The respected quality control organization for the online gambling industry eCOGRA has offered to step in to the fray concerning an old battle with online gambling affiliates and the now defunct, Grand Prive Affiliate Program. Back in 2008 the group’s affiliate program closure caused allegations by affiliates that they were not being paid. The dispute went no where for a time and then eCOGRA became involved when it offered to deploy its professional accountants in an impartial investigation into the closed Grand Prive Affiliate Program as a free “service to the industry.” Andrew Beveridge, chief executive officer of eCOGRA stated at that time that there would be total cooperation from GrandPrive and restitution and a resolution would be forthcoming. Fifty eight claims were submitted by affiliates seeking an adjustment to their claims. eCOGRA made public it’s report on the issue, in early February detailing its methods and findings, which included compensation. Grand Prive began making the eCOGRA recommended payouts,to twenty six of the claimants. Affiliates immediately indicated that there was widespread discontent and serious reservations regarding the accuracy of the payments. Questions raised concerns for eCOGRA as to the quality of information it received from Grand Prive. With information from the affiliates Mr. Beveridge initiated another more in depth look at the Grand Prive issue. At this point Grand Prive is refusing to cooperate further. This has led to even more speculation by various groups that perhaps Grand Prive has orchestrated this outcome by giving eCOGRA selective information thus skewing the resulting eCOGRA report. The company has made it clear it will not let the investigation go any farther. This puts the efficacy of eCOGRA in jeopardy and shines a poor light on the Grand Prive Group’s honesty. Affiliates from the program are again furious and very disappointed that the resolution was not fair. Who will they turn to next is anybody’s bet.

“With the inclusion of internet and computer software in the arena of Sports Handicapping, the standards set and offered for tracking betting statistics have gone way up and made it very easy for a bettor to check market trends and spread numbers of any game imaginable. A person might be betting for different sporting events and many of these professional handicapping software have programs for baseball, college and pro basketball and college and pro football. Of course, like with any online service, there is a very good chance that a person might encounter a spammer or fraudulent website or company. So, it is best to check them out on the internet for any previous cases of fraud or improper track record or bad services. When a customer is offering his/her money, they should make sure that they are getting the best deal out of it.

Even for a professional handicapper, tracking betting statistics could be very difficult. Also, trying to judge trends and keeping records could be very tedious and also, one might doubt the accuracy of those records. Many of the professional online handicapping software providers have kept records of previous games for a large number of years and whether a person earns his/her living by handicapping or is doing just for fun, these software would enrich their handicapping experience a lot.

Many handicapping software providers have kept every statistic of every game for as long as a decade (many go way back than that) and that too for multiple sports. It can certainly amaze anyone as to how these software can track such amounts of data. Whichever sport one is handicapping (baseball, basketball or baseball), the bettor can check any trend to gain advantage over the bookmakers. Whether one has to compare weather conditions, conferences, form, coaches, players etc., these software would provide the bettor with calculations on those variables in mere seconds.

Totals or over/under are also very easy to calculate on these handicapping software. Whatever variable or time period the better might use, the software would provide exact record of that particular time period. Having powerful professional programs like these can certainly aid any handicapper as the variables, trends and statistics can be customized according to its user. A question that many people ask is whether the handicapping software is user friendly or not. Well, it can depend on the software. But, professional software providers also see to it that their software are easy to use by people even if they only know how to move a mouse. And these providers also provide customer service in case their customers encounter some issues. These services could be contacted during business hours via email or phone.

Sports handicapping is the method of assigning advantage to a side with the help of scoring compensation or any other advantage which could be given to contestants to level their chances of winning. The term can also apply to different ways by which that particular advantage or disadvantage is calculated.

In theory, the experienced team or players are disadvantaged to make it easier for a player with less experience to take part in the sport while also maintaining fairness. Most of all, sports handicapping can refer to different methods in which sports enthusiasts and spectators could quantify and predict sport or match results.

Sports handicapping is also used for the purpose of betting against the spread (points) and predicting competition results. If the favoured team wins by less than point spread, then the team wins the game, but all the bets happening on the team are lost.

There are various methods in which the odds are calculated. The following mentioned points explain as to how people handicap a horse race:

• Speed of the horse: the fastest running horses win the most races. Therefore, handicappers compare the times in which the horses complete races and compare them to see which horse is most likely to win the race.

• Pace of the horse is one of the major factors in determining race outcomes as it takes away mathematics out of predictions and substitute it with speculation.

• Form or previous performances of the horse also matters. Horses that have shown sharpness in their previous few races are more likely to win the race.

• The class of a horse is another important consideration as if a high class horse races with mediocre horses then he is more likely to win the race.

