Betting on sports is illegal in the United States, except in one place in the country: Las Vegas. There you can go into a casino or call a legitimate bookie and place a bet on just about any sport there is, and it's totally aboveboard.
Everywhere else in the country it's against the law. And yet, according to Wayne Allyn Root, author of Zen and the Art of Gambling, $380 billion worth of bets are placed on sports competition in the U.S. every year. Yes, that's billion, with a "b" - more than the auto industry makes in a year, according to Root.
In the rest of the country, sports fans and professional gamblers have been left to the devices of illegal bookies, bookies that can be connected in a lot of instances to organized crime and other, more exploitative illegal activities (drugs, prostitution, etc.). A bookie will let you place a bet, and if you lose, you have to cough up the cash for the bet plus a percentage over the bet, a "vig," or vigorish; this percentage is what allows bookies to stay in business whether you win or lose.
In recent years the phenomenon of online sports betting has exploded; of course, it's illegal in the U.S., so the online organizations are based offshore in a spectacular instance of outsourcing, mostly in Caribbean nations like the Cayman Islands. It's totally against the law for a U.S. resident to engage in online sports betting, but so far no one has been busted for logging onto his PC and placing a bet on the Lakers. The IRS has, however, gotten remarkably good at finding out if folks in the U.S. are receiving money from offshore, and you do have to pay income taxes on your winnings, whether they're illegal or not. (Remember Al Capone?)
Online sports betting organizations allow you to set up an account and deposit money into it, and you bet from that account. If you lose, they take the amount you bet, plus the vig, out of your account; if you win, they deposit money into the account. Most sports books (that's what the organizations call themselves) will take your VISA or MasterCard, plus PayPal, Western Union, and a few other ways of transferring money. Some charge a fee for the transfer, depending on the method you use, and most manage to charge fees for releasing your winnings to you. Some sports books will allow one free transfer of winnings to you in a month; the rest you have to pay for. A lot of sports books will offer bonuses for depositing a certain minimum amount in your account - often five hundred dollars or more.
"Caveat emptor" - "Let the buyer beware" - definitely applies in online sports betting. There are a lot of sports betting websites out there that are just plain scams, a way to phish for information so they can rip off your identity. Others are legitimate sports books, but even they have a variety of ways of doing business, some of them not particularly ethical. If you do decide to get involved in online sports betting, think about setting up a separate account at a bank you don't ordinarily use for other financial dealings, then transfer money from that bank account into a Pay Pal account or other intermediary. Or if you're going to use a credit card, use it for that and no other reason, and limit the available balance on the thing.
One cardinal rule in all gambling activities has always been "Don't bet more than you can afford to lose." Betting the rent money on the Superbowl is stupid.
Gotta go. I have to go buy a Powerball ticket - a "sucker bet," according to Wayne Allyn Root. Yeah, but if I win...
Aldene Fredenburg is a freelance writer living in southwestern New Hampshire and frequently contributes to Tips and Topics. She has published numerous articles in local and regional publications on a wide range of topics, including business, education, the arts, and local events. Her feature articles include an interview with independent documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and a feature on prisoners at the New Hampshire State Prison in Concord. She may be reached at amfredenburg@yahoo.com.