Online Casino Blog

The NBA’s All-Star weekend came and went without much fanfare as the dunk contest was panned by fans and media alike and the most exciting stuff being exhibited by some of the games newest, and unlikely “stars”. That being said, the second half of the regular season has gotten off to a rip-roaring start due to scenarios like T-Mac finally finding a home in NYC, Shaq and D-Howard fighting over Superman naming rights, and the drama of Kobe’s injury in LA among others setting up what is sure to be a fantastic race to the title. As such, top sportsbook BetUS has posted odds on all things NBA “Second Half”!

Analysts at BetUS posted the following odds on the second half of the 2010 National Basketball Association season:

NBA Champion Gambling Odds

• Atlanta Hawks  20/1
• Boston Celtics  5/1
• Charlotte Bobcats  150/1
• Chicago Bulls  100/1
• Cleveland Cavaliers  5/2
• Dallas Mavericks  18/1
• Denver Nuggets  12/1
• Detroit Pistons  300/1
• Golden State Warriors  1000/1
• Houston Rockets  80/1
• Indiana Pacers  500/1
• Los Angeles Clippers  250/1
• Los Angeles Lakers  2/1
• Memphis Grizzlies  150/1
• Miami Heat  60/1
• Milwaukee Bucks  200/1
• Minnesota Timberwolves  2000/1
• New Jersey Nets  3000/1
• New Orleans Hornets  100/1
• New York Knicks  400/1
• Oklahoma City Thunder  100/1
• Orlando Magic  7/1
• Philadelphia 76ers  400/1
• Phoenix Suns  40/1
• Portland Trail Blazers  45/1
• Sacramento Kings  500/1
• San Antonio Spurs  14/1
• Toronto Raptors  80/1
• Utah Jazz  40/1
• Washington Wizards  300/1

NBA Regular Season MVP Betting Odds

• Amare Stoudemire  50/1
• Brandon Roy  70/1
• Carlos Boozer  70/1
• Carmelo Anthony  2/1
• Chauncey Billups  50/1
• Chris Bosh  28/1
• Chris Paul  50/1
• Deron Williams  50/1
• Dirk Nowitzki  12/1
• Dwight Howard  10/1
• Dwyane Wade  12/1
• Gerald Wallace  60/1
• Joe Johnson  50/1
• Kevin Durant  10/1
• Kobe Bryant  2/1
• LeBron James  1/4
• Paul Pierce  60/1
• Steve Nash  5/1
• Tim Duncan  40/1

NBA Head Coach Most Likely Coach Fired Odds

• Flip Saunders  8/1
• Jim O’Brien  7/1
• Eddie Jordan  6/1
• Nate McMillan  5/1
• Don Nelson  8/1
• Paul Westphal  7/1
• Kiki Vandeweghe  5/1

Well, it wasn’t pretty, but I managed to come back after getting my butt kicked on a super tough $5.10 table to book a huge win of $8 in a short session of 1 hour (2 tables simultaneously, so 2 hours total). Here are the highlights:

The Good

• Caught some cards at this table in my short stay of 14 hands
• Table 3 | 13 minutes | +93
• $34 came from pocket kings, which I 3 bet a good player’s raise pre-flop, and no overcards came.
• $33 came from ATo… after a Ten came on the flop, the hand held up as a guy with K7 tried to bluff me off the hand.
• $29 came as AK suited held up on the river with high card ace in a heads up match with QJ

The OK

• 6.5 BB in my hour, I guess that’s pretty good… just solid poker here
• Table 2 | 55 minutes | +60
• $39 as ATo held up after an ace flopped
• $20 from a lucky river queen which gave me trip queens after an AK hit the flop. The loser had KJ, and let me see the river for free.
• $25 after flopping 2 pair with AJ and everyone folds on the turn
• $47 after flopping 2 pair with Q9s heads up… loser had QJ
• The important thing was that I had no big losses– biggest loss was $20 after my A9 was beaten heads up… no help from the board

The Bad

• Tough, tough table and a few mistakes made for a whoopin
• Table 1 | 36 minutes | -145
• (-$25) after trying to steal with JTs and trying to hit the gutshot after the flop
• (-$35) after flopping 2 pair with Q9 in a preflop steal raise, and the winner flopped the straight with KJ
• (-$20) after Q8 in the BB goes down to Q9s UTG when 2 queens flop. I was actually lucky here as my check-raise on the turn failed. An ace on the board too.
• My only real win ($23)at this table was on the first hand, when I flopped a Queen high flush in the BB, although everyone folded on the turn.

