There are many 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 a greyhound race. By “outcome” in the context one means simply which runner could be the winner, or which may come in placed.

It was not unheard of for a person to place a bet on a football match or 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 matter is a great deal different. Walk past the now more inviting frontage of the bookmaker’s and you will be brazenly invited to predict the score of the next major soccer game as well as the name of the first or perhaps the last player to score a goal. Prices are offered on many sports and “long list” coupons are every bit as freely available for soccer punters as the small slips are for the more traditional horse racing enthusiasts.

Of course by far the largest transformation in the culture of betting accompanied the arrival of the net as the means through which we now spend most of our time communicating with the outside world. Not just do all the traditional high street bookmakers for example Ladbrokes, William Hill, Coral and Paddy Power all have a serious online presence, nevertheless they are in company of the large US-facing offshore sportsbooks for example Pinnacle, and of some much smaller and many 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 also even where necessary lay their selections at among 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 case ahead of the Internet intervened, although the range 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 couple of other big sports when the occasion arose, customers of the quality online gambling site 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 additionally current affairs, politics, stage and film awards and reality TV. Some of the continental books also offer prices on such enormously well recognized sports as trotting, bandy and innebandy.

And not only is there such a selection of sports to select from, but additionally, there are all sorts of options available within each selection. So with a soccer match, by way of example, for several bet not just on the winner of the fixture but in addition on the number of goals scored, the name of the very first scorer, the total number of goals, the time of the first goal, the total range of corners taken and the number of bookings to name but a few.