Category: Gambling and Casinos

Kurt Busch dominated at the beginning, surged back to the lead late and raced to his second win of the season in the Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway.
The defending NASCAR Nextel Cup champion, favorite on all the Sportsbooks odds, led 110 of the first 150 laps on the 2.5-mile triangle and kept his fifth-place spot in the points standings with six races left to decide the 10 drivers who will race for the title.

The “Chase for the Cup” began at New Hampshire International Speedway on Sept. 18. Busch passed second-place finisher Rusty Wallace coming out of Turn 3 with 17 laps left and held on to the lead even as four cautions came out before the end, which forced three extra laps and the green-white checkered flag
Pocono’s unique 2.5-mile tri-oval has hosted NASCAR’s races since 1974 when the first cup was run up there. The Mattioli family, owner of the track, has been through some ups and downs while battling to make the triangular racetrack a success.

Soon after the first Indy Car race at Pocono, the Schaefer 500 in 1971, Hurricane Agnes hit the area. The ensuing economic crunch and energy crisis threatened Pocono Raceway’s and many other tracks didn’t survive. Pocono Raceway owners Joe and Rose Mattioli considered selling out.

“We were almost bankrupt two or three times but were too dumb to realize it,” Joe Mattioli said. “We were on the verge of selling the track when we received a telephone call from Bill France Sr., who asked us to meet with him in New York.”
“At the meeting he tried to convince me not to sell the track, to stick it out and stay the course. He gave us moralsupport and a lot of good advice.”

“He and his wife, Annie B., came to the race the next two years to show their support for Pocono Raceway. Shortly thereafter he and his son, Bill Jr., gave us our second NASCAR race and as they say, the rest is history.”

“Had it not been for Bill France Sr., Annie B. and Bill Jr., Pocono Raceway would not be here today.”

Since getting that second Cup date in 1982, the track has continued to grow. The Mattiolis welcome nearly 100,000 ticket holders to their home in the Pocono’s twice each year. On the track, Bill Elliott, Rusty Wallace, the late Tim Richmond and Darrell Waltrip are among the track’s standouts.

Let me paint a picture for you. It is this past Monday night; you have just opened another beer and are toasting with your friends. Why? Being the smart gambler that you are, you placed a significant wager on the San Antonio Spurs over the Dallas Mavericks, and the Spurs are up 111-109 with 15 seconds to go in the fourth quarter. Even more important, by betting on the Spurs, the Sportsbook gave you 4.5 points because the game is in Dallas. No need to worry about that now because the Spurs look like a lock to win outright.

“This game’s over. Finley’s three-pointer sealed the game,” your friend says.

Dallas comes out of their timeout and predictably feeds the basketball to their star, Dirk Nowitzki. You are counting down the seconds, waiting for the final shot and the game to end, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8. Dirk is simply backing down in the paint and covered by San Antonio’s defensive stopper, Bruce Bowen. All of a sudden, a whistle blows, but nothing really happened. Did Dallas call a timeout? Nope. The referee calls a personal foul on Bruce Bowen, and the Spurs are over the foul limit.

“WHAT, are you serious?” you start to scream. “Nothing happened!”

A little bead of sweat begins to form on your brow, and you crouch about five inches from the television. Nowitzki calmly makes the first free throw. You cannot believe this is happening. Nowitzki calmly makes the second free throw. Duncan misses a last second shot, and the game goes into overtime. You still have the spread, but of course, the Mavericks end up winning the game, 123-118. Your money is gone. In the span of a second, you went from euphoria to depression. Why? Did you pick the game wrong or celebrate too early?

No, poor officiating once again ruined another close game in another crucial situation. Why is the officiating so bad? There are two reasons. First, the salaries are too low, considering the power that these officials possess. For NBA refs, salaries can be as low as $90,000 per year. This may seem high, but it is not when compared to what players and coaches make. Furthermore, these officials are human, and there has to be some resentment that these guys control million dollar players, but make less than $100,000. This contributes to bad calls, consciously or unconsciously.

Pay these guys. Put them on the same level as the players or at least the coaches. Level the playing field and better results will follow. I am not saying that refs should be paid millions of dollars, but they should at least receive more than they are making now. Some of these guys just do not care, and why should they?

The other factor is the lack of punishment from the League Office. After game four in Dallas, multiple suspensions and fines should have come down on those officials, but basically, nothing happened. It was not just the last play of regulation that was called poorly, but rather, the entire game. On a team, if a player is not producing, he is benched. Why not do the same for professional officials? There needs to be a possible punishment in the mind of the official to ensure his full effort.

Punish these guys. Again, try to level the ground and put the officials in the players’ shoes. Professional sports needs to put an end to the whole referee vs. player war and make a joint effort to create fair contests. This will result in classic games where the right team actually wins the game.

