Since time immortal, one of the favorite pastimes of sport freaks has been gambling. Gambling is exciting, considering the risk involved, the luck factor as well as the chance to make lots of money in a couple of hours. Online gambling is now popular with millions of people world wide, with more visiting betting sites and fantastic online casino football casinos popping up on the net than before. One great good thing about having this facility online is keep in mind, that it is accessible from any place which has an active internet connection. This has made gambling a sport in itself, available to millions of new people.

There has been a boom in the online betting industry as well as the kind of profits many sites are enjoying now is unimaginable. Online casinos are not to be left behind, as there is a rapid explosion of these also. In reality, online poker gives gambling, a glamour quotient by roping in celebrities for high profile tournaments. This means reaching out to a whole new market in itself.

But as always, the most successful story is the rise of sports betting. Fans who have enjoyed betting on games like soccer, football, polo, baseball, hockey and horse racing, can now do so online with the help of these sites. A whole new number of professional sports are cropping up to encourage the already soaring popularity of online betting. It may be correct to state that audiences are now enjoying the betting experience without being at the field themselves. Welcome to the world of virtual reality.

You'll find innumerable so-called gambling experts prepared to dish out information of their systems to 'beat the bookie' or to make a second income from gambling, for a cost of course. I will not do that. I will simply give you details about bookmakers, odds and gambling for you to use (or forget) when you see fit.

The first thing to mention is that a large proportion of folks who engage in gambling will be net losers over time. This really is the very reason you will discover so many bookmakers making so much cash throughout the world.

While bookmakers can sometimes take big hits, as an example if a favourite wins the Grand National, they spread their risk so widely and they set up markets that incorporate a margin, so they are going to always make money over the medium to long-term, if not the short-term. That's, as long as they got their sums right.

When setting their odds for a particular event, bookmakers must first assess the probability of that event occurring. To do this they us various statistical models determined by data collated over years, sometime decades, about the sport and team/competitor in question. Bear in mind, if sport was 100% predictable, it would soon lose its appeal, and as the bookies are often spot on with their assessments of the probability of an event, they are sometimes way off the mark, simply because a match or contest goes against conventional wisdom and statistical likelihood.

Just look at any sport and you will find an occasion in the event the underdog triumphs against all of the odds, literally. Wimbledon beating the then mighty Liverpool within the FA Cup Final of 1988, as an example, or perhaps the USA beating the then mighty USSR at ice hockey in the 1980 Olympics are two instances of whenever you could have got handsome odds on the underdog. And could have won a good wedge.

The big bookmakers spend a lot of money and time ensuring they have the right odds that ensure they keep in mind the perceived probability of the event, and then add that extra tiny bit that gives them the profit margin. So if an event has a probability of, say, 1/3, the odds that reflect that probability will be 2/1. That is, two to one against that event occurring.

On the contrary, a bookie who set these odds would, over time, break even (assuming their stats are correct). So instead they would set the odds at, say, 6/4. Inside this way they have built in the margin that guarantees, over-time, they will cash in on people betting on this selection. It really is the same concept as a casino roulette.

So, just how can you spot the occasions when bookmakers have got it wrong? Well, it's easier said than done, but far from impossible.

A proven way is to get very good at mathematical modelling and set up a model that takes under consideration as many of the variables that affect the outcome of an event as possible. The problem with this tactic is that however complex the model, and however all encompassing it seems, it can never account for the minutiae of variables relating to individual human states of mind. Whether a golfer manages to hole a major-winning five foot putt on the 18th at St Andrews it's as much down to their concentration as to the weather or day of the week. Moreover, the maths can start getting pretty darn complicated.

Alternatively you may find yourself a sporting niche. Bookmakers will concentrate their resources on the events which make them the most money, generally found to be football (soccer), American football and horse racing. So trying to beat the bookies while betting on a Manchester United v Chelsea match will be tough. Unless you work with one of the clubs, or are married to one of the players or managers, it's very likely the bookmaker setting the odds shall have additional information than you.