In December 2008, the situation for the Vegas land based casinos was quite abysmal. Their stocks were crashing, their hotel occupancy rates ware in a freefall, their $400 bottles of wine were replaced with $100 bottles and a favorable resolution to their recession-induced woes was nowhere in sight. It was then that the highest-profile industry representatives took part at a meeting organized by the American Gaming Association, members of which each of the major Las Vegas casinos are. It was then that Garry Loveman of Harrah's Entertainment decided to start pushing for a new AGA policy: one which instead of fighting the proliferation of online gaming, would aim to get the major live gambling companies involved in it, lobbying for legalization and regulation. The fact that offshore online poker companies like Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars were sailing through the troubled waters of recession sails bulging obviously didn't escape Loveman's attention. Loveman's timing in calling for change wasn't right though. Steven Wynn of Wynn Las Vegas was also at that meeting and he opposed change, arguing that cyberspace was quite impossible to regulate and police. Given Wynn's opposition, not much became of the proposed changes. For another full year, Las Vegas casinos were side tracked, reduced to mere observers of Full Tilt's and PokerStars' ever more appalling online success.

It wasn't until March 2010, that the AGA decided to support the legalization and regulation of online poker in the US. Although apparently a favorable one for the online poker industry, the decision was basically a prelude to the eventual death-knell of the existing establishment. While one may argue otherwise, it is in fact rather obvious that the Las Vegas casino interests adopted a two-pronged approach to the legalization and regulation of online gambling and poker. In about a year's time, the industry went from being constantly on the defensive to the offensive, effectively managing to completely destroy the existing online poker industry in the US, in order to create a vacuum which would then be filled with their own operations. The Black Friday indictments handed out by the US DoJ were in no way spontaneous: Las Vegas has almost certainly had a hand in that. Senate majority leader Harry Reid's sudden flip-flop on the issue of online poker and gambling wasn't happenstance either. Las Vegas had finally made up its mind on where it wanted to stand in the future, and the wheels had been put in motion. With online poker and gambling already legalized in Nevada, and with other US states looking to possibly adopt Nevada's regulations for their own intrastate markets, the epicenter of the online gambling universe has been successfully shifted. It was nothing more than a matter of time all along...

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The surface on which the race is run is one such factor. Race horses are mainly of two types: dirt track horses and turf horses. While there are horses out there that run equally well on main tracks and turf, these are so few and far between they're hardly even worth bringing up in this context. The reason behind why some dirt tracks and turf bring out such widely varying performances from horses is a simple one: it's a question of genetics and breeding. Some horses are simply physically better fit to run on turf than others. Other horses are physically better equipped for the main tracks. The bottom line: if there's a horse you know is great on turf, don't expect it to be similarly good on dirt and vice-versa. Also, if you happen to see a horse which is terrible on dirt, but shows promise over short distances during workouts, don't count it off the turf.

First-timers need to be handicapped much more thoroughly and one is best off including a pedigree analysis too if he wants to draw relevant conclusions about the horse. Checking out a horse on wet dirt track can also offer valuable clues to its turf capabilities: if the horse tends to run better on the wet track than on the fast one, it may indeed take to the turf much better.

This issue brings us to the next major handicapping factor: track condition. It's crazy that even in this day and age, many handicappers choose to simply ignore the track condition factor. This issue is at least as important as the above said turf/dirt one. The track condition factor is all about the wet/dry question. There are horses out there which prefer softer dirt tracks to more firm ones, and the same goes for turf too: European race horses tend to like soft turf better than the firm stuff US racetracks feature. Good handicappers can gain a pretty good estimate of the wet/dry preferences of a horse by simply looking at the past performances of horses under both circumstances. The good news is that more often than not, the professional handicapper who sells you his picks will do this rather tedious part of the handicapping for you. Certain turf races may be taken off the turf due to weather conditions, but pro handicappers have this aspect covered as well: they will do analysis for the turf as well as for the dirt just in case.

Class drops are yet another major handicapping factor. Horses which drop down their classes usually represent a threat so one needs to treat them with caution.

