Sports betting (sometimes punting) is the name given to the general activity of predicting sports results, while betting on the believed outcome. Billions of dollars worldwide are involved in this form of gambling. Perhaps more so than other gambling games, the legality and general acceptance of sports betting varies from nation to nation.

In addition, sports betting is often seen as a threat to the integrity of amateur and professional sport. The ability to fix matches and create a near-certain payoff is sometimes seen as a disincentive to fair play within sports leagues.

Types of bets

Betting can be done either locally (such as commonplace office bets on the NCAA tournament) or against a friend, but also with casinos, bookmakers, or racetracks. Much like a securities exchange, an organized group taking bets will be able to quote prices on an event quickly and accurately.

Most bets revolve around picking the winner of a match. This is known variously as moneyline or straight-up wagering. Odds are normally quoted on both participating teams. The team paying less to its backers is referred to as the favorite, while the opposing team is called the underdog. In most of the world, odds are quoted based on a payout for a single bet unit; for example, a 2-1 favorite would be listed at a price of 1.50 whereas an underdog returning twice the amount wagered would be listed at a price of 3.00. American-style odds are quoted in terms of the amount required to net $100 in winnings, or the amount paid for a $100 bet on an underdog. In the case of a 2/1 favorite the odds would be quoted by American bookmakers as -200, and the underdog paying 2/1 would simply be quoted as +200.

In sports such as American basketball and football, rather than varying the money odds (which can be substantial in lopsided matches), a technique known as the point spread is used. In this system, bets typically pay a little less than one-to-one odds (an American moneyline of -110 on both sides is commonplace). However, the bettors backing the favorite are only rewarded if their team wins by more than a specific victory margin, which is set at the time of the wager. Similarly, underdog bettors are able to collect even when their team loses, as long as they cover the point spread by losing by fewer points than were quoted by the bookmaker. For example, suppose Oklahoma were lined as a 27-point favorite over Kansas at -110 by some bookmaker.

• If Oklahoma defeats Kansas by more than 27 points, bettors on Oklahoma would receive $89 on a $100 bet.
• If Kansas upsets Oklahoma, bettors on Kansas would receive $89 on a $100 bet.
• If Kansas loses by less than 27 points, they have covered the spread. Bettors on Kansas are then treated exactly as if Kansas had won the game.
• If Oklahoma wins by exactly 27 points, the wager is called a "push", and neither side wins. Standard practice in U.S. sports books is to return the stakes of all bettors on the game in full.

To prevent pushes and ensure that they receive a commission on winning bets (often called "vigorish" or "vig"), U.S. sports books typically set point spreads that include a half-point.

Other bets are done by guessing the outcome of a number of matches simultaneously. The Spanish Quiniela (guessing the winner) and the Portuguese Totogolo (guessing the number of goals each team scores) are good examples of these kind of bets, which have very high prizes for those who guess all results. In British parlance this is commonly called an accumulator wager; in American terms it is usually termed a parlay.

Simple betting

The most simple bets are done between friends or patrons in a pub, usually by betting the same amount on the predicted outcome of a match. The winner(s) collect the pot, but if there are no winners, the value either carries to the next match or the punters are allowed to collect their bet.

Pools

There are a variety of pool bets, allowing several or dozens of people to wager on an event. Most are run by amatuers for entertainment. Common types include:

• Football squares -- a ten by ten matrix of squares is sold for a fixed amount per square (often $1 or $2, but sometimes $100 a square for a special event such as the Super Bowl). Each row and column of the matrix is assigned a digit, and the rows one team, the columns the other team. At the end of the game (often at the end of each quarter), the last digit in the score of each team determines the winner.
• Pick the winners -- each player picks the winner (can be either outright or against "the spread") of all the games scheduled for a particular week (or a predetermined set of games). The individual picking the most winners wins the pool.
• Pick the bracket -- common for the NCAA basketball tournament. The challenge is to pick the winner of each game in each round before the tournament begins. Points are assigned, with later rounds winning higher points. This may be winner take all, or there may be payoffs for second and third.

