Sport is made for betting

Sad news today of an Australian sports bookmaker going bust. The Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) website shows that liquidators have been appointed for SportsAlive. Should SportsAlive have adhered to their licensing conditions, specifically the one below, then all should be fine for punters. However, it sounds like a few guys have been slow paid for a while (this year's not the first time they've had cash flow problems) so it may be that one of them got fed up with it and called in the lawyers. Staff apparently hadn't been paid for a fortnight either. 4. Segregated Bank Accounts 4.1 A sports bookmaker must, for the purposes of the sports bookmaking business, maintain a segregated sports betting bank account for the purpose of betting monies received. For full details of the ACT legislation, where SportsAlive were licensed, click here . This is a critical test of the strength of Australian bookmaking regulations. Hopefully it won't be ...

No great surprise here - most over-rated city in the world I reckon, even more fake than the oases built in the desert like Dubai and Doha. Casinos and clubs charging $20 for a drink do nothing for me.... Las Vegas in crisis Party Over AS MAYOR of Las Vegas for almost 12 years, Oscar Goodman has made it his mission to personify what he calls this “adult playland” in the desert. He prances through the casinos with scantily clad showgirls draped on each arm (although he is happily married). He claims to drink a bottle of gin every night (but “never before 5pm”). In his office he sits on a carved throne and gives visitors a symbolic gambling chip that depicts him, with his trademark Martini glass, as “the happiest mayor of the greatest city in the world”. Alas, much of this, like most things in Las Vegas, is purely show. This is not merely because the famous Strip of hotels and casinos that accounts for more than half of all gaming in the state is deliberately (for tax reasons) j...

Rumours abound this morning about the demise of RacingOdds (.com.au), the bookmaking arm of leviathan, or should it be big-mouth, Australian punter Sean Bartholomew. The website has disappeared (although other Aus firms have recently been subject to DDoS attacks and are still having issues), but there have been grave doubts about the longevity of this business for a while, with the proprietor believed to have been looking for a buyer for some time. If it is just hacker problems, then it's poor publicity for the company not to immediately send out emails to all clients reassuring them the firm is still operating, as Sportingbet and Sportsbet did last month. Punter funds will be safe - that's the benefit of the tight licensing laws in Australia. Each bookmaker puts up a hefty security bond with their licensing authority, to be distributed to punters in the event of financial insolvency. It is quite possible that Bartholomew has simply given up on an unviable business and clos...

Another minor sportsbook, along with their partners EuroLinx and LinxCasino, goes belly up. Poor management, poor business plan... who knows? But punters once again get screwed. Stick to the bigger names and if you must play in the lesser-known books, use Moneybookers and Neteller to keep your balance down to a minimum. LinxMedia Group bankrupt BetOnBet was an odds aggregation bookmaker - meaning they used an odds comparison service to form their odds and simply sit in the middle all the time. And they still couldn't make a profit - or perhaps the losses from the rest of the business were too heavy. Just guessing, but they probably had to spend too much on marketing and promotions to get clients. Or they were just poorly managed. The sportsbook was relatively new compared to the poker and casino arms so chances are the other products and their marketing/bonus schemes led to their downfall.

It's the age-old problem of business. If you're not prepared to give credit, then your business can't grow. But who is a good risk and who is a bad one? This guy was a massive punter, but it's not the gambling which has sent him to the wall, those debts are relatively minor compared to his others. Former Billabong chief leaves trail of gambling debts The bookies involved are big enough to absorb the loss, but like any chunky bad debt, it will hurt their profits. Never get in too deep, otherwise the house of cards can come crashing down....

Prime example of why America doesn't allow widespread gambling - they simply have no idea how to look after the public interest. NH enacts rules to protect track bettors Wednesday, January 14, 2009 CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire has approved stricter gambling regulations to protect bettors if state dog or horse tracks go bankrupt. The rules could have saved bettors at the bankrupt Hinsdale Greyhound Park a half-million dollars they had in betting accounts at the track. The Racing and Charitable Gaming Commission approved the regulations on Tuesday. They will require the state's three remaining greyhound and harness racing tracks to maintain accounts at state financial institutions that could be used to pay back bettors and other creditors in bankruptcy or closure. The Lodge at Belmont, Rockingham Park and Seabrook Greyhound track have until March 1 to open the accounts. The Hinsdale track filed for bankruptcy last month and abruptly closed. The track used money from the bet...

This is unbelievable! From the Racing Post... Great Leighs future thrown into doubt By Turia Tellwright9.46AM 16 JAN 2009 THE future of Great Leighs racecourse is up in the air after the track's temporary licence expired at midnight on Thursday. A statement on the BHA website explained that a sub-committee of the BHA regulatory committee had declined to grant a further temporary licence. Consequently, until a new application is made by the managing executive of Great Leighs, racing can not take place at the course. continues... Is this administrative bungling or have I missed something major here? ... Update - nope they're going broke. Great Leighs placed in adminstration.

Rogue traders are again in the news, manipulating the money markets in order to reap multi-million pound bonuses. Banks and hedge funds are the greediest gamblers of the lot. There's no social responsbility attached to the financial industries, unlike the gambling industry. And people think horse racing is bent..... Another Telegraph story You can bet your last pennies that there will be stories like this to come as the credit crunch continues...

Not the first one and certainly won't be the last one. BBC article Too many 'experts' in the media might be great tipsters, but as money managers they are completely undisciplined. The guy I thought was the best judge on Melbourne racing used to act like a desperate in PubTABs (betting agencies inside a pub) on a Friday afternoon, traditionally some of the worst quality racing in Australia. It made it very hard to take his advice seriously even though you knew his judgement calls were well researched. 95+% of punters lose overall, the ones doing it for a living in the media generally aren't the guys who are winning - otherwise why would they need a job?