Other similarly subtle yet important factors to consider are medication changes and layoffs. Horses which do not race for 45 days are considered laid off and as such they're considered out of shape, as it is general wisdom that horses need a race to get back into the grind after such a long period of rest. The weight that a layoff carries varies from one track to another. There are tracks on which even a much shorter lay-off has deep consequences for the horses concerned.

As a savvy gambler, you should take all your horse racing related bets online. Online bookies reward their bettors with sign-up bonuses, and loyalty rewards which mimic the benefits offered by rake rebate deals and poker prop schemes. what is a poker prop? A poker prop is a player who gets an outstandingly generous rakeback percentage.

Here's a small example that will explain the EV better than anything else: you flip a coin with a friend (a 50-50 outcome event) and you're wagering real money on every flip. Every single time, you wager $2 against his $1 though. This way, your opponent will enjoy a positive expected value of $0.5 on every coin-flip. Here's why: with a 50-50 event like a coin-flip, you will win every second bet on average. While over the short-run, there will certainly be deviations from this rule, at the end of the day, you will win 50% of the time regardless what you do. What that means is that you'll drop $2 over two bets and win $1 for a total loss of $1. Your loss is your opponent's profit though. He takes home $1 for every two bets, which is $0.5 for every bet. That's his positive expected value right there. If you demand to wager $1 against your opponent's $1, both of your EVs will be 0, as you'll be betting 50-50 on a 50-50 event. If you continued betting $1 on an event with an outcome that favored one party though, the EV would once again lean towards the favored party. The bottom line: without having EV+ on a bet, it doesn't really make any mathematical sense to go ahead with it.

How do sharps secure EV+ in sports betting? It's not easy. It has to do with the hidden value, which is very real indeed, but which is extremely difficult to find. It takes time, patience and rock-solid handicapping as well as reverse handicapping skills. These are a handful of traits that your average recreational sports bettor just doesn't possess.

Of course, it doesn't hurt to stick to bet-types where the hidden value surfaces easier. These are bets that bookmakers find it more difficult or simply not lucrative enough to handicap as thoroughly as they would like to.

On account if their diversity prop bets fit into this category as do teasers.
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Shopping around for the best lines is just as important as proper handicapping regardless of whether we're talking about NFL or NBA games here or any other sport. This is where most players have a huge hole in their betting strategy. They do the handicapping, they uncover the hidden value and then they forget about maximizing the value in their bets by taking a little bit of extra time to shop around for the lines. In this day and age, shopping around is a cinch for everyone. There are a plethora of online betting sites out there and they all work out their own lines. While the differences will never be radical, there will be differences nonetheless, which will be amplified by the system and which will generate rather different results in the end. As a successful sports bettor, you owe it to yourself to shop around for the best available lines. Picking the winner is not enough: one needs to make enough to beat the vig. The vig is quite probably the biggest enemy of the skilled sports bettor. By shopping around for the lines and by optimizing this aspect of your handicapping, you will pretty much do away with the effects of the vig completely.

The importance of the half point is something every sports bettor who hopes to succeed has to understand. When the prize is equal, picking the line with the extra half point is easy. When the price differs though, that's when the bettor needs to pull out his NFL database and get down to number-crunching. Only when one truly understands the value of the half point will he be able to decide whether or not it's worth it to buy a half point for however much the online sportsbook sells it.

Often times it makes sense to bet against certain teams on the first half line rather than on the endgame one. Some teams are slow starters and stronger finishers than others.

Prop bets will often hide excellent value too. Some online bookies offer prop lines derived from the primary betting lines of the match-up.

Alternate lines and parlays may also be additional sources of value for the savvy bettor.
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One of the goals of online casino gambling has always been to create an environment and an atmosphere as close to actual live casinos as possible. The reason is a simple one: most gamblers are simply crazy about the actual feel of live gambling establishments. Online casino software graphics have come a long way since their humble beginnings. Some however, won't settle for computer generated graphics. Some online casinos have gone as far as this chase for realism is ever likely to go: they've introduced live casino dealers, actual people who deal from actual decks of cards to online blackjack players.

