There are plenty of 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” in this context one means simply which runner would be the winner, or which would come in placed.

It was not unheard of for a person 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 more or less to the exclusion of any other sport.

Today the situation is a good deal different. Walk past the now more inviting frontage associated with any bookmaker’s and 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 available for soccer gambling 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 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 additionally of some much smaller as well as more obscure outfits whose budgets had never stretched to a chain of shops but who all the same will be able to manage a web page.

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 can even where necessary lay their selections at one of the betting exchanges to lock in a guaranteed profit.

Not simply are there quite literally hundreds of times more sportsbooks available to the everyday punter today than was the case ahead of the Internet intervened, however the range of sports that will be 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 possibly a few of other big sports in the event the occasion arose, customers of the on-line sportsbooks can select from between an extremely 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. Several of the continental books also 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 kinds of alternatives within each selection. So with a soccer match, as an example, it’s possible to bet not simply on the winner of the fixture but additionally on the range of goals scored, the name of the first scorer, the total number of goals, the time of the first goal, the total range of corners taken and the range of bookings to name but several.