Place your bets

With gambling establishments moving online to try yet more ways to win the shirts off our backs, Computeractive decided to look into the practicalities of making a wager over the web.

Is it time to bid farewell to the stubby pencils, crumpled betting slips and multiscreen mayhem of the traditional bookmaker?

Under starter's orders

Most online betting sites work in the same way as their High Street brethren. Using a credit or debit card, you deposit money into an account - a prerequisite - and then bet it all away on the 2.15 at Doncaster.

Of course, like the High Street shops, you have to be over 18 to gamble and any success isn't guaranteed.

As a safeguard, you can only gamble up to a certain limit, although adding a fresh deposit with a few clicks is easier than running down the High Street trying to find a cash machine and then running back to the bookie.

Finding the opportunity to place a bet at any time of the day or night, from the comfort of your home, can be a liberating experience. But to an ingrained gambler, the chance to feed this addiction can present numerous dangers.

Having said that, just because Tesco.com delivers alcohol at 8am on the assumption that it's paid for within licensing hours the previous day, doesn't mean we have to drink it at breakfast.

A sporting chance

Sports betting is by the far the most common offering, with everything from dogs, horses, athletics and Australian Rules football available, to name but a few.

You can bet on the first horse past the post, the top goalscorer in a game, or which Premier League manager will be sacked next. Failing that, if you can get your head around the concept, you could even try your hand at spread betting and gamble on the number of runs a cricket side scores above or below a certain level.

All the usual permutations of permissible bets are to be found online, and it's fairly straightforward working out what's what on a website, with many offering a help page as your guide.

Regardless of the complexity of the bet, the smart punter thoroughly researches an event and its participants before placing a stake - and there's plenty of help on the internet.

Arguably, the best of all is Sporting Life www.sportinglife.com, the online version of the punters' bible and a superb source of in-depth material pitched at both the serious sports fan and the Derby Day dabbler.

In the Betting Zone area, you'll find a direct link to its sister site, Totalbet www.totalbet.com. Both companies are run by David Annat, who kick-started online betting in the UK back in 1998. He provides the information in one hand and will happily take your stake money with the other.

Against all odds

One site's 7/2 frontrunner may be only 3/1 at another site. That slight difference makes for a better return on your money and so regular punters will do well to open several accounts and chase the best odds.

This, of course, is more convenient than running between William Hill, Ladbrokes and Coral shops on the High Street: simply compare the odds across a range of online bookmakers back at Sporting Life or Oddschecker www.oddschecker.com and put your money where it stands the best chance of making more.

Damien Kriteman, odds compiler at Blue Square www.bluesq.com, explains who decides the starting prices.

"The first thing you need is an expert in the field, someone who understands a particular sport. The second thing is an understanding of betting. Any given price is ultimately a judgment based both on your knowledge of the sport and the mathematical aspect of setting odds.

"What you do is estimate the percentage chances of, say, a horse winning a race and equate that with a price. Once you're confident, you take it to the market to see what happens. If there's a sudden rush, perhaps you've under or over valued it, you'd revise the odds," explains Kriteman.

He adds: "All bets form part of a larger picture. If there are 15 runners in a race, there may well be two or three horses that will lose the bookmaker money. But so long as the other 12 or 13 make you money, that's just fine."

Light relief

Several sites also offer a range of "special" bets where you can punt on celebrity shenanigans, the fate of politicians and even soap opera plotlines.

"Big Brother last year was phenomenal," continues Kriteman. "It took betting into a different domain.

"Everyone watched it, everyone had an opinion, and when you feel strongly about something, you're often inclined to back your hunch," he says.

"Financial betting has also become extremely popular," Kriteman continues. "In fact, it's even possible to hedge your bets against yourself by betting that your shares will fall below a certain level on any given day.

"We also experimented with hamster drag racing in the Spring - broadcast live on the web - and this proved a big hit. But how do you assess the form of a hamster? We tried our best during the heats but the final was won by a rank outsider."

Some sites even invite you to suggest your own bets. We tried getting odds on the casualty count when the Mir Space Station fell to Earth, but were rejected on the grounds that death and destruction were unfit subjects for a wager (fortuitously for all concerned, as it turned out).

