Sport is made for betting

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...

Did anyone notice? If you thought BetBrokers had a poor business plan, then it amazes how anyone thought this one might work. A sports betting news service on a Sky channel so far up the scale (ch456) that nobody would find it and only with rights to obscure sport like Brazilian football. Since Tuesday there has been a message on the screen saying SportsXchangeTV had been credit crunched. Seriously, there's an idiot born everyday, where do you find people with money to throw away like that??

Listed UK company, BetBrokers, the firm you were supposed to use if you struggled to get bets on yourself, went into administration last Friday. The peculiar business model always had its doubters (big bookies close down winners, so most end up on Betfair anyway. Do you think bookies really want to take bigbets from unnamed accounts?) and in the end, those doubts won through. But perhaps it was just shabbily run. It wouldn't be the first occasion that a good idea was ruined by people not knowing how to run a business properly.