American Online Sports Betting Explained: Understanding Odds

Sports betting can be a bit intimidating if you're trying to bet on sports played in a foreign country. However, one of the best opportunities to profit from sports betting is to place bets on American sporting events.

Now that the United States has passed laws making it even more difficult for Americans to place bets on sporting events in their own country, there will be even more opportunities for astute gamblers to win big money betting on sports. Why? Because sports betting is a competition among the people who participate in it. The sports books set the point spreads based on how people are betting, not necessarily on who they think will win the game. This creates an opportunity for the "smart money" gamblers to place high percentage bets, and to win lots of money!

But before you can hope to do this, there are three important things you need to understand about American Sports Betting:

1. You Must Understand The Betting Odds

Let's just stick with American Football. The way most people bet these football games is by using the pointspread, also known as the "line" or simply as the "spread." Here's how this works. Say the Pittsburgh Steelers are playing the Cleveland Browns and everybody expects the Steelers to win easily. The sports books will put a "line" on the game to try to get an equal amount of money bet on both teams. They might say the line is Pittsburgh -7. This means that if you bet on Pittsburgh, you have to "give" the Browns 7 points. You win your bet if Pittsburgh wins by more than 7 points. If Pittsburgh wins by exactly 7 points, it's called a push, and you get your bet back.

2. There Are Also "Money Line" Betting Odds

In addition to the point spread, you must also be aware that there is a "money line" with each game. There are only two types of money lines -one when you bet on the favorite, and the other when you bet on the underdog. These money lines work differently.

When you bet on the favorite, the money line shows how much money you have to bet to come out ahead by $100. If the money line is -110, that means you have to bet $110 and if you win, you get your $110 back PLUS your $100 winnings. In other words, when you see -110 that shows the amount you are risking to win $100.

When you're betting on the underdog, the money line works differently. For example, you might see a money line at +135. When you see a + sign in front of the number, that means that this bet is on the underdog. What this represents is the amount of money you win if you bet $100. For example, if the money line is +135 that means if you bet $100 and you win your bet, you get your $100 back, PLUS your $135 winnings.

3. Even With Point Spread Bets, There Are Still Money Line Odds

Typically when you make a bet using the point spread, the money line is -110. What this means is that whether you take the team getting points, or the team giving points, you still need to bet $110 just to win $100. For example, if the Steelers are -7 and you bet on them, you bet $110 that the Steelers will win by more than 7 points, and if you're right, you get your $110 back, PLUS you're $100 winnings.

David James is one of the world's foremost sports handicappers. Not only does James have an uncanny knack for knowing who to bet on, but he also is one of the best at providing in depth explanations and statistics showing exactly why each pick meets his criteria. Click on this link if you would like to learn how to be successful at Sports Betting

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Playing the Colorado Powerball Game

Playing the Colorado Power Ball game can be a great way to let off steam and to let your imagination run wild. There are a variety of lottery games available in Colorado, but Colorado Powerball is probably the most popular one of all. This is because the game offers that possibility of extra large payouts, yet it still only costs a dollar to play. Rather than spending several dollars on a scratch-off card that might offer a few thousand dollars, you can spend less money but get the chance to win much, much more.

To play the Colorado lottery Powerball game, you simply must choose six numbers. The first five numbers must fall between one and fifty-five, so you can pick your birthday, your mom's birthday, your favorite lucky number or anything you like. The sixth number is known as the Powerball number, and this can be anywhere from one to forty-two. You can choose all of the numbers yourself, or you can let the computer pick them for you by purchasing a Colorado lottery Powerball Quick Pick. This is quicker and easier than choosing your own Powerball lottery numbers, but it might not be as fun if you enjoy the thrill of picking them by yourself.

No matter how you pick your Power Ball lottery numbers, if you match all six you win the jackpot, which means you are set for life. However, if your Powerball ticket has five matching numbers, you will still win quite a bit of cash. The payout for matching all five Powerball numbers without the Powerball is a whopping two hundred thousand dollars. That is enough to make anyone happy with getting second prize.

To find out the current Power Ball winning numbers, you can check powerball.com, the official website of the game. You can also look at the Colorado Powerball game section of the state's lottery website.

If you are conservation minded then the Colorado lottery is the one for you. The money collected goes for a variety of projects such as, trails, Kayak courses, the Conservation trust fund and Lynx reintroduction. Besides Powerball which has already been covered the Colorado lottery offers several other games. These include the Colorado Lotto. In this game the player selects 6 numbers from 1 to 42. In the Cash 5 lottery the player selects 5 numbers from 1 to 32. You may play online and check lottery results. Or you may obtain tickets from an online lottery service such as luckylotto. If you want your money to go for conservation then the Colorado lottery is for you.

Jeffrey Davis is a Expert on Online Lotteries and a marketing executive at Triumph Marketing, you can find more of Jeff's lottery articles and buy real lottery tickets at http://www.luckylotto.com

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The Effect Bots Are Having On Betting Exchanges

Bots (short for robots) are basically automated software programs, designed by a human user, that automatically places bets on the betting exchanges based on certain criteria. Their main aim is usually to take any bets that offer value, for example when a book for a given event goes below 100% when backing, or above 100% when laying. In this case a bot would take the bets for all possible outcomes and guarantee a small profit, akin to bookmakers.

Therefore done over many times over the course of a day, these bots can be very profitable for their owners. However, it should be noted that these bots are only be as successful as the user who programmed them. There have been many instances where certain market events have caused a bot to place bets that have ultimately cost the programmer an awful lot of money, and have ultimately had to be abandoned.

Bots of some description have been around for many years in the stock market, but they are becoming increasingly common on the exchanges. The sporting press here in Britain have increasingly reported on bots taking over the exchanges, and taking all the value from markets before the human users get a chance. A lot of this is simply hype, but it is true that it has definitely become harder for human users to find value bets. I have experienced this first-hand in the FTSE markets on Betfair during the last year in particular. It has made things slightly harder for us financial traders, but I should point out that there are still plenty of profits still to be made.

Also bots do have their advantages. For example, they can provide some much needed liquidity to otherwise quiet markets. They can also go wrong sometimes which can result in some extremely incorrect and generous odds for other users. However, I think it is true that their increasing presence is upsetting some traditional human users, and it remains to be seen what effect this will have on exchanges in the future. It's unlikely that the exchanges themselves will ban automated bots simply because if they are profitable then obviously the exchanges will benefit in the way of commissions from all the profits that the bots make.

So how can human users fight back against these bots? Well simply outsmart them. Use your own knowledge to anticipate market moves before they happen. Often bots will leave bets in the system below fair value if laying or above the true value when backing. Arm yourself with all the tools you can to make successful trading decisions and beat them at their own game. For example, if you are trading the FTSE markets, use technical indicators, live data and news feeds, etc to anticipate market moves and take the bots' bets before the market has actually moved and triggered the bot to move it's prices.

To conclude I would say that ultimately bots are not good news for your average user, but like the stock markets they have become inevitable. Unless the exchanges ban them, which is very unlikely, people are simply going to have to accept their presence and let's not forget that human users are always likely to make up the vast majority of any given market, and so there will always be plenty of profitable opportunities.

Jim Buccini is a former full-time Betfair trader who has produced a website detailing proven profit-generating tips and strategies. For more information click here:

Betfair Strategies

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