One of the most popular forms of gambling is wagering on sports, which taps into the passion of sports fans. A bet placed on a race or a game allows fans to prove their knowledge of a sport or to show their loyalty to a particular team or competitor. In addition to promoting camaraderie among friends, sports betting can enliven otherwise boring or one-sided contests when handicapping systems offering odds and point spreads increase the bettors’ stake in the competition. Although legal sports betting is increasingly common, most of the wagering on athletic competitions are illegal and is conducted through bookmakers, also known as bookies (operating as individuals or for crime organizations), and Internet gambling operations (which are legal in some countries).
Wagering on horse races is the most prevalent form of sports betting, but football matches—including soccer, rugby, and Australian rules football—also are the focus of considerable gambling. Other sports noted for heavy wagering are boxing, basketball, baseball, cricket, ice hockey, dog and camel racing, and jai alai.
Types of betting
The oldest form of betting is probably one in which gamblers bet the winner takes all on the outcome of a contest. Today one of the most common forms of sports gambling is odds betting, in which a casino or bookmaker evaluates the contestants in competition and assesses the probability of victory: 2 to 1, 5 to 1, 1 to 4, and so forth. With a $1 wager on a 2-to-1 underdog, for example, a bettor stands to pocket $2 if the underdog wins. A winning bet on the favourite offers a lesser payoff—e.g., a five-dollar bet on a 2-to-5 favourite yields a $2 payoff. Today odds betting is commonly used in boxing and baseball.
For most races (e.g., horses, dogs, camels) and some games (e.g., jai alai), a pari-mutuel wagering system is used. In this system, introduced in 1865 following the invention of the “totalizator” by Frenchman Pierre Oller, a calculating machine records the amount bet on each competitor prior to the start of the contest. In horse racing, for example, the “totalizator” calculates the odds, based on the proportion of the total bet on each horse, and determines what should be paid to those who picked the winner. The bookmaker or track owner takes his or her share by skimming off a percentage of the total amount bet.
Most football (soccer, gridiron football, rugby, etc.) matches, as well as basketball games, use a system known as a point spread. Bookmakers determine the number of points that will serve as a spread for a particular contest. A bet on the favoured team requires that the bettor yield (or give) the point spread. A bet on the underdog team grants the bettor the point spread. For example, an underdog team may be bet as +4, meaning it has four points added to its final score for purposes of determining the winning bettor. A −4 bet on a favoured team wins only if that team wins by over four points (or goals in the case of soccer).
There are also mixed systems betting. In ice hockey, bettors first get extra goals (or give them up) and then bet with odds. In soccer, odds are often set for the exact score of the game. Among the many other propositions available is betting on both teams’ combined scores, known as an “over/under” bet because the bookmaker predicts the total points for a game and the bettor bets on the “over” (total points will exceed the predicted amount) or the “under” (total points will fall short of the predicted amount). At the beginning of a sports season, odds are given on whether a team will win the championship. Several bets also can be grouped together in what is known as a parlay bet. To win a parlay bet, the wagerer must win each of the individual bets that have been linked.
Pools and fantasy leagues are also popular methods of sports gambling. They are largely organized by friends and coworkers, though Internet-based companies increasingly run large-scale versions of these activities. Pools range from predictions of the outcome of tournaments or the week’s roster of games to lotteries consisting of numbers that win if they match a final or partial score. Fantasy leagues involve bettors’ selecting actual athletes for a “fantasy team” before a contest (or season) begins. The gambler with players who perform the best in terms of selected statistics wins.
Sports gambling can be consistently profitable if bettors have superior knowledge regarding athletes and teams, which many sports fans believe (usually falsely) they have. The proliferation of media coverage of sports and the variety of information services available give gamblers a sense of control and confidence that encourages them to wager. They keep betting even when they lose, blaming losses on bad luck or bad performances by players, coaches, or referees.
Ethical issues
As professional sports grew in popularity in the 19th century, so too did fears that gambling would corrupt the games. Professional boxing has long been tainted by its association with crime syndicates that have influenced prizefighters to “take dives.”
During the modern era of sports, gambling has been mostly illegal, with the exception of horse and dog racing and a few other sports. The illegality of sports gambling, however, never diminished its popularity, and, by the second half of the 20th century, many nations were looking for ways to allow gambling while avoiding the corruption that seems to go hand in hand with it. In the United States, differences between state and federal laws created a patchwork in which some forms of sports gambling were legal and others were not. In Germany and many other countries, the profits from lotteries and betting pools are used to subsidize amateur sports.
Despite legalization, gambling-related scandals continue to haunt the world of sports. A 1999 survey found that 45 per cent of male college athletes in the United States bet on sports, and 5 per cent indicated that they furnished information to gamblers. In 2002 it was revealed that members of the Jockey Club in Great Britain manipulated races by giving prohibited drugs to horses and by sharing inside information with gamblers. In 2004 it was alleged that soccer players in Italy skewed matches to help gamblers bet millions around the world. The legitimate gambling industry, however, is quick to point out that most scandals involve illegal gambling. Indeed, Nevada casinos have worked with sports leagues and federal authorities investigating corruption and have provided key information about scandals, maintaining that is it the unregulated bookies and Internet gambling that pose the biggest threats to the integrity of the games.