Sports Betting

Watching the Manchester United v. Chelsea match this morning, I was noticing the ads being shown on the electronic side boards. Besides the usual airlines and Budweiser, BetFair was featured. And there were odds being displayed to. Odds for Chelsea winning the league and later the odds for ManU winning. That's convenient for the punters (as the British call them) and maybe they will rush to the phone or downtown to the local betting parlor to get in on the action. When the score got to 2-1 for Chelsea I noticed the odds had changed. Odds of Chelsea winning the league had gone from 2.1 to 1.75. How's that for real time on the pitch action?

The American sports leagues have a very delicate relationship with betting. In most of the states betting is illegal, but everyone knows that if it were not for the office pools on the NCAA basketball tournament there would be a lot less interest and TV audience. Illegal (and legal) betting on American football is well known as a major contributor to ratings as well. Right now I am watching the San Francisco Giants opening day game coming in from Houston. Guess what the first ad was? A local casino.

I prefer the British plan, make betting legal and available and it's no big deal. As you can see from some of those links in the previous paragraph betting in the U.S. is alive and well. By the way it's not true that most of the English Premier League (EPL) teams are sponsored by betting establishments. As of today (it changes regularly) only three out of the 20 EPL teams are; Sunderland, Tottenham and, West Ham. Unless you consider AIG a casino who had sponsored Manchester United but have now canceled that deal.

BTW, Chelsea defeated ManU 2-1 to go the to head of the table. My hero Didier Drogba had a goal after being brought in on a substitution. Despite a red card in a previous Chelsea UEFA cup game he will be ready to play for Cote d'Ivoire in the upcoming World Cup. Talk about betting, I wonder how many billions of how many currencies will be riding on those games?