The history of sport is littered with astonishing David vs Goliath moments; times where the underdog ripped up the form book and went on to claim victory.

For the most part, bookmakers are a shrewd bunch. Their job is to create balanced betting markets, which attract equal money on both sides. They then lock in a profit from the margin they set.

However, it doesn’t always work like that in reality. If money starts flooding in on the favourite, the bookie reacts by slashing the odds. Of course, there’s still the need to attract money on the other side, so those prices are lengthened, and this opens up the door to the miracle bet – when the underdogs beat the odds.

Leicester City to win the Premier League – 5000/1

This is most likely the greatest underdog story of all-time. What makes it all the more remarkable is Leicester looked odds on to be regulated the season before. However, a run of seven wins from their final nine matches pulled them off the bottom of the table and out of the relegation zone.

Despite this stunning late season form, the bookies didn’t believe the Foxes stood a chance of lifting the Premier League trophy the following season, and so they were priced up a 5,000/1 with several betting firms. According to Business Insider, 24 bets were placed on Leicester at that price. After shocking the football world, UK bookies had to shell out more than 25 million pounds.

Although this happened five years ago, bookmakers are still haunted by the experience. You only need to take a look through acebettingsites.co.uk, the highest odds for any team to win the EPL are 1000/1 – and this is with the season underway!

St Louis Cardinals to win the World Series – 999/1

Unlike Leicester City, the Cardinals didn’t start the 2011 MLB season as rank outsiders. However, after a stuttering campaign where they were 4.5 games behind the Braves for a wildcard slot with only a clutch of games remaining, bookmakers felt confident enough to write them off and shoot their odds out to 999/1.

One punter laid down $250 at this price, and he witnessed an amazing turnaround in fortunes as the Cardinals form picked up. Admittedly, they were helped to a WC spot thanks to the Braves capitulating in their final few games. The rest, as they say, is history.

James ‘Buster’ Douglas to beat ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson – 42/1

Most miracle bets are ‘outrights’, and they can take several months to settle. However, the fight between Buster Douglas and Iron Mike was a one-off event. The bookies believed Tyson was invincible; so much so, that they were offering odds as high as 42/1 on Douglas.

One bettor knew something the rest of the world didn’t. He put down $1,500 on Buster Douglas (at 38/1) and pocketed a cool $57,000. Not bad for one night’s work, is it?

Physical exercise, good nutrition, workouts, adequate rest are most of what is required to maintain good health and great wellbeing. Whether you are an athlete or you just prefer to maintain your physical structure and health, you have to find a way of fulfilling these requirements often.

There are several ways that you can exercise or workout. You probably will have a daily routine that works for you. In doing this, you need accessories that will aid you in your endeavor. One of these accessories for a workout is the weighted vest.

What are Weighted Vests?

These are adjustable exercise shirts or jackets that have pockets or opening for adding weights. They are designed for fitness training to increase resistance and cardio conditioning. They can carry weights between 0.5 lbs. to 30 lbs. When worn, they rest over the shoulder, chest and the back. These jackets are perfect for bodyweight and cardiovascular training as well as plyometrics.

The weighted vest principle is quite simple – add extra mass to increase the body’s resistance and provide overload. This, therefore, results in requiring more strength, effort and calories to perform a workout.

When you start out using them, you should begin with small amounts of weights In order to train safely and make steady gains. As you become stronger, you can increase this gradually. You can learn more about them here.

How Does it Help?

Changing or spicing up your fitness and exercise routine can be good for you. As your body adjusts to what you have been doing over time, you need to take it a notch higher to push yourself more. This will help to better improve your conditioning as well as strength.

A weighted vest helps you to easily achieve this. This is because you can adjust the weight and increase it as you go along. As you get used to a particular weight range, you just add a little extra to increase the resistance you are trying to overcome.

A weighted vest can be an excellent investment in developing your strength, stamina as well as speed. It also helps in fat loss.

The good thing about these vests is that you can spread the weight evenly around the upper parts of your body. With this, they are not concentrated on a particular section of the body. This helps you to avoid a bad form or posture which can increase the risk of you getting hurt when you train.

The adjustability makes it easy to use the perfect weight that is appropriate per time. Whether you are concentrating on speed, strength, upper body, or lower body fitness, you can achieve any of these using a weighted vest. You can find some benefits of using it in this article https://boxlifemagazine.com/the-benefits-of-training-with-a-weight-vest/.

Choosing a Weighted Vest

When selecting a weighted vest to use for your training, there are some important factors you need to put into consideration. As an aside, before use, you should ensure to consult with your doctor to ascertain that you are in good health to carry out heavy workouts. Also, before usage, consider your fitness level and do not rush into using it. If you feel you are not fit enough, take time to get up to speed by performing little exercises until you get to the level required.