• Another major factor is the jockey. Horses do not run by themselves, their jockeys run them and the jockey could be good or bad which could drastically change the outcome of the race.

• Other less important factors include weather condition, weight carried by horses and/or track condition.

Now, substituting these factors with form and performance of other athletes helps in calculating odds for different sports and competitions. There are various strategies involved in placing bets in sports handicapping.

One is called the middle bet in which a person has found (and bet on) different spread points for a single competition. The person bets the favourable spreads in both the books and if the score falls between both the books, then the bettor wins both bets and if the score falls outside the ‘middle’ range, then the bettor has only lost a very little percentage of the bet.

A series or set of events which when combined for a game of a sport represent a profitable betting situation is termed as the sports betting system. However, there is no determinable point or edge for the gambler or the house as humans are involved in sports betting. But the systems are supposed to allow the bettor to have a distinct edge. Sportsbooks (books in which odds are made and recorded) use these systems to analyse and set accurate odds.

Therefore, the inexperienced bettor or gambler might believe that he/she is using systems which would always work. But, experienced or even above average bettors are in agreement that the makers of odds, at some time or the other, had adjusted the system so that it doesn’t remain profitable any more. Trends are the systems that are very short lived. An angle is a single event which is estimated to have better chances of winning and these angles are used in combination with trends and other angles to create systems.

Systems could be deceiving as any space could be constrained with absurd a criterion which creates an illusion of lucrative betting system. For example if a person flips a coin and denotes tails with the home team and heads with the away team, then it is clear that the probability of turning up a heads or tails is ½ (0.5 or 50%). But, it is created an illusion that predicting tails (or the home team) would turn it up 0.75 or 75% of the time. Also, the sportsbooks change their odds according to the system can make it difficult for bettors to follow systems.

Determining betting system matters on using analysis tools offered by computer softwares and getting all information on games which meet the criteria of the bettor. Then he/she can analyze results to determine if a particular team was favoured or not. There are two different types of betting systems:

• The multiple regressions betting system involves historical information on statistics and trends. It is seen that stronger historical data leads to more accurate results. Anticipation and calling can never be 100% correct due to different undetermined agents, but with right information one can become a professional in betting systems. The historical information includes games played, victories, defeats, ratio of victory/defeat, record of home/away games, previous outcomes, streaks, changes in team etc.

• Statistical anomalies are different than usual rules and give the bettor a competitive edge. To look for anomalies, a bettor needs to carefully review team and player statistics. Other factors include number of injuries, performance in home/away grounds, weather and atmospheric conditions which led to win/loss, team psyche etc.

Sports’ Betting is the process of placing wagers by predicting outcomes of competitions and sporting events. There are many proponents and critiques of sports betting services that constantly fight over the good and bad of the outcomes of sports betting. There have been cases of match fixing in history of sports, but it has also increased the interest of spectators in games and have increased online as well as live attendance.

Also, there are several different types of bets which are involved in sports betting. Parlays and progressive parlays are a method of placing multiple bets on different teams which can result in large payouts. Proposition bets are wagers placed on particular outcomes of the match. Several more types of bets are detailed below:

• Teasers allow bettors to combine their bets on multiple games. Bettors adjust point spreads for multiple games but ultimately realize lower returns on bets if he/she wins.

• Goal line, puck line or run line bets are wagers which are offered as money line/straight up prices in soccer, hockey or baseball. These wagers feature point spreads (fixed) that generally offer lower payouts for underdog teams and higher payouts for favourite teams. There are also alternates to these goal, puck and run line bets where decreased payouts are offered on favourite teams and larger payouts for underdog teams. An example of the first case in Baseball is Chicago +1.5 (-110) and Milwaukee -1.5 (+50). In this the bettor has to risk 110 dollars on Chicago to win 100 dollars and risk 150 dollars on Milwaukee to win 100 dollars. An example of second case is Chicago +1.5 (+200) and Milwaukee +1.5 (-250).

• Future wagers are based on future events and have a long term definition (like weeks/months). For example, whether a particular team would win the champions league football or not. Such a bet has to be placed before its start in July and the result and payout would be declared in May. The odds for such bets are generally very high (50-1) which means that the winner would win 50 times the amount he/she had bet.

• In head to head sports betting, the bettor tries to predict the result of competitors instead of overall event results. An example of such wager could be Formula One race events where one can bet on how a driver would perform against the other. Sometimes, the bet also get tied if the drivers have same time or they don’t qualify due to a certain reason.

• In totalizators sports betting, the odds are flexible and keep on changing according to shares of total exchange each possible outcome has received and also considering the bookmaker’s return rate.