Parimutuel betting

Horse racing and greyhound wagering typically takes place at dedicated tracks in major cities. Typically these tracks offer parimutuel betting, where the pool of money bet is redistributed to the winners, minus a percentage for the track. horse determines the eventual odds that will be paid to winners. In addition to betting on the winner, a horse can be bet on to "place" (finish second or better) or "show" (finish third or better), at reduced payouts. Exotic wagers at racetracks come in a few standard forms. These include: exacta (pick the top two finishers in exact order), quinella (pick the top two finishers in no particular order), trifecta (pick the top three in exact order), superfecta (pick the top four in exact order). Across races, bets such as the daily double, pick-3 and pick-6 are offered, which pay out to bettors that pick all the winners in the sequence of races they cover.

Professional betting

When agencies started using the Internet as a fast way to advertise and accept bets, the business increased and now most houses have their own websites where punters can risk on sometimes hundreds of events from several sports on the same day.

Unlike "office" or "pub" bets, those done in an agency are done against the odds, which are calculated accordingly to a number of factors, with the less likely outcomes earning more than those more bound to happen. For instance, on most agencies, the Greece odds for the Euro 2004 were on the bottom end of the table before the beginning of the competition (second only to Latvia) with 1/250 odds; favourites and Euro 2000 finalists France and Italy were in the top with 1/4. Anyone who betted £5 on Greece before the start of the tournament won £1250. If France or Italy had won, punters would only collect £20. On the other hand, if the bet was made after the first game (where Greece defeated the hosts Portugal 2-1), odds decreased to roughly 1/75. There is usually a mid-range bet called the Black Horse, a bet not at all unlikely with good odds.

Most agencies do not take bets for friendly matches, as the result can be rigged or tampered by other means.

Sports

Nearly any athletic contest is adaptable to some form of sports betting. American sports on which significant money is wagered include football, basketball, baseball, hockey, and boxing. Football (soccer), horse racing and boxing are the most popular in Britain. One agency once even had a bet on David Beckham's hair style.

Betting scandals

Although betting is a harmless hobby for thousands of people, crime organizations soon took advantage of it for money laundering or funding purposes. The corruption or threat of a boxer to take a dive at the x round is a frequent theme in mafia-related movies.

• In 1919, gamblers bribed several members of the Chicago White Sox to throw the World Series. This became known as the Black Sox Scandal and was recounted in book and movie form as "Eight Men Out".
• Andrés Escobar, a Colombian defender, was shot down shortly after his return from the 1994 World Cup, where he scored an own goal, the first of a 2-1 defeat to the USA that knocked out the Colombians at the first phase. In the most believed explanation, the Medellín drug cartel bet large sums of money over a qualification, and blamed the Medellín-born Escobar for the loss. ¹
• On 10 February 1999, a plot to disable the floodlights of The Valley during a Charlton-Liverpool match was discovered. Three individuals were arrested, and the scam tracked to Malaysia, where the Premiership is very popular, and bets frequent. ¹
• In late 2004, the game between Panionios and Dinamo Tbilisi in the 2004-05 UEFA Cup was suspected of being fixed after British bookmakers detected an unusually high number of half-time bets for a 5-2 win for the Greek side, which was trailing 0-1. As the final result ended up being 5-2, suspicions of fixing quickly emerged, but were quickly denied by both clubs, although UEFA started an investigation. ^{1 2}
• In early 2005, the German Football Association (DFB) revealed that referee Robert Hoyzer was under investigation for suspected betting on a first-round German Cup tie between regional league side Paderborn and Bundesliga club Hamburger SV in August 2004, and possibly fixing the match. In the match, HSV took a 2-0 lead, but Hoyzer sent off HSV striker Emile Mpenza in the first half for dissent, and later awarded Paderborn two dubious penalties. Paderborn went on to win 4-2. ¹ Several days later, Hoyzer admitted to having fixed that match, as well as several others he worked. He has since implicated other referees and several players in the spreading scandal. Hoyzer himself was arrested on February 12 after evidence emerged that he may have fixed more matches than he had admitted to fixing. On February 16, UEFA announced that it would send an investigator to Athens to investigate possible links between this scandal and the aforementioned Panionios-Dinamo UEFA Cup tie. ²

See also

• Point shaving