There are several 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 perhaps a greyhound race. By "outcome" within this post context one means simply which runner would 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 perhaps an important boxing bout. Nonetheless the grim, smoky street corner bookmaker's shop was essentially synonymous with horse racing approximately to the exclusion of the other sport.

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

Of-course by far the biggest transformation in 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 only do all the traditional high street bookmakers for example Ladbrokes, William Hill, Coral and Paddy Power all have a significant online presence, but they will be in company of the large US-facing offshore sportsbooks such as Pinnacle, and of some much smaller and more obscure outfits whose budgets had never stretched to a chain of shops but who all of the same will be able to manage 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 will even where necessary lay their selections at one of the betting exchanges to lock in a guaranteed profit.

Not only are there quite literally hundreds of times more sportsbooks available to the everyday punter today than was the situation prior to the Internet intervened, although the variety of sports that 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 maybe a couple of other big sports when the occasion arose, customers of the on-line sportsbooks can select from between a very substantial array of lines on sports as diverse as soccerrugby union, rugby league, cricket, boxing, volleyball, motor racing, darts, snooker and US sports (football, hockey, baseball and basketball), and 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 only is there such a selection of sports to choose from, but additionally, there are all sorts of alternatives within each selection. So with a soccer match, by way of example, one can bet not only on the winner of the fixture but additionally on the range of goals scored, the name of the first scorer, the total range of goals, the time of the very first goal, the total range of corners taken as well as the number of bookings to name but a few.