Betting on professional tennis (espn)

The gambling parlors along Vienna's Laxenburger Strasse are hungry for customers tonight. A few die-hard punters stand in the rain, peering through steamy windows for the luck that may linger inside. A man in a tight-fitting leather jacket stands on a dimly lit corner beneath a sign he hopes will entice some of them his way. Wetten ist geil. Betting is sexy.

Inside his shop, Bet Paradise, a half-dozen grim-faced gamblers smoke unfiltered cigarettes and sneak peeks at the curvy Serbian cashier as they keep track of various games and matches on flat screens that hang on the wall. Martin Führer, the man in the leather jacket, taps his long fingers impatiently, waiting for them to fill out their betting slips. The pressure of running his own parlor has begun to crease his 30-year-old face. He misses his old life, the one he spent as a party boy on the pro tennis circuit, where his exploits earned him a nickname that would be his undoing: The Gambling King. Führer was everyone's friend, a former model whose looks and live-for-the-moment manner opened doors. The ATP Tour was his NASDAQ. He studied picks in intimate detail, and to do his research, he paid his own way to tournaments from Miami to Monte Carlo. He hung around players' hotels and lounges, got himself invited to the right meals and parties. What began as $100 bets quickly became $1,000 ones. Before long, $10,000 was the norm. But even as Führer kicked back in players' lounges placing bets on his mobile, no one seemed to care much about the fact he'd become one of the heaviest tennis bettors in the world.

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The fun ended on May 18, 2004, when Führer won roughly $23,000 on an obscure ATP event held about 40 miles outside Vienna. An Austrian gambling firm immediately froze his bet, accusing Führer of conspiring to fix a match. Since then, he's been poison to bookies; no one will take his action. That's why he has put his savings into this parlor on the edge of the red-light district....

Legal sports books in Atlantic City - Moishe likes it!

By Joseph A. Gambardello

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

TRENTON - The state Assembly could vote today on a measure to allow sports betting at Atlantic City casinos.

The action comes as slots parlors in Pennsylvania and Delaware are cutting into Atlantic City's business.

A similar measure died in the Legislature's last session, which ended in early January.

Whatever the outcome of the bill, there remains one major obstacle: federal law bars sports gambling everywhere but in Nevada and Congressional action would be needed to allow it in New Jersey.

Supporters of the bill have noted that up to $100 million in bets were placed on Sunday's Super Bowl in Las Vegas casinos.

Genius! bet on news stories - whats better?

Nigel Eccles, a news junkie and former online betting site employee, wanted to try pursuing both interests at once.

Thus was born Hubdub - a new Web site Eccles and three colleagues in Edinburgh, Scotland, assembled - where customers will bet for fun, not money, on the outcomes of real news stories.

The site launches Monday as an influential technology conference gets under way in Palm Desert, Calif. - where Eccles plans to try drumming up support from investors.

Here's how it will work. After signing up, you'll receive 1,000 "Hubdub dollars," play money that works only on the site. You can look at stories about, say, whether Gregg Williams will be named the next head coach of the Washington Redskins or who will win the Florida Republican primary.

Guess right, and you'll win more Hubdub dollars. Lose, and your account will draw down. In the spirit of the board game Monopoly, where simply sticking it out is rewarded, you'll also get 20 new Hubdub dollars ever day you log in.