Looking at the above, I guess the 2nd two losing hands I played correctly, just got extremely bad luck… The first hand was just horrible. I should have ran away from this table after a few orbits after a few late position preflop raises stole the blinds…

Summary: A decent session, nothing to be ashamed of. My game is still tightening up, and I am still developing my ability to “feel” an opponent’s hand based on bets and raises. I think my biggest weakness is extracting the maximum number of bets in shorthanded play with a good, but not great hand. This is a product of the wild games at Hollywood Park– if you slowplay there, you are dead, and it’s carrying over to my online play. However, “letting people catch up” is extremely dangerous, and requires an excellent read on your opponent(s) in order to make it profitably, so I’ll keep playing straightforwardly for a while.

I’ll take the $8 and 100 more hands toward the Empire $100 bonus…

[thanks to peggydavis66 and hdouble via cc]

MLB Spring Training is officially underway and fans across the country are looking for answers as to how their teams will perform, which pitchers will dominate, and which hitters will showcase their talents at the plate. With speculation at an all time high BetUS has now posted odds on all things MLB 2010.

Analysts at BetUS posted the following odds on Major League Baseball:

American League Pennant Betting Odds

• Baltimore Orioles 50/1
• Boston Red Sox 7/2
• Chicago White Sox 14/1
• Cleveland Indians 35/1
• Detroit Tigers 18/1
• Kansas City Royals 50/1
• Los Angeles Angels 9/1
• Minnesota Twins 10/1
• New York Yankees 17/10
• Oakland Athletics 30/1
• Seattle Mariners 12/1
• Tampa Bay Rays 10/1
• Texas Rangers 12/1
• Toronto Blue Jays 60/1

National League Pennant Gambling Odds

• Arizona Diamondbacks 14/1
• Atlanta Braves 10/1
• Chicago Cubs 10/1
• Cincinnati Reds 20/1
• Colorado Rockies 10/1
• Florida Marlins 16/1
• Houston Astros 40/1
• Los Angeles Dodgers 7/1
• Milwaukee Brewers 18/1
• New York Mets 12/1
• Philadelphia Phillies 5/2
• Pittsburgh Pirates 100/1
• San Diego Padres 50/1
• San Francisco Giants 12/1
• St Louis Cardinals 11/2
• Washington Nationals 80/1

MLB World Series 2010 Winner Odds

• Arizona Diamondbacks 60/1
• Atlanta Braves 22/1
• Boston Red Sox 7/1
• Chicago Cubs 22/1
• Chicago White Sox 25/1
• Cincinnati Reds 35/1
• Cleveland Indians 80/1
• Colorado Rockies 16/1
• Detroit Tigers 30/1
• Florida Marlins 25/1
• Houston Astros 70/1
• Los Angeles Angels 16/1
• Los Angeles Dodgers 14/1
• Milwaukee Brewers 40/1
• Minnesota Twins 25/1
• New York Mets 25/1
• New York Yankees 3/1
• Oakland Athletics 65/1
• Philadelphia Phillies 6/1
• San Diego Padres 80/1
• Seattle Mariners 14/1
• St Louis Cardinals 14/1
• Tampa Bay Rays 25/1
• Toronto Blue Jays 120/1
• Washington Nationals 100/1
• Pittsburgh Pirates 150/1
• Baltimore Orioles 100/1
• Kansas City Royals 65/1
• Texas Rangers 20/1
• San Francisco Giants 16/1

League To Win World Series

• American League 10/17
• National League 7/5

Will the Yankees win the World Series?

• Yes 3/1
• No 1/5

World Series Winner Odds

• Yankees or Phillies 2/1
• Any other team 1/3

Most Base Hits

• Over 220½ 10/11
• Under 220½ 5/7

Most Home Runs Total

• Over 46½ 5/6
• Under 46½ 5/6

Most Pitcher Losses

• Over 17½ 1/2
• Under 17½ 3/2

Most Pitcher Wins

• Over 20½ 10/13
• Under 20½ 10/11

Most Pitcher Saves

• Over 47½ 5/6
• Under 47½ 5/6

Most Player Steals

• Over 67½ 10/13
• Under 67½ 10/11

Most Player RBI’s

• Over 145½ 5/6
• Under 145½ 5/6

Regular Season Matchup of Boston Red Sox vs New York Yankees

• Boston Red Sox 6/5
• New York Yankees 2/3

Online gambling group PartyGaming, owners of betting websites PartyCasino and PartyPoker, has entered into an agreement with the state gambling operator of Denmark. Under the deal, PartyGaming will provide its online gaming technology in anticipation of the regulations liberalizing the gaming market in some regions in Europe.

