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What is the Web US$ vs the US$? And is this the amount that you bet? What do you get if you win? I'm sure this probably standard betting notation, but I don't know how to read it. Again, Salty Bet is about the closest I get to this.

So, the copy and paste kind of pasted a little weird but I'll break it down:

The "Web" means that I placed the bet via the internet. This bookie apparently has other options available to place a bet such as via phone and possibly e-mail or something like that. The word "Web" should probably be on a separate line instead of right next to the betting amount.

The first dollar figure is the amount of money I placed. The second figure is the amount I will win. So for the Colts bet, I bet $220.00 to win $209.52. Assuming the Colts win one more game I will have a nice $429.52 in my sports book account.

Going up a line, the number in parenthesis is the "juice" or "vig" or "odds" - whatever you want to call it! American notation is a little weird in that it revolves around betting or winning $100. Essentially what (-105) means is that I will have to bet $105 to win $100. In Salty Bet term for this would be displayed as odds of "1.05:1" assuming Salty Bet did decimals which I don't think it does.

If the number is positive (+105) then if I bet $100 I would win $105. The Salty Bet term would be the reciprocal of the previous bet or "1:1.05"

I have no idea why sports betting does this notation this way since I find the Salty Bet way much easier to decipher but hey, c'est la vie.

Bookies don't care about being "right" when they set a line, they essentially just want the amount of money placed on each side of an over/under to be as equal as possible so that their bets are essentially hedged and the bookie will make money regardless of the outcome. Of course this doesn't always happen and the betting public will oftentimes make one side of an over/under lopsided; in these instances the bookie is at risk to lose money. Wiki has a good article on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigorish

Salty Bet is unique in that there is no vig, money is won or lost at "true" odds. The money of the losers transfers equally to the winners and no cut is taken. Because there were previously no ways to take money out of the economy (money goes in anytime someone bets it all and lost since they'd get a free $100) you could eventually have players sitting with billions and billions of Salty Bux. I believe there's like avatars and shit that people can buy now to take money out of the economy and help prevent inflation.

Per Wikipedia

See also:

Loan shark - Borderline illegal activity
Rake (poker) - Gambling
Market maker - Financial markets

Maybe the 'occupy' people were onto something?

This is interesting.

I wonder how this notation came about. It makes sense now, but I'm certainly more familiar with 1:1, 2:1, 3:1, etc. This is somewhat similar to how fuel economy is expressed in Europe. Here we have miles per gallon, or MPG. Over there, they note it in liters per 100km. At any rate, I'm going to refer to this betting notation as the "magic hundo" since I learned about it from you.

Salty Bet does use odds (and decimals) as you described. However, they only display tenths and they do A LOT of rounding. So, for that bet, they'd probably display 1.1:1 or possibly just 1:1. I've never bothered to do the math to see how they actually round it. I just know they only display the tenths.

On the money side, everything gets rounded to a whole dollar. This is very interesting when betting small amounts on long odds. For instance, if you bet $1 on 100:1 odds, you should only win one Salty Penny. But instead you will win a whole Salty Buck. I assume this results in money being "created" through rounding. I haven't done the math to see how they round other bets--if they go to the nearest dollar or just the next dollar like they do at $1.

Of course they give you money to start and they give you money if you run out, so they're obviously not concerned about blindly introducing more money into the economy. And it's not worth anything outside the game anyway, so it doesn't really matter. (And Chad would argue that it barely has any value in the game since things are priced so high that only the top <1% of players will ever likely be able to participate).

It also means that once you're safely out of the mines, you're best odds will come from always betting $1. As for what that point is, I'm going to guess around 15 * bailout value since that's as much as you could reasonably hope to catch in an upset these days. Brian might know better.

The betting world is pretty interesting. I always have more fun doing something when money is on the line. It doesn't make a lot of sense, but here's how I feel after a real-ass $1 bet:

I won: Awwww shiiiiiiiiit! That sweet, sweet prize money is all mine. Oooooooo I'm swimming in riches. I'll be on Cloud 9 for the next 30-60 minutes.

I lost: Meh. It was just $1. Who cares.

If you're going for a long-run sustainable betting system where you are guaranteed money then betting a dollar to win a salty dollar is astronomically the correct play since, as you know, they round up to the nearest whole dollar which puts the odds payout in the player's favor instead of at true odds on any match that isn't 1:1. In other words, always put a dollar on the favorite because your payout will always be greater than your risk. Betting 1 buck on a 1,000,000:1 match pays the same as betting 1,000 so there's no point in betting more than a 1. "Enjoy your dollar!" as they say. People have wisened up to this so, as Chad says, you don't see the ridiculous 200:1 matches anymore so betting the underdog is an even worse play.

I'm not sure what exactly betting a dollar on the underdog every time would do in the long run but it's likely a break-even play with a non-zero potential to bust which makes it already not as optimal as betting the favorite. Of course you'd have to have some incredible bad luck variance to bust this way.

If you need money right now then take risks and play true odds. The game is more fun when you're shoving all in and praying for a dream!

*dreams of magic hundo*

I'm honestly surprised there isn't a more conservative skew for the NFL

lol at the extremes of WNBA and Golf

Pro wrasslin' has a democratic skew?

Yes but a very, very low turnout.

I'm guessing the fanbase is 15-17 year olds and people on welfare so you have young people who tend to vote democrat and don't go to the polls. I think it's more the less the same situation as monster truck fans - people on welfare who actually vote for their own interests unlike every other redneck subculture.

lol at nascar

Yahoo is showing the next three weeks as Byes in our league. Are we down playoff time? How does it work? I don't remember.

Ah, yes. Everything is a bye because we still have to wait on week 14 to end and we gotta wait on DAL @ CHI to complete. Next week we do playoff seeding and matchups. 1st seed faces 8th, 2 faces 7th, etc.

Basically the playoffs are just like any other week except it's single elimination. Don't worry, even if you lose you still get to play in the subsequent weeks for placement. The losers of next week will play each other to determine 5th - 8th and then the winners of those games will fight for 5th and 6th and then the losers will fight for 7th and last place.

Essentially in order to win our 4th iteration of fantasy footbaw you need to win the next three weeks! Gooooood luck!

Hell. Yes. Got that sweet, sweet $429 in my account now. If the Browns can beat the God damn Jets this Sunday I'll be $275 richer.

In case anyone missed the Packers - Cowboys game yesterday: