As one of those few people lucky enough to be born and raised in Las Vegas, I've walked through many sportsbooks and seen all the different kinds of games being played on the big TVs. Truth be told, I'm not really one to watch a whole lot of sports. I find it a little boring sometimes, and who understands all that testosterone, anyway? Whenever I saw all those numbers up there for the odds, I had no idea what it all meant.

Every year, though, whenever the Oscars™ roll around, I always see a news story about one of the Vegas sportsbooks putting up odds on who is going to win—but you can't put any money on them. It's illegal to bet on entertainment events in Vegas. And I would notice that if I had put any money down, I probably would have won quite a bit of money.

But I had friends who were putting down real bets on real events online, at places like Bodog.com, BetOnSports.com, and Sports Interaction, and winning real money. They mentioned to me that these books also took bets on entertainment events all year long! I thought to myself, "Wow, I could really make some extra spending money betting on award shows, reality shows, and celebrity gossip!" If I just put down $5 or $10, I could win a nice chunk of change. I didn't have to sell my house to make a couple of bucks on a bet. And if I won, I could turn that money into more money by betting on other events.

So I decided to experiment. The Emmys were coming up, and my favorite show of all time, Lost, was up for Best Drama Series. I asked my sportsbook-savvy friend, Jocelyn, to explain what the odds meant, and I signed up at Bodog.com—which was really fast and really easy to do—and I put down $20 for Lost to win the Emmy. That night, I ended up winning $80! I couldn't believe it! Instead of making some kind of pool with my friends for who would win, I had a real sportsbook pay out my instinct to bet on my favorite show.

Now, every week, I budget out about $20 to bet on any of the lines that the sportsbooks have up. After while, I expect to have a nice little "purse" of money that I can spend on just about anything!

Jocelyn & I talk about entertainment betting all the time. She actually works in the sports gambling industry-- and has access to information on the best places to bet online, plus she loves Hollywood and entertainment just as much as I do. After we speculated about the Emmys, Survivor: Guatemala, The Apprentice: Martha Stewart, Kate Moss's cocaine scandal, and other shows and celebrity events, we started to wonder why only sporty boys get to have all the fun betting (and it is fun!), so we started this blog so we can both talk about the trashy behavior of celebrities and help the rest of us figure out how to get into the action of Hollywood betting.

Labels: betting, Bodog, how-to

posted by Kari at 11:14 AM