Locks of the Week

Well, I was 3 for 5 against the spread last week, although I was 5 for 5 if I was just picking the winners. Sadly, when a better goes against the spread, winning the game does not always mean winning the bet. So far, Bodoglife.com would be losing money to me. Tough week of spreads this coming week, but we will see how I do.
Notre Dame +22, (at Purdue) The Irish cannot be as bad as they are playing, and I feel they will make a close game with their instate rival.
Louisville -9, (at NC State) Coming off too big defeats, the Cardinals are due to have a bounce back game.
UCLA +2 (Oregon State), Why UCLA is picked to lose by 2 to a crappy Oregon State team is beyond me, UCLA is a sure thing to win this game straight up.
NY Jets -3 (at Buffalo), The Bills have so many injuries and the Jets will have an easy time with their instate rivals.
Baltimore Ravens -4 (at Cleveland), Ravens will physically dominate and most likely blow out the Browns.

Gambling Can Be a Problem

Many experts have stated that gambling can be as addictive as drugs or alcohol. The simple concept of stopping when your down, or walking away with your winnings are concepts not easily accepted by addictive gamblers. Once their down, they keep telling themselves they can get out of the hole their in by winning the next one. This idea will keep repeating itself in the addicted gambler's mind until their pockets are empty. If their ahead, they just see their winnings as extra money and try to turn it into even more. The problem with this is that casinos or bookies want the gambler to keep betting, because they know the odds say that eventually the gambler will lose. If you are or you know a gambler who has a mindset such as the one I have stated, please try and direct them to help. GA (gamblers anonymous) is an organization, very similar to AA (alcoholics anonymous) or NA (narcotics anonymous), that helps addicted gamblers. They follow the 12 step program, as do the other "anonymous" organizations, and can help a great deal to a addicted gambler. Their website will answer any questions needed involving this organization.

How hard can it be??? Here are my five locks of the week.

Every week I will be giving you my five football picks (NCAA and NFL) with the spread to see how hard sports betting really is and how these web sites make so much money. My hypothesis is that my average will be above fifty percent, which means there are far more idiots betting on sports then people who actually know what they are doing. I strongly feel that I do know what I am doing, as I have been betting on sports even before I was legally allowed to do so. All spreads are taken courtesy of Bodoglife.com (previously Bodog.com and why it changed I have no idea) at 10:00 am Saturday morning.
For people not familiar with sports betting, if Team A is picked to beat Team B by 10 points, the spread would look like this:
Team A -10, favored by 10 points
Team B +10, underdogs by 10 points
Here are the Derry Slocum's five locks of the week:
Michigan +3 (vs Penn St), playing at home against Penn St., a team that historically has been dominated by Michigan, and frankly I do not see Michigan losing its third game so early in the season.
Arkansas -7 (vs Kentucky), emotional loss last week for Arkansas, emotional win last week for Kentucky, equals a blow out win at home for Arkansas.
Wisconsin -7 (vs Iowa), Iowa is way overrated this year, their team just is not that good, as where Wisconsin is one of the top ten programs in the nation, look for P.J. Hill to have a huge game.
UCLA -6 (vs Washington), UCLA got blown out at Utah last week, and the senior led team at UCLA will bounce back this week and take it out on Washington which has highly overplayed themselves.
Dallas Cowboys +3 (at Chicago), Rex Grossman is still the Bears quarterback right? He should take some notes when the #1 ranked offense led by Tony Romo is lighting it up come Sunday night. The Cowboys do not need the three points they are given, as they will win this one straight up.

Fund Transfers

The American government has been extremely against any from of online gambling. Starting with the Interstate Wire Act in 1961, often referred to as the Federal Wire Act, the government made any form of electronic wiring of money for the purpose of wagering illegal with a maximum penalty of two years in prison. This was before the Internet exploded though. Although in 2002 the Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Wire Act does not prohibit online gambling, many inconveniences have been but on online gambling providers. For instance, when the Internet first started being exploited for the purpose of online gambling, all major credit cards, as well as banks, were willing to transfer money into the online gambling sites so the customer would be willing to make wagers. Then when the customer, if lucky, would win and want to cash out some of these funds, the online gambling sites would typically re-wire the money directly back to your bank account. Through rulings in the U.S. courts, this is no longer the case. Virtually no credit cards are allowed to wire money to these online gambling sites, and banks can no longer directly transfer money into these sites either. This was obviously a huge problem for these online gambling sites, and many of them either shut down all together, or closed their doors to any U.S. customers. Party Gaming was one of these sites that now denied U.S. customers, and in result of their announcement, their stock dropped 60%.
Not all of the online gambling sites shut down though. Other providers such as Bodog, BetUs, Sportsbook, and many others were able to stick around to provide to their American customers. By doing this, they had to use a third party site that money could be legally transferred into, and then allowing the customers to transfer the money from this third site into their online gambling site. This was not the end of their problems though because these third party sites had no way of paying out to the customer. Once the money was in the third party site, it either had to be spent or just stay untouched. This left the gambling sites with few options. Because many banks refused to deal with these online gambling sites, very few banks allow them to directly transfer money back into the customers bank account. So the only option really left for the sites were to send out checks when the customer decided to payout. Now this cost the gambling sites quite a bit money, so they had to make further restrictions to the customer. The majority of online gambling sites only allow for one check to be sent out each month, per customer, and any additional checks within a month would cost the customer a hefty fine. So through all these legalities that affected the business of online gambling, the business still exist, but at a greater inconvenience for both the customer and the provider.

How Online Gambling Sites do Sports Betting

When it comes down to betting on sports, it seems easy enough. There are two teams and the better must pick the one he believes is going to win. Its not always that easy though. Each individual site has an oddsmaker that will come up with a point spread to make the game as difficult to pick as possible. For instance, the Colts are clearly the favorite to win this weekend against the Tennessee Titans, so instead of just winning, they have to win by more than 7 points, according to Bodog.com. Doing it this way makes it more even (and difficult) for the better to choose the correct winner. Still, it does not change the fact that there are two teams, and the better must pick one. Virtually a 50% chance. This is where "the juice" comes into play. "The juice" is what makes these sites the vast majority of their profits. For instance, for the majority of gambling sites, the better must bet $110 in order to win $100. This means that the better must pay 9.09% more then he will get back if he wins. That $10 dollars is considered "the juice." Now, $10 is not a lot of money, but lets say a gambling site has roughly $100,000 put on each team in a particular game, they make roughly $9,090 regardless of who the winner is. The truth of the matter is, usually there is a lot more than $100,000 on a game. That can be a single bet for some rich guy looking for some action. Now lets look at a scenario where, for some reason, the majority of the bets are going with the Colts to win by more then 7 points. The gambling site has two options here; to increase "the juice" on betting with the Colts and decrease it for betting on the Titans, or they can make increase the point spread and make it so the Colts have to win by more than 8 points. The goal is to keep equal number of bets on each team, so the gambling site has minimal chance of losing any money.

Introduction

Online gambling is a tremendous money maker for online casinos such as Bodog or BetUs or Sportsbook, etc, but because of laws passed by Congress on online gambling, America sees none of these profits. All these businesses were forced to move outside American borders in able to function. The sad fact about this is that the large majority of profits to these companies comes from American citizens. This is in large part because there are so many different sports that American fans follow and love. The NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, Nascar, Golf, and almost all NCAA team sports are available to be bet on, and for most Americans, the internet is the only way to accomplish this. Through my blog, I will research exactly how these sites operate, as well as how so much money is made.