ONLINE GAMBLING
It's late in the fourth quarter and the 49ers are trouncing the Giants 28-7. But with San Francisco favored by 141/2 points and New York driving, your $50 bet on the Niners suddenly doesn't look like such a sure thing. Not wanting to be stuck with a loser, you quickly click over to World Sports Exchange, where $50 bets on the 49ers are trading at $85, and sell your contract for a quick profit.
World Sports Exchange, taking a cue from the financial markets, is rewriting the way people gamble on sporting events. The Antigua-based sports book treats bets not as onetime, all-or-nothing transactions, but as short-term futures contracts that trade actively throughout the game.
Here's how it works: Before the game starts, fans can buy a contract for a bet of up to $50 on either side. During the game, each contract trades between $0 and $100 (the payoff on a winning wager), depending on what happens on the field. Quick-fingered bettors can even try arbitrage - buying and selling contracts throughout the game, hoping to profit no matter which side wins.
Steve Schillinger, director of wagering at World Sports, says his customers are more interested in short-term contracts because "they want their money immediately - they don't want it to be tied up in long-term bets." The contracts, a product launched three years ago, account for about 15 percent of World Sports' revenues. The company currently offers markets on professional and college football, World Cup soccer, golf tournaments, and Major League Baseball.
There's big money in this stuff. Sports gambling accounted for a large chunk of the estimated $650 million in online gaming revenues last year, according to Sebastian Sinclair, an analyst with Christiansen Cummings Associates. And with most sites as cookie-cutter as traditional casinos, offering indistinguishable games of blackjack and roulette, innovation is the key to building a loyal clientele.
Should you decide to try your luck, be warned: Online gambling of all forms is illegal in the United States. (Schillinger maintains World Sports is breaking no laws, because all the gambling actually takes place on a server in Antigua, where games of chance are perfectly legal.) Senator Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) is sponsoring a bill that promises to crack down on folks operating gambling sites offshore or on, but, so far at least, no one is actively targeting individual bettors.
World Sports Exchange:www.wsex.com.
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