From illegal street bookies to online bookmaker offices
Probably not many of you were thinking before about the evolution of sports betting business. How the industry proceeded from bookmakers working in the streets keeping the books made of paper to the current automatized online betting systems. First of all the English word "bookmaker" is derived from that in the UK and later in the US the bookies registered the stakes in books.
This activity was illegal for a long time, but England realized that it would be better to legalize as soon as possible and gain tax incomes from it. Several decades before so called "high street bookmaker" shops appeared in England where everyone could bet within legal circumstances.
However in the United States the situation was completely different. Las Vegas, Atlantic City and a few other privileged cities were entitled to let legal betting organizations operate, so who wanted to bet, had to travel to one of these cities. Many had a passion for betting but at the same time it would have been impossible to go to Vegas every week, so the first illegal street bookmaker offices appeared. Since the risk was quite high because of the FBI raids, the smarts moved to Panama or Costa Rica and for the first time they started organizing bettings on phone which were booked in computers then. All of these off-shore companies made huge profits due to tax avoidance, so the FBI started persecution of these companies soon.
The next revolutionary step was the introduction of automated online betting systems which appeared at the end of the 1990s. Most street bookmaker companies in England also realized the business potential of the online betting "goldmine" so till the early 2000s dozens of companies made their services available online. The progress went further on, so today there are more than 100 online bookies but at most 20-25 really trustworthy companies.
The global online gambling market makes billion dollar profits annually. It has grown one of the most profitable automatized industries by now.
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BookieSamurai
All informations in this blog derives from various interviews and betting materials. The author of this blog takes no
responsibility for any demage or loss of any reader. Bet within your limits!
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