PartyGaming is the sixth largest gaming operator in the entire Europe, based on market value. The deal with Danske Spil, which was signed recently, involves a five-year period within which PartyGaming will provide its online poker and casino platform in Denmark.

The deal is PartyGaming’s first foray into government transactions. As such, it is hinged on legislation that is scheduled to be passed by the Danish Congress in 2011. Danske Spil, on the other hand, is among Europe’s major betting and gaming operators. In 2008 alone, it posted almost DKr11bn ($2.1bn) of revenues turned over to the government.

Industry experts are looking forward to seeing more deals of this nature, as other European countries decide to legalize online gaming, partly because of its sweet promise of huge tax revenues.

Last year, it was Italy that welcomed online tournament poker to its shores. It seems that France is the next country to follow suit, as hearings on the matter are set to begin this month. The planned legislation hopes to reform the system of regulating and licensing online gambling operations. Germany, on the other hand, is moving tentatively in the same direction.

Numis analyst Wyn Ellis said the public should expect a number of similar deals in the future. “As these European markets liberalise, incumbents and operators within these countries are likely to be well placed to win the licences. So the strategy for companies like PartyGaming is to target various local partners and provide business-to-business services to them.”

PartyGaming chief executive Jim Ryan calls the deal with Danske Spil a “landmark” agreement. Mr. Ryan added that the agreement is aligned with the company’s goal of tapping the global corporate and government market as a leading provider of B2B service offerings.

It can be remembered that PartyGaming exited from the US market in 2006, when the Bush administration imposed a ban on online gambling.

In October of last year, PartyGaming co-founder Anurag Dikshit gave up majority of his 28-percent share in the business to institutional investors. Mr. Dikshit was indicted for charges of online gambling in the US in December 2008, pleaded guilty to It, and settled with a $300m fine.

Yesterday, PartyGaming shares decreased by 1.1p to 278.3p in London.

William Hill is now declaring publicly that they are the top online gaming and sports betting company in the whole of Europe, following the agreement that it entered into with gambling software provider Playtech.

The deal consists of a licensing collaboration, along with an agreement for William Hill to acquire Playtech’s all other affiliates and assets. This move by William Hill, touted as UK’s second biggest bookmaker, is considered as an effort to address its weak spot – online gambling – by setting up the joint entity William Hill Online (WHO). The resulting entity will utilize Playtech as the provider for William Hill’s poker and casino software requirements. Playtech snatched the contract from Cryptologic.

Playtech has also acquired Uniplay, an affiliate, on very reasonable terms in order to provide a host of customer service operations. The deal includes a number of gaming brands and websites for a price tag of £144.5m in cold cash. Most of these assets are held in WHO.

In turn, Playtech will gain from the agreement via a 29-percent interest and as much share in the profits of WHO. Playtech also has the option to increase its stake to 32 percent, but William Hill retains the option to buy out Playtech after four or six years.

According to William Hill, the Orbis technology platform that it will use for developing its online sports betting business is on schedule to be launched next month. Projections pegged WHO’s 2008 net revenues at £190m before interest, tax and the £75m amortization.

Heads are moving, too. Henry Birch, former chief executive of Leisure & Gaming, has jumped on board as head of WHO.

Industry watchers are optimistic about the deal, noting that Playtech was in need of cash outlay amounting to £24m to service its contract with William Hill. In return, the deal will boost its credit standing and help the developer to refinance £1.2bn worth of debts that are scheduled to come due in 16 months.

Playtech and William Hill suffered setbacks last week. Despite this, the deal drew positive feedback, with William Hill rising from 23p to 189 ½ p and Playtech jumping by 14p from 380p.

William Hill chief executive Ralph Topping stated that the company is now among the top three companies in the European gaming and betting industry based on revenues, and the first in terms of profitability. He added that they project a 50-percent increase in revenues in the next two years.

Playtech chief executive Mor Weizer said that it is now generating royalty fees from its online poker and casino businesses from William Hill starting 2010, on top of the income that it enjoys out of the WHO shares and software licensing deal.

When asked whether they see the relationship going further, both camps declined to comment in detail. Mr. Topping said that the possibility of a merger has not been discussed neither formally nor informally.

Mr. Weizer also emphatically declared that Playtech would not actively participate in running the William Hill Online operations. “We continue with our core business as it is today and we have a call option for other companies. I can’t see how [a merger] will happen,” he added.