In online casinos which feature such live dealers, players can clearly see not only the dealt cards, but also the decks used by the dealer. In the beginning, live dealers used regular-size cards for dealing, but it turned out players couldn't see the dealt cards clearly. The situation was remedied through the introduction of larger than regular cards.

Large online casinos feature regular blackjack as well as live dealer tables. Players can choose between the two variants. There can be as many as 20 live dealer tables, where new players can join those who already play there. The experience is indeed quite similar to a live casino.

Regardless of whether you play at a live dealer table or at a regular online blackjack one, you should always make sure that - like online poker props - you get the most out of the time you spend at the tables. Use basic strategy and apply for all the bonuses and loyalty deals for which you are eligible.

In order to successfully pull off a re-steal, you need a whole bunch of different factors to click: you have to be faced with a certain type of opponent whom you have to have read fairly well. Your table image has to be the right one, your hand has to be the right one and your timing has to be spot on too. It's not easy to get all these variables to click, but once you get the hang of it, you'll develop a feel for the right situation.

As far as the ideal opponent goes, against whom you should attempt re-stealing: he's an aggressive blinds stealer, a player who is an above average one skill-wise.

Good players know all about the advantages of blinds-stealing, but they're good enough to know that when they get re-raised, they just got caught. They are much more likely to just fold in order to protect their stack which is basically their SNG lifeblood, than a bad player who will feel pot committed and call off 10 BBs without blinking an eye. Good players won't feel pot committed because they'll know they're likely dominated, and when that is indeed the case, one simply cannot be pot-committed.

The main idea behind the re-steal is the fold equity. In order to take full advantage of it, you need to be re-stealing with something more substantial than 7,2o though. Something like 9,10 is enough: after all, you're stealing and not betting for value, but you need something to fall back on in case your opponent decides to make the call.
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It's easy to understand why pros like suited connectors: they can make flushes and straights too. Basically, they're among the best big pot hands. Pocket pairs (especially big pocket pairs) will indeed win lots of pots, but they tend to be smaller ones. Suited connectors win huge pots every time they're hit for a monster, not only because of the straights and flushes that they make, but also because they're extremely hard to read.

Many people realize the enormous potential in this starting hand and start treating it as a made hand, while it's only a drawing hand. That's how people get fried and that's how they manage to turn suited connectors into their worst enemy.

The deal with this starting hand is that it's not as strong as to warrant automatic involvement in the pot every time one picks it up. Straights and flushes do not come about as often as one abusing suited connectors would like to, therefore some people apply the set-mining principle to them: they count on the implied odds to deliver them from the losses incurred while limping and not hitting anything. The problem is that this set-mining mindset doesn't quite work for suited connectors. Those attempting it will lose money in the long-run.

The only way to play suited connectors in a 6-max game is through aggression. Aggression offers the player several ways to win the pot instead of just one. The aggressor can win the pot right away by forcing his opponents to fold. He can also pour on some pressure past the flop through a c-bet which is another option to take down the pot. He will still be able to make his straight or flush and make the best hand winning the pot squarely.

Aggression is a good solution, but nothing in poker is black and white. Just because one is able to secure an edge through it under certain circumstances, it doesn't mean it'll work every time, and the thing with aggression is that when it backfires, it does so in an extremely painful manner. Position is the determining factor in when and how one should use aggression.

Playing suited connectors from early position is not a winning proposition. At best, those who have an extremely solid post flop play can break even, which means that it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The majority of people will simply lose money with it. In order to balance your range, you can turn on the heat from early position with suited connectors, but be aware that the move will likely cost you money.

Of course, how high your suited connectors are is also an influencing factor. You should pretty much toss low suited connectors into the muck even from middle position. As you approach the button, you can add more and more of these starting hands into the mix, playing them aggressively every single time.

A poker prop deal or a poker propping deal will give you an edge regardless of how you play your suited connectors. Sign up for such a deal today and start grabbing those extra dollars right away.