Don Million

You don’t need to be in Las Vegas to place bets

Sports’ betting is glorified among odds makers, or bookies in Las Vegas. However, you don’t need to be in Las Vegas to place bets. Now, online betting is available through various websites. These websites allow for anyone (18 years and older) to place bets on upcoming sporting events. The current advertisement is to bet on the Belmont Stakes. When placing a bet, the bettor reviews the odds and bets on a player, horse, or team based on these odds. For the Belmont Stakes, Mine that Bird has odds of 4/3, while Summer Bird has odds of 12/1. A responsible and educated bettor understands that these odds mean that Mine that Bird has a better chance at winning than Summer Bird, however a winning bet placed on Summer Bird would provide a larger payoff than a bet on Mine that Bird. This is where the excitement and strategy comes into online betting, should one bet on the favourite and win a little bit of money, or gamble and pick an unknown for a large winning sum?

If you’re a betting beginner then why not get some expert tips and check out the betting guide available at One Booker.com. Then you can visit the best betting websites and play online to win some top prizes.

Read more: You don’t need to be in Las Vegas to place bets

The Cheltenham Festival

The Cheltenham Festival is the most anticipated event in the whole of the National Hunt season. Lasting over four days there is a total of 26 races, all of them with something special to offer and every day there is a major championship race.

The festival is steeped with tradition and its exciting history reaches back to 1902 when it was first run on the same course as it is today. One of the famous traditions is the Cheltenham Roar, a celebratory and deafening cheer that the day one spectators make as the ropes go up to start the first race of the festival which is the Supreme Novices Hurdle.

Unsurprisingly huge crowds of race goers turn up to experience the excitement. In fact over 200,000 are expected to turn up for the 2010 festival. Many of these will have travelled from Ireland as the festival is a favourite amongst the country’s many horse racing enthusiasts. The festival coincides with St Patrick’s Day which makes it a double cause for celebration. Naturally many of the horses are also Irish, and it is an occasion during which Irish horses seem to perform very well.

The most successful Irish trainer was Michael Vincent O’Brien who sadly died in 2009. His horses won Festival races on twenty one occasions and these wins included four Cheltenham Gold Cup winners. The County Hurdle, which he won on ten occasions, has been renamed the Vincent O’Brien County Handicap Hurdle in his honour.

The Cheltenham Festival is also a favourite amongst the punters who will bet a staggering amount of money over the four days. Last year the total of on-course and off-course bets was in excess of half a billion pounds! Given the amount of ante-post Cheltenham betting that has been wagered already, this year the amount could be even higher.

Despite the complexity of organising such a festival as Cheltenham every year it runs incredibly smoothly. As well as the racing there are a number of excellent restaurants and additional events such as Ladies Day which features a ladies fashion competition. No other race meeting can beat the excitement and thrills that are the characteristic of the Cheltenham Festival.

Read more: The Cheltenham Festival

Betting on the Cricket Twenty20 World Cup

Sports and betting go hand in hand because as people are passionate about sports, they like to wager on their favourite team and try their luck at winning. Cricket betting is mostly indulged in those nations which play this game and which have their national team playing international matches. Large amounts of bets are placed on important clashes like the Ashes Series, Cricket World Cup, Australia-New Zealand and the India-Pakistan matches.

If you have ever tried football betting, you will not find much difference between football betting and cricket betting. You first have to register with a bookmaker/online betting site and deposit the funds – at many sites you can even find free bets when you first sign-up. You can place a bet on different cricket events after choosing a particular match. Once you click on that series you will get a Betslip which lists different options. You can make your selections against the odds offered for the particular match and place your bet. There are different types of matches being played all round the year like test matches, one day matches and Twenty20 matches which are of limited over and get finished pretty soon. One day matches and Twenty20 clashes have greater following as they are of shorter duration and provide lots of excitement to spectators.

You can get different options while betting on cricket. You can place a bet on match result after analysing which team will team. Other bets available for one day matches are top run score of both teams, highest opening partnership, first over runs, team to score the most sixes, first ball of match, method of first dismissal, highest score in first 15 over, team of top batsman and which team will win the toss. You have other such bets for test matches too and if you are able to make the right guess, you win big.

Online bookmakers such as bwin offer odds for important event well in advance of the series or match. You can easily get odds for the 2010 ICC World Twenty20 fixture, Ashes Series 2010/11 or the Cricket World Cup 2011 as bookies offer odds and let you place bets quite early. The odds for the World Twenty20 series given by bookies for different countries are Australia 5/1, South Africa 7/2, India 9/2, Sri Lanka 9/2England 10/1, Bangladesh 40/1 and Ireland 500/1. It is difficult to predict the exact outcome of these events and sometimes you can win big by supporting the underdogs.

Read more: Betting on the Cricket Twenty20 World Cup