Keep in mind that weighted vests are of two types; full body and shoulder vests. Below are some of the factors you should consider when selecting one.

Material and Quality

The quality of the vest you are considering is important. Generally, sporting equipment are not cheap. You do not want to spend money buying a product that is of low quality and that would give up on you in no time. To ensure you are buying good quality, check the outside material. Ensure that it is resistant to tear and sweat.

It is normal to sweat during workouts. This can cause a buildup of bacteria on the material which can in turn transfer to your opened pore. This is why you need a material that can resist sweat. For the weights, ensure that they are coated to prevent them from rusting.

Fit and Comfortability

it is important to consider how the vest fits your body and how comfortable it is when you wear. If it does not sit well on your body, you won’t be comfortable. Moreover, it would be distracting and will not achieve the purpose of its use. In fact, you will find it hard to focus on your workout. When purchasing, you should try it on if possible. It should fit snugly on your body and you should also be comfortable moving, jumping running and so on while wearing it.

Adjustability

A good weighted vest must be adjustable. This is how to get the most out of it. You should be able to add or remove weights at it is suitable for you. Put into consideration how easily and quickly you are able to add or remove weights from the vest. If it is complicated or takes a while, this can affect your training especially if you are on a timed routine.

Accessories

Another thing to put into consideration is if the jacket allows for adding your workout accessories such as a music player, your phone, etc. This may not be a big deal but it is still something to consider. Added to this, does it come with reflective strips that can be useful if you have to use it at night? All these and other accessories make for an all-round jacket that makes your workout comfortable.

Weight

This is a weighted vest so by itself, it should not be heavy as you need to add other forms of weights. For this reason, buy a moderately lightweight but strong one. It should not be too lightweight because as you grow stronger, it won’t work for you any longer. If it is too light, it won’t be as effective and if it is too heavy, it may cause injury so seek to get the right balance.

Want to know more? You should check out Fitness Brain. You will also find some of the best vests to buy and their reviews there.

Conclusion

Exercise and workouts are after all avenues to daily improve your physicality and fitness; to better yourself, to persevere and also be resilient. Weighted vests simply help you achieve all these by providing resistance that forces you to push yourself.

It is important though that you select one that is appropriate for you. One that fits and makes you comfortable so that you can get the most out of it.

How many times do you visit your bookmaker prior to a match as ask yourself: ‘’How do they just invent these odds?’’ and ‘’How Come the invented odds are almost the same on every betting site I visit?’’ If these questions never crossed your mind before reading this, we assure you that they will, the next time you will visit a betting site. The good news is that loads of data analytics are behind odd making, and the most important thing to look at, is the amount of money that you the punter will make out of the bet being placed.

If we had to give you some sound advice, we would say the obvious winner is not always a winner for you, instead it contributes to valuable odds. To be fair, the task of calculating the right odds is quite challenging yet tantalising when you get the hang of things. All the things that contribute to right odds involve, data, statistics, gut instinct, a good amount of luck, money and above all, experience.

The pool of market odds

The ideal scenario and to have a competitive betting structure, would see the bookie drawing his own odds, and delivering a solid offering, sometimes outsmarting the competition. This is the utopia of gambing sites of course, and due to heavy workload, is not always feasable. In that ideal world, the gambler would have more choices, and more odds of winning big if he or she would choose a specific lucky bookie.

Producing odds is not an easy task, and such practices are only drawn up by some of the biggest giants in the gaming world. But the big boys do just that. Big online bookmakers produce their in house odds, post early and thus the smaller sites use the same data and figures to produce their own odds. With sometimes offering a better edge and hence inviting you to bet at their specific site. We all love the promise of winning more after all.

With the velocity of how information is traded over the internet, nowadays it is kind of a hard job to find sites that offer drastically different odds. Whilst the big companies use data analysts to produce odds, and base their assumptions on actual figures, smaller companies do not employ such departments and personnel. The way they make it work is quite simple : look at the big company odds, adjust to own commission percentages, market and hope players bet at their site.

How bookies make it work, with a personal touch

If you ever wondered what a week in a bookies life looks like, the answer is quite simple: planning and posting odds for the upcoming week’s matches and games. Some advanced bookies that potentially have been around for quite some time, even post their odds on a Monday in the hopes of getting more weekly spread bets. Good choice for sure. Other bookies promote a set of odds that are only launched two days prior to match day. A very calculated risk, and potentially could lead for less bets being placed on the site. Still, make no mistake, some gamblers will indeed wait a couple of days to place their bet, just to scoop that extra 0.05 in winnings.

So, what makes a bookie offer 1.85 as opposed to the 1.80 that the competition is offering? Let’s offer you some data and figures to put you in the picture. If you accept bets for 100 Euros and the odds are set out at 1.85, the amount that you need to pay out is 85,000 Euros. On the other hand, if you have your odds set at 1.80, you have to fork out 5 k less. If you are a new bookmaker in the industry, this difference in revenue means a lot.

