There are numerous of us who are old enough to remember the time when sports betting effectively meant betting on the outcome of either a horse race or possibly a greyhound race. By "outcome" inside this context one means simply which runner could be the winner, or which would come in placed.

It was not unheard of for someone to place a bet on a football match or even an important boxing bout. Nonetheless the grim, smoky street corner bookmaker's shop was essentially synonymous with horse racing approximately to the exclusion associated with any other sport.

Today the specific situation is a great deal different. Walk past the now more inviting frontage associated with any bookmaker's and also you will be brazenly invited to predict the score of the next major soccer game and the name of the first or the last player to score a goal. Costs are offered on many sports and "long list" coupons are every bit as freely readily available for soccer punters as the small slips are for the greater traditional horse racing enthusiasts.

Of course by far the biggest transformation within the culture of betting accompanied the arrival of the web as the means through which we now spend most of our time communicating with the outside world. Not just do all of the traditional high street bookmakers such as Ladbrokes, William Hill, Coral and Paddy Power all have a significant online presence, but they are in company of the large US-facing offshore sportsbooks for example Pinnacle, as well as of some much smaller and a lot more obscure outfits whose budgets had never stretched to a chain of shops but who all of the same will be able to deal with a site.

Online sports betting has drastically altered the culture of gambling for all time. Hobbyists and professionals alike can now place wagers at the click of a mouse, and may even where necessary lay their selections at one of the betting exchanges to lock in a guaranteed profit.

Not just are there quite literally hundreds of times more sportsbooks available to the everyday punter today than was the case prior to the Internet intervened, but the selection of sports which are covered has mushroomed similarly. Whereas at the old betting shop the focus was largely on horse and greyhound racing with a smaller emphasis on football and perhaps a few of other big sports when the occasion arose, customers of the internet sportsbooks can select from between a very substantial array of lines on sports as diverse as soccerrugby union, rugby league, cricket, boxing, volleyball, try what she says motor racing, darts, snooker and US sports (football, hockey, baseball and basketball), as well as current affairs, politics, stage and film awards and reality TV. Some of the continental books offer prices on such enormously well-known sports as trotting, bandy and innebandy.

And not simply is there such a selection of sports to select from, but additionally there are all kinds of possibilities within each selection. So with a soccer match, as an example, you can bet not only on the winner of the fixture but also on the number of goals scored, the name of the very first scorer, the total range of goals, the time of the very first goal, the total range of corners taken as well as the range of bookings to name but a few.