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A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays out bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds. History
In gambling parlance, making a book is the practice of laying bets on the various possible outcomes of a single event. The phrase originates from the practice of recording such wagers in a hard-bound ledger (the 'book') and gives the English language the term bookmaker for the person laying the bets and thus 'making the book'.
Sports bettors place their wagers either legally, through a bookmaker/sportsbook, or illegally through privately run enterprises referred to as "bookies". The term "book" is a reference to the books used by wage brokers to track wagers, payouts, and debts.
It is ideal for bookmakers to price/mark up a book such that the net outcome will always be in their favour: the sum of the probabilities quoted for all possible outcomes will be in excess of 100%. The excess over 100% (or overround) represents profit to the bookmaker in the event of a balanced/even book. In the more usual case of an imbalanced ...
In addition to traditional betting with a bookmaker, punters (bettors) are able to both back and lay money on an online betting exchange. Punters who lay the odds are in effect acting as a bookmaker. The odds of a horse are set by the market conditions of the betting exchange which is dictated to by the activity of the members. [7]
In the United Kingdom, Ireland, [1] Australia and New Zealand, a betting shop is a shop away from a racecourse ("off-course") where one can legally place bets in person with a licensed bookmaker. Most shops are part of chains, including William Hill, Ladbrokes, or Coral. In Australia and New Zealand, they are operated by totalisator agencies.
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Spread betting was invented by Charles K. McNeil, a mathematics teacher from Connecticut who became a bookmaker in Chicago in the 1940s. [5] In North America, the gambler usually wagers that the difference between the scores of two teams will be less than or greater than the value specified by the bookmaker, with even money for either option.