What are the basic rules of Odds setting? No rules apply here

Many think that bookies have a set of rules and manuals that facilitate the process of odds making, in reality, there is none. A bookie looks at data, figures, and mostly what the competition is offering. Yet, there are no rules to how one set their own odds.

Look at this another way. How your mother does her lasagna is good, how my mother does her lasagna is also good. So what differentiates the two yummy lasagnas? One might out a spec of cinnamon and the other might put just some nutmeg and the taste would differ completely. Same basic principles are used with odds making, all bookies have the basic ingredients, yet one adds a personal touch to make their product more elevated.

The principle of Raw odds: the formation of everything

The basic foundations that all bookies start off with are called ‘raw odds’. The raw odds are not invented on thin air, alternatively, they are drawn by data engineering software that compares figures and other important statistics. Many elements are taken into consideration when raw odds are drawn, mainly: number of wins and losses that the athlete or team have under their belt, goals and points achieved, if any wins are at home or at an away setting, previous encounters with the said team, and even a set amount of patterns in playing or performance.

Once the bookie receives this indispensable data, that let’s be honest …is the foundation of everything, the data is adjusted whilst taking into consideration even more data. The more data we refer to includes, breaking news about the athlete or team. Did the athlete or team suffer any losses recently, is the dressing room at a good momentum, were there any team notable injuries that could affect the overall team performance? Or maybe was there a rumour in the transfer market that will bring team morale up or down? All of these factors are additional data that the online bookmaker uses to finalise odds and offer them to you and us. And finally, the icing on the cake comes along with the ‘winner mentality’. Let’s give you an example, the Class of 99 from Manchester United had the winner mentality and awarded them a cool treble for that season. Or Ronaldo joining any team he joins, aligning the players around him and gelling a team, that is a winner mentality. Certain players, certain clubs and not everyone else has the winning mentality that help bookies bring you the best odds.

The Commission aka ‘The Vig’

The final thing before launching the odds is to apply commission, and this differs sometimes drastically from one bookie to another, yet is always present in odds. If the bookie world did not have any commission, the betting niche would only offer odds that are balanced and potentially look like 3.00-3.00.3.00. In our current betting world, the most balanced set of odds would look like 2.90-2.90-2.90. The extra 0.10 will be pocketed by the bookmaker, and kept in house. IAgain, to put you in the picture with some figures, if the site accepts bets at 1000 Euros per stake, the bookie would net a total of 3000 Euros, handing out only 2900 Euros and thus keeping a 100 Euros profit for himself. Good profit margin on each bet, just for arranging and posting odds, isn’t it?

If you happen to be a VIP or regarded as a High Roller, some bookies will offer you advance odds before the betting is open to the rest of the public. Again, only esteemed and high end customers have this small privilege. The players invited in, will be offered ‘early odds’, and funnily enough their respective betting strategies are taken into account by bookmakers to draw up different odds. Some odds perform much better than others, that is common knowledge. For example, an upcoming boxing match that features a heavy weight champion like Anthony Joshua, will also do better in betting amounts as opposed to the middle weight section. Bookies look at high roller patterns, and early odds bruins you the odds that we see today, the ones adjusted for all to make a buck or two out of.

The odds that please the masses of gamblers

And finally, the biggest driving force of formulating odds is what the masses are betting on. If a bookmaker launches a set number of odds and these are quite popular, the bookie will use the information to adjust the odds. Only this way can the betting site offer a diffused set of odds, spread out if you will. Imagine the bookie having to pay all, what would remain of the overall business? Securing one’s commission is not a crime, it is just a way to ensure that next week, when you visit your favourite bookmaker, you will find the site operation and ready to welcome you with a new set of odds and match bettings.

Source: https://www.bookmakers.bet/15833/how-odds-are-set/

Bingo has long since been a frontrunner for the attention of gaming lovers – both online and otherwise. Originating as a form of the Italian Lottery back in 1530, Bingo continued to evolve as it found it’s place in 19th century Europe, before making its debut in the United States of America come the early 1900s. In 1929, Edwin S. Lowe discovered the game being played at a carnival, however it was then referred to as “Beano”. Lowe took the game home with him, all the way to New York, and introduced it to all of his friends. It was during one particularly heated game that someone called out “Bingo” by mistake – and the name just seemed to stick.

The art of Bingo calling – that is, announcing which number has been pulled along with a fun nickname or rhyming slang for that digit – is thought to have been invented through the re-importation of the game to the UK, in the 1950s. It’s also worth noting that a lot of these terms came from “Housey Housey”, a version of Bingo that was played by soldiers during the second world war, where they’d come up with these nicknames to make each other laugh. In fact, some of these rhymes are still used today! Now, if all this background information has given you a hankering for the game itself, then why not click here to play Bingo online – or better yet, read on to find out more about the Bingo calls that we know and love today!