I will leave you with one of the greatest current examples of poor officiating, Super Bowl XL. This game was atrocious. Actually, the game never seemed to start but was completely dominated by the officials. The TV ratings were the lowest for a Super Bowl in recent years, and anytime a great play was made, it was simply reversed by the refs. Why did this happen? This happened for the same reasons I stated above.

NFL referees make as little as $25,000 a year and are considered part-time employees. Lonely sports writers make more than that. In addition, there was not really any severe punishment. This was the Super Bowl, one of the biggest sporting events of the year. People, we need to make a change across the board. If not, we are going to be left with these part-time employees controlling the fate of the biggest sporting events, and like it or not, our money is at stake.

What’s the difference between a credit card and a debit card? A prepaid virtual card and an e-wallet provider? A bank draft and a bank transfer? I found this all very confusing, and so set out to find out a little about all the different types of payment methods available; here’s my overview:

MasterCard: a credit card; it’s as if you’ve paid the money now, but you don’t actually pay it until your credit card bill comes at the end of the month where you will see the payment usually under the casino’s financial partner’s name.

Visa: Credit card, see MasterCard.

Delta: Debit Card under the Visa umbrella; a debit card takes the money directly from your bank account.

Visa electron: Either a debit card or a credit card depending on how a particular bank issues it. Not available in USA, Canada or Australia.

Neteller: Set up an account, pay into that account from your bank, credit card etc., and use that account to pay into online accounts such as your casino account. It acts as an in between man between you and your casino so your casino doesn’t have your bank details. Your Neteller account can be in a bunch of different currencies. A Neteller account also accepts money from the casino, so you can withdraw your funds into it. Charges vary depending on deposit methods.

Neteller Instacash: Offered in some countries only, this form of Neteller payment allows for instant credit transfer rather than waiting the usual 3 days for transfer of funds.

Ecocard: An online prepaid debit card. It can be topped up using a number of methods, and allows stricter control of online spending. Again, using the Ecocard limits the personal details that a casino site has; they will have your Ecocard details, not your credit card details.

Firepay: an online account that acts like a debit card; like the Ecocard, the funds must be in your Firepay account before you can use them, allowing for purchasing control. Firepay offers instant credit, direct bank funding, real-time account access, and unlimited incoming funds payments (i.e. your winnings from your casino account).

Moneybookers: An email based method of sending and receiving funds; the account is linked to your bank account or credit card.

EwalletXpress/900pay: 900pay from EwalletXpress bills online transactions to your phone bill; 900pay does not offer credit facilities.

Wire transfer: A straight transfer of funds from your bank account to the casino or from a cash office to the casino; wire transfers usually require a waiting period and often carry charges.

Cheque/bank draft: Just like writing a cheque to a friend; there is usually a fairly long waiting period for cheque payments.

Click2Pay: online account that acts as a middle man between you and the casino. May be funded through a number of options, and accepts incoming funds, i.e. from the casino. Comes with charges.

Party Poker is one of the world’s largest online poker rooms with over 70,000 players. They cover almost 60% of the online poker market. Now what this means to you as a poker player is that with the large number of players and rooms you will never have to wait for a game, the player quality is relatively poor compared to rooms like Ultimate Bet and Poker Stars. As mentioned earlier start playing with play money and once you get hold of the game you may jump to the real money game. They have around 18,500 – 19,200 ring game players and 26,700 – 28,000 tournaments players live during peak hours.

Party Poker has some great signup bonus offers, $25 extra, 20% extra up to $100 and free entry to the partypoker.com million qualifying tournaments ($34 value) with your first deposit. The requirements to clear the bonus is pretty simple, you have to play 5 times the raked hands of the bonus amount i.e. if the bonus value is $25 you need to play 125 raked hands. The time period to finish the raked hands is 30 days. Party Poker offers standard game variety like Texas holdem, omaha hi and hi/lo and 7 card stud hi and hi/lo but does not offer 5 card draw poker and 1-on-1 tournaments. Limit Texas holdem game is the major traffic puller at party poker. Remember these are only real money player statistics.

They also have beginners live game tables reserved for new real money players only. New real money players can play on these tables for 45 days after they have set up a real money account. Where to go? Just log in to your account, go to the main lobby, click on the real money heading and then select beginners. Then choose a table and start playing. Following games and stakes are offered for beginners.

1. Game: Texas Hold’em

2. Limits: $.5/$1, $1/$2, $2/$4 and $3/$6

They also have good round the clock customer service, including both text and voice based. Party Poker also has a fairly good retention program and they recently started the Player’s club and we expect them to come up with more programs soon. Good luck and play safe. 🙂