Online Sportsbook Wins!

Sports books are gamblers favorite hangouts. Some bettors have to travel all the way to Las Vegas, just to place a bet on their favorite sports. Others use the telephone. But no matter how they bet, they agree on one thing: Online sports books are a better bet than brick-and-mortar sports books.

There are many reasons for this, starting with a wider variety of bets. Online sports books will set odds on almost everything. The average online sports book offers betting lines on all the major sporting events, and racetracks covered by Las Vegas sports books, offline betting parlors, and illegal bookies. Some less-common global events and propositions that will never make their way to any terrestrial betting windows are offered by online sports books. From elections, Soaps, the weather, Grammy and musical awards, athletics, world sports, etc.

Variety aside, online sports books offer significant benefits even if you limit your action to major sports like football, basketball, and baseball. The major benefit involves, as you might expect, winnings. A betting "line" can be stated as either a point spread -- the Patriots plus 10 points to win the Super Bowl -- or odds, Lucky Lady at 5-2 to win the Derby. In either case, the opening line is created by professional odds makers and more or less continually adjusted as the event nears. The line (odds) fluctuates at the racetrack based on the amount of money bet on each entry at the "windows" - as the amount wagered on a horse goes up, the amount that will be paid if he wins goes down. Online sports book tend to pay the track odds regardless of how many bets are taken!

Point spreads are another matter entirely because there is no direct tie between what bettors are wagering and changes in the spread. Adjustments to point spreads - called "moving the line" - are made by the odds maker(s) at each gaming parlor (or, as in many Nevada sports books, supplied by outside odds makers). While they do reflect which team is generating the most wagers, there is no absolute mathematical relationship between the amount put on each team and the line. Instead, the odds makers tinker with the spread to generate maximum action and encourage people to support the underdog.

Let's say the point spread on the Super Bowl is Seahawks plus 10 and the betting is slow because many people feel Seattle can't come within a touchdown and a field goal of the Patriots. In this scenario, the odds makers might change the line to Seahawks plus 12, meaning that the Patriots would have to win by at least a touchdown and field goal plus a two-point conversion, safety, or second field goal to beat the spread. Under those circumstances, Seattle could become a much more attractive betting proposition.

Sports betting lines are classical examples of capitalism in action. The sports book in the above example is selling two products, the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks. If the supply and demand for each of those two products balances, he makes a profit equal to the markup he applies to each purchase -- known, in betting circles, as "juice" or "vigorish" and in that other citadel of gambling - the stock market - as "commission."

If, on the other hand, the demand for one team is much higher than that of the other and the sports book keeps accepting bets on the more popular contender, it could wind up losing a bundle. Therefore, it changes the odds - i.e. the betting line - to generate more action and balance supply against demand. Since betting lines are dependent on the nature of the action at a particular sports book, the more "books" you have to choose from, the better the odds that you will find a favorable line.

To return to the Super Bowl just one more time. If you like The Patriots and think they will win but aren't sure that they'll win in a walk, you will want to scour the sports books for the one offering the best line against the Patriots. For you, to put it another way, New England plus 7 over Seattle is a better bet than New England plus 9. If you like Seattle, maybe not to win outright, but to at least keep the game close, the opposite is true. The fact is that there are simply more sports books in cyberspace than there are in any contiguous geographic area except, possibly, Southern Nevada. And the time and effort it takes to check the lines at, say, a dozen online sports books is a fraction of what it would take to visit the same number of brick-and-mortar sports rooms.

Another factor is geographic bias. The supply-and-demand at street-level sports books is easily influenced by the emotions of the people in the immediate gambling market. Remember, at the final whistle, the law of supply and demand rules. Whether or not the sports book makes or loses money depends on balancing the two. If people are betting their hearts on the Rebs and the Trojans despite the likely outcome of the games, it will affect the line and make it hard to get down a bet with an optimal chance of winning unless you happen to be one of those gamblers who enjoy betting against the line.

Online sports books, of course, draw gamblers from all over the world and "fan-based" blips in the line covering most American sporting events are much smaller.

Another factor for online sports books is the time taken to place a bet. Firstly, there is the convenience of not waiting in long lines to get to the ticket window. Placing a bet takes a few minutes, no gas and saves time. Plus, you can always change your bet before you make that final click without irritating the guy waiting behind you.

Finally, there is the question of the "vig."

Nevada and most legal U.S. sports books cut pretty closely to the traditional 110 percent rule - the gambler wagers 110 percent of what he hopes to win. ($110 to win $100, $1100 to win $1000, etc.) Many online sports books, however, offer better deals on vigorish in order to attract business and because their operating costs - not having to build and maintain a $1.2 billion casino, for example - are less. Betting $108 instead of $110 to win $100 may not seem like much of a saving, but multiplied by hundreds of games over the course of a year or season, it is.