The First Bookmaker
Betting is older than written history itself, people have been taking bets on anything they can think of since before money was even invented.
Most early wagers were crude, often with just two possible outcomes. One would bet on one side to win, such as the Roundheads to win the English civil war, and the other would bet on the alternative outcome, the Cavaliers to win.
Odds were rarely used and most wagers were effectively taken at ‘evens’. This is fine if you are predicting an evenly matched event but in life we know things are rarely even. This could be even worse if you were betting on a horse as quite often the bet choice was ‘Horse X to win’ vs ‘Horse X not to win’, hardly an even bet (in most cases).
Bookmakers on the other hand are people who lay actual odds creating a ‘book’ encompassing multiple scenarios or results, which, if balanced, will always ensure a profit. With this new type of business, rather than two people pitting their wits against each other over one possible outcome, a bookmaker will take multiple bets for several outcomes from different sources. If they have their prices right then this should always ensure a profit.[1]
Harry Ogden
The first bookmaker in the United Kingdom is considered to be Harry Ogden, who opened a business in the 1790s, although similar activities had existed in other forms earlier in the eighteenth century.
Following the Gaming Act 1845, the only gambling allowed in the United Kingdom was at race tracks. The introduction of special excursion trains meant that all classes of society could attend the new racecourses opening across the country. Cash concentrated towards the bookmakers who employed bodyguards against protection gangs operating within the vast crowds.
In 1961, Harold Macmillan’s Conservative government legalised betting shops, with tough measures enacted to ensure that bookmakers remained honest. A large industry has grown since. At one time, there were over 15,000 betting shops. Now, through consolidation, they have been reduced to between 9,100 and 9,200 in 2013.
The group of the largest bookmakers in the country, known as the “Big Three”, comprises William Hill, Ladbrokes, and Coral.
Improved TV coverage and the modernization of the law have allowed betting in shops and casinos in most countries. In the UK, on-track bookies still mark up the odds on boards beside the race course and use tic-tac or mobile telephones to communicate the odds between their staff and to other bookies, but, with the modernization of United Kingdom bookmaking laws, online and high street gambling are at an all-time high. A so-called super-casino had been planned for construction in Manchester, but the government announced that this plan had been scrapped on 26 February 2008.
The future of Online Gaming
In recent years, the sports betting industry has grown immensely due to the Internet. Gaming is moving away from clunky desktop machines to smaller devices and this is driving changes in the way people bet. Punters are now betting less in advance choosing to wait until closer to the event with the convenience of being able to bet any time, any where.
Faster devices and faster internet will only serve to accelerate this tendency. Many new betting sites are now designed for small screen devices and are simply scaled up for desktop. Due to IQ Soft`s Sportsbook solution which follows more then 70 different types of Sports, allowing to bet 24/7 where the quantity of Live events reaches at once 300 events with high coefficient volume, combined with innovative features and user friendly interface. Being very flexible we provides Sportsbook software as a part of our Core Platform, which can be offered as a turnkey or white label sportsbook.
If you decided to run Your own betting business you can visit: iqsoftllc.com
Narine Zakharyan
Representative of Marketing Department аt IQ Soft
[1] Thomas Bridge, former Expediter
[2] http://www.onlinebetting.org.uk/betting-guides/history-of-gambling-and-bookmaking.html
