Neighborhood Bookies Putting Lines Online
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/sports/bookies-using-new-technology-for-old-fashioned-betting.html
The local street bookie — whose illegal business for decades relied on little more than phones, pencils, notebooks and a burly goon to break the occasional leg — has finally been seduced by the modern conveniences of the Internet.
As bettors throughout the United States plunk down millions of dollars on college basketball’s Final Four this weekend, many of the bookies taking their action will turn to a burgeoning corner of the Internet: Web sites that essentially function as a bookie’s version of the financial Quicken.
basic setup is simple: Instead of taking a phone call from every hopeful bettor, the bookie directs his clients to a Web site, where bets can be recorded, tracked and totaled. The bookie can then log on and see who owes — or is owed — money in the coming week.
It is organized. It is civilized. It is user-friendly, for both the bookie and the bettor, even though it remains illegal. It is also a drastic departure from the entrenched notion of bookies operating out of basements or back offices, with jumbles of phone-line wires, drop safes and handwritten ledgers.
“There is always going to be a huge market for local bookmakers because they are the ones who let players bet with credit, with money they don’t have to produce,” Steve Budin, a gambling expert who formerly operated an online sports book, said. “People don’t want to give out their credit cards or send money offshore someplace. They like dealing with real people and real cash. These sites just make it a whole lot easier for the bookies serving them.”
Bookies who use the sites pay the companies that operate them a small fee per client, which is why the sites collectively are known as pay-per-head sites. The most significant difference between pay-per-head sites and offshore online sports books — which have been targets of federal law enforcement in recent years — is that pay-per-head sites do not handle any betting money; they simply offer the players a place to record their bets and the bookies a register for organizing them.
Settling up — and the threatening that occasionally goes along with that for those who try to evade paying — is still done locally.
The services offered by the sites, however, are well worth the per-head fee of roughly $20, bookies say. In the so-called old days, the general business setup for a bookie was a split partnership, in which the operator would work in the office taking bets and the money guy was on the streets, handling the finances. Profits were generally split 50-50.
“Honestly? That’s so ‘Goodfellas,’ ” Travis Prescott, an executive at one of the more prominent sites, PerHead.com, said in a telephone interview. “With our setup, everything is streamlined and anyone can run their operation on their own.”
The best per-head sites are run like any large business and attract an increasingly diverse customer base, with demographics far beyond the stereotypical image of the mob-connected bookie. PerHead.com, for example, is based in Costa Rica and has nearly 100 employees working in a gleaming, modern office building. There are six full-time employees focused on I.T., working to ward off hackers and maintain the company’s servers. There is one person dedicated to increasing the company’s search engine optimization, which helps attract bookies of all experience levels, Prescott said......more
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/30/sports/bookies-using-new-technology-for-old-fashioned-betting.html
The local street bookie — whose illegal business for decades relied on little more than phones, pencils, notebooks and a burly goon to break the occasional leg — has finally been seduced by the modern conveniences of the Internet.
As bettors throughout the United States plunk down millions of dollars on college basketball’s Final Four this weekend, many of the bookies taking their action will turn to a burgeoning corner of the Internet: Web sites that essentially function as a bookie’s version of the financial Quicken.
basic setup is simple: Instead of taking a phone call from every hopeful bettor, the bookie directs his clients to a Web site, where bets can be recorded, tracked and totaled. The bookie can then log on and see who owes — or is owed — money in the coming week.
It is organized. It is civilized. It is user-friendly, for both the bookie and the bettor, even though it remains illegal. It is also a drastic departure from the entrenched notion of bookies operating out of basements or back offices, with jumbles of phone-line wires, drop safes and handwritten ledgers.
“There is always going to be a huge market for local bookmakers because they are the ones who let players bet with credit, with money they don’t have to produce,” Steve Budin, a gambling expert who formerly operated an online sports book, said. “People don’t want to give out their credit cards or send money offshore someplace. They like dealing with real people and real cash. These sites just make it a whole lot easier for the bookies serving them.”
Bookies who use the sites pay the companies that operate them a small fee per client, which is why the sites collectively are known as pay-per-head sites. The most significant difference between pay-per-head sites and offshore online sports books — which have been targets of federal law enforcement in recent years — is that pay-per-head sites do not handle any betting money; they simply offer the players a place to record their bets and the bookies a register for organizing them.
Settling up — and the threatening that occasionally goes along with that for those who try to evade paying — is still done locally.
The services offered by the sites, however, are well worth the per-head fee of roughly $20, bookies say. In the so-called old days, the general business setup for a bookie was a split partnership, in which the operator would work in the office taking bets and the money guy was on the streets, handling the finances. Profits were generally split 50-50.
“Honestly? That’s so ‘Goodfellas,’ ” Travis Prescott, an executive at one of the more prominent sites, PerHead.com, said in a telephone interview. “With our setup, everything is streamlined and anyone can run their operation on their own.”
The best per-head sites are run like any large business and attract an increasingly diverse customer base, with demographics far beyond the stereotypical image of the mob-connected bookie. PerHead.com, for example, is based in Costa Rica and has nearly 100 employees working in a gleaming, modern office building. There are six full-time employees focused on I.T., working to ward off hackers and maintain the company’s servers. There is one person dedicated to increasing the company’s search engine optimization, which helps attract bookies of all experience levels, Prescott said......more
