RDT (Random daily thought)

I use http://www.covers.com/ for a lot of my research. It's a great site for sports bettors and sports statisticians, although it mostly concentrates on American sports and does not have as much on horse racing as I would like. I also read it for some interesting articles about the sports betting world, with the most recent being the Donaghy NBA scandal http://www.covers.com/articles/columns/articles.aspx?theArt=145078 .

But another betting scandal has just occurred that seems to have caught major attention in the non-American gambling world. It has to do with tennis and the transactions that go on at Betfair. http://www.covers.com/articles/articles.aspx?theArt=146086

Betfair is arguably the world's largest betting exchange, where there is no set bookie, but rather people set their own lines and place their bids and offers like any stock market or stock exchange. Other similar sites include tradesports (which I used to use) and intrade (which focuses more on bets on current events, entertainment, financials). I'd heard of Betfair because I'm a huge horse racing fan and Betfair has a major impact on the global totes and crossing markets. But I did not know that they supposedy process 50 million pounds in bets a week. At a 5% commission off winning bets that's a pretty healthy business. All this without taking in a single US dollar. They do not take US accounts, as by US law internet gambling is illegal. Some of the other betting exchanges fight this by saying that it is an exchange with no bookie and that it is skill and does not constitute gambling. It's a similar argument to the online poker thing and I really don't want to get into that any more.

But seriously, tennis? According to a different article I read (which I can't find to post here), 7 million dollars worth of bets were exchanged (and subsequently returned by Betfair's decision)on that tennis match. 7 million? Just goes to show that you can bet on anything in this world, and there are plenty of people willing to take your action. And where there's a lot of money involved, there's always someone who will try to do something crooked.

Edit before posting:

I just found that there is a http://www.covers.co.uk which has more british sports (soccer). Also, does anyone know how to put in a clickable link that I can rename? I forgot all my html.