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MLB

The MLB season continues to heat up all around the nation! In Chicago, we have seen the Chicago Cubs go from the laughingstock of the MLB, into a contending team looking to take over first place in the NL Central. The Chicago Cubs are finally living up to expectations after winning eight out of their last nine games. The Boston Red Sox have continued their outstanding pitching and hitting, and currently have the best record in the whole MLB, 48-29. The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are right on their heels at 49-30 and look to overtake the Red Sox before the All-Star break. The New York Yankees are still under-performing and have yet to break .500 all season. The San Francisco Giants, Barry Bonds home run count for this month is currently at six to match the baseball hall-of-famer, Hank Aaron’s total. The Detroit Tigers are also having a fantastic season and are only a few games in back of the Boston Red Sox. The New York Mets are having a good season so far, and look to be the team to beat in New York. Will the Chicago Cubs catch up the NL Central leading Milwaukee Brewers? Will the Boston Red Sox stay #1 with teams such as the Angels and Tigers right on their heels? Will you be watching when Barry Bonds hits another homerun? Guess we will have to wait and see as the MLB gets more exciting as each day gets closer to the World Series!

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Parlay cards

A parlay cards is a betting slip where bettors can group a number of bets into a single bet. A bettor can choose how many bets he wants to make, but all his bets have to win for the card to win. The payoff odds increase as the number of picks the bettor makes increase. Typically, parlay cards display many games that take place over a day or two (usually on a weekend). A point spread is listed with each game, and bettors can bet on either team against the point spread for any games he wishes. Bettors can sometimes bet an over/under line shown with the games.

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. Many online bookmakers do not accept wagers from the U.S. due to these unresolved legal questions.) The bookmaker earns a commission or “vigorish” by regarding the money at risk as less than the size of the bet placed. A common line is a $110 bet on a fair coin which pays $210 to win and $0 to lose. On this line, it costs $220 to bet both sides of the same coin simultaneously, but the combined bet always pays $210. The $10 loss constitutes the vig. There are opposing positions on whether the winner or loser can be construed as paying the vig, but this debate is not especially meaningful. If you view $110 to win $210 on a fair coin as $100 at risk, then it will appear as if the loser pays the vig; if you view the same line as $110 at risk, then it will appear as if the winner pays the vig. It happens that standard practice among bookies is to adjust odds so the amount at risk remains constant from the winning side of the proposition, hence the common perception that the loser pays the vig. Vigs expressed as percentages suffer from the same perceptual bias. On the line as given in this example, for a fair coin, the bookie has an expectation of making $5 for each $110 bet placed, which is often divided out and expressed as 4.5% 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.

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