First, let’s take a look at some of the military slang that remains in the game, thanks to the aforementioned soldiers!

“Doctor’s Orders – number 9”

This was supposedly put together as the number 9 was a slang term for a laxative pill that was frequently given to the troops, in order to cure a whole host of illnesses. At this time, many doctors believed that to cure something, the body simply needed to be empty – much like when their top treatment used to be leeches!

“Kelly’s Eye – number 1”

This reference is a little more obscure. It’s thought that “Kelly’s eye” comes from a comic strip that was popular amongst the soldiers, in which the main character owns a magic amulet that’s in the shape of a singular eye.

“76 Trombones – number 76”

A lot of the references can be traced back to popular music and television shows of that time. 76 Trombones was a hit song from the musical “The Music Man”.

“77 Sunset Strip – number 77”

Similarly, this Bingo call is thought to be alluding to popular detective show of the same name, that was shown in that era.

Other notable Bingo calls are as follows:

“Boris’ Den – number 10”

This call is adapted depending on who is the current resident of Number Ten, with the intention of both rhyming with the number and referring to Number Ten Downing Street, the London address of the UK Prime Minister.

“Dancing Queen – number 17”

As well as being a fun little rhyme, this Bingo call draws on the famous Abba song Dancing Queen, which contains the lyrics “you are the Dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen” – an all-time classic!
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Now, if that doesn’t make you want to get a piece of the Bingo action yourself, we don’t know what will!

Since the word “gamble” was first created, it has taken on a lot of different forms. However, sports gambling has been a standing institution for centuries, dating back to even before the first chariot races were held. Things have certainly changed since then and, since professional football first came on the scene, it has become one of the hottest attractions for sports gamblers. Setting up NFL odds is a tricky business, and even sometimes miss their mark completely. However, sports gambling is still a great form of entertainment – and even business for some people, and the sports industry is full of interesting bets that have kept the excitement at its best.

Strange Sports Betting Odds Attract Attention

All major sports have witnessed some incredible odds over the years, and the NFL has had its share. A Super Bowl bet had sports gamblers scratching their heads when, in 1969, Super Bowl III found the New York Jets ready to face the then-Baltimore Colts. That isn’t too much of a surprise, but the fact that the Jets were 18-point underdogs drew a lot of attention. When they went on to win 16-7, pro football, and sports gambling, changed forever.

In another Super Bowl-tied bet from the 1999-2000 season, the then-St. Louis Rams were 300-to-1 to win Super Bowl XXXIV during the preseason. This is because they had a horrible showing during the run up to the regular season, and had to deal with the loss of Trent Green, the free agent quarterback who suffered an injury that would keep him out of the lineup for the entire year. However, Rams fans, and possibly a few errant sports gamblers, made out big time, as the Rams went on to win the Super Bowl against the Tennessee Titans that year, 23-16.

The last Super Bowl bet worth mentioning was on Super Bowl XLIV, which had the New Orleans Saints facing the Indianapolis Colts. It’s worth noting that the Saints started the season at +2,500 before improving to +170 ahead of the big game. Those odds weren’t long enough to keep Billy Walters away, and his $3.5-million wager resulted in a total payout of $9.45 million. Walters is a well-known sports gambler who ended up behind bars for insider trading, but that’s a tale for another day.

NFL Football Doesn’t Get All The Action

NFL games get a lot of the gambling action, but not all of it. College football has seen its fair share, as well. One lucky gambler from New Jersey a couple years ago created two parlay bets – one covering eight teams and the other covering ten – of mostly bets on NCAAF games, with the exception of two NBA games in the 10-team parlay. Once the choices were made, the gambler put up the $1,200 corresponding to the wager and waited – and waited some more. By the time the games had completed, he was looking at two winning slips worth a total of $300,000.

Football doesn’t capture all the betting glory, though. Baseball and basketball have a piece of the action, as well. It was in 2011 when the St. Louis Cardinals were 4 and a half games behind the Atlanta Braves in the MLB season, looking for a wild card berth with 15 games left to go. They were listed at 999-1 by sportsbooks to win the World Series and, fortunately for some sports gamblers, they went on to beat the Texas Rangers. Anyone who took a chance with those odds was laughing all the way to the bank.

In what will go down as one of the worst beats for a sportsbook in the history of organized sports wagers, a 60-year-old man out of the UK decided to place a small parlay bet on horse races in 2008. The bet was so small that it barely registered on the ticket. 50 pence is about $0.80, and that’s what he was willing to risk on his eight-horse parlay accumulator. Imagine walking through the door after a day out and telling your spouse that you just scored $1.32 million on an investment of $0.80. That’s exactly what he did, and why he deserves a mention in the annals of sports gambling history.