nonetheless the grim, smoky street corner bookmaker’s shop was essentially synonymous with horse racing more or less to the exclusion of the other sport.
Today the matter is a great deal different. Walk past the now more inviting frontage of the bookmaker’s and also you will be brazenly invited to predict the score of the next major soccer game as well as the name of the very first or the last player to score a goal. Prices are offered on many sports and “long list” coupons are every bit as freely accessible for soccer punters as the small slips are for the greater traditional horse racing enthusiasts.
Of course by far the largest transformation in the culture of betting accompanied the arrival of the internet as the means through which we now spend most of our time communicating with the outside world. Not simply do all of the traditional high street bookmakers for example Ladbrokes, William Hill, Coral and Paddy Power all have a major online presence, but they are in company of the large US-facing offshore sportsbooks such as Pinnacle, and of some much smaller and a lot more obscure outfits whose budgets had never stretched to a chain of shops but who all of the same are able to manage a web page.
Online sports betting has drastically altered the culture of gambling for all time. Hobbyists and professionals alike can now place wagers at the click of a mouse, and may even where necessary lay their selections at one of the betting exchanges to lock in a guaranteed profit.
Not just are there quite literally hundreds of times more sportsbooks available to the everyday punter today than was the situation before the Internet intervened, however the variety of sports which are covered has mushroomed similarly. Whereas at the old betting shop the focus was largely on horse and greyhound racing with a smaller emphasis on football as well as maybe a few of other big sports in the event the occasion arose, customers of the on-line sportsbooks can select from between a very substantial array of lines on sports as diverse as soccerrugby union, rugby league, cricket, boxing, volleyball, motor racing, darts, snooker and US sports (football, hockey, baseball and basketball), and current affairs, politics, stage and film awards and reality TV. Several of the continental books also offer prices on such enormously well-known sports as trotting, bandy and innebandy.
And not just is there such a selection of sports available, but additionally there are all kinds of alternatives available within each selection. So with a soccer match, for example, for several bet not just on the winner of the fixture but additionally on the range of goals scored, the name of the very first scorer, the total number of goals, the time of the very first goal, the total range of corners taken and also the number of bookings to name but a couple of.