So we settled for a 500/1 small punt with Paddy Power www.paddypower.com on Graham Norton becoming the next James Bond - a long shot, admittedly - and totally covered our backs at SportingOdds www.sportingodds.co.uk with a 1/5 cast-iron certainty that there will be a hosepipe ban somewhere, sometime this summer.

Twist and shout

If it's old-fashioned James Bond casinos that take your fancy, there are plenty of sites that offer roulette, blackjack and poker - and what a decidedly odd experience it is.

It's certainly helpful having unlimited time to consider the pros and cons of twisting on 16 when the dealer's sitting on an ace, and a background soundtrack of clinking chips, spinning wheels and the occasional pop of champagne corks adds to the illusion.

But losing is somehow less painful when you're not required to hand over the actual folding stuff, nor is winning quite such a buzz, for that matter. It's all just a little remote (until you check your credit card statement, at which point it all becomes very real).

Your first reaction may well be that the odds are stacked against you and indeed you would be right, but only to the same degree that they are in a real casino. The "house" always has a built-in advantage, and software casino games (at least reputable ones) precisely replicate randomness, although you never do know for certain.

Despite the claims of dubious promoters flogging their worthless wares in newsgroups, you can't beat or even buck the system with a software program. But what you can do is come home from the pub at midnight after a running streak on a fruit machine and blow the remains of your wage packet on the spin of a wheel or throw of the dice. This is not recommended.

Try Ladbrokes Casino www.ladbrokescasino.com, a downloadable program with 35 games that proves immediately compelling, despite a dreadful design that takes over your entire Desktop.

Alternatively, the new Flash version runs in a resizeable window, but slowly.

Also check out the Spin Room from Victor Chandler www.thespinroom.com. In both cases, you can play for fun before you play for real. That is recommended.

Unlicensed to bill

But is all this unfettered gambling actually legal? Are we adequately covered in the case of a dispute? Also, how are we to tell which sites are run as legitimate businesses and which are mere fronts for hustlers and cheats?

Jason Austin of Garretts www.glegal.com, one of the top 25 law firms in the UK, clarifies the position.

"There is no UK legislation specifically governing internet betting, gaming or lotteries. Essentially, we're stuck trying to work with legislation that came into force 30-35 years ago, before the internet was around," he says.

"Certain forward-looking countries have introduced internet-specific laws, so here you find properly regulated services run by regulated companies.

"But there is no internet gaming licence as such in the UK. This means that the legal position online is exactly the same as offline: accepting a bet via email or the web is exactly the same as taking it by telephone or post, so you have the same right of redress if an internet-licensed bookmaker refuses to honour a winning slip placed via the web, as you would if a high-street bookmaker refused to pay up."

On casino-style sites, however, Mr Austin explains that the current position is clear, if a little concerning: "The law requires that casino gaming can only take place within licensed premises in the UK - you have to be there in person to play - so it's simply illegal to set up and run an online casino in this country."

That explains why Ladbrokes' Casino is located in Gibraltar. So are we within our rights to use it?

"There's no UK law prohibiting gambling anywhere and anyhow with a computer," continues Mr Austin. "But if the company you're dealing with is not governed by UK regulations, then there is inevitably an element of risk."

In practical terms this means that you shouldn't play Russian Roulette with an operation based in a Moldovian backwater. You may well beat the dealer, but who is to say that the site will cough up - and who's going to fight your corner if it doesn't? So, don't count your chips until they're cashed.

Finally, what if Junior logs on with your credit card and blows a few quid on some no-hoper in the 2:30 at Chepstow? Could you sue the betting site for not taking due care to establish your true identity before taking your money?

Mr Austin again believes you're on unsure ground. "Legally speaking, that's uncertain. You would probably have to establish fraudulent use of your credit card to make a successful claim, but there are many such examples where it's going to take case law to establish the boundaries."

With the growing popularity of online gambling, that may not be far off.

Meanwhile, the Gambling Review Body www.gamblingreview.gov.uk is compiling a report for the Home Office with a view to clearing the way for internet legislation, but as yet there's no confirmed date for its publication or, indeed, action. All of this boils down to a clear case of punter beware.

Going for broke

The main attraction of internet gambling, aside from it being a convenient way to place a bet, used to be that it was tax-free because the companies involved set up an offshore division. That particular playing field was levelled at the last budget.

Now you'll find that betting sites will attempt to lure you in with promises of "free money", invariably in the shape of a one-off single bet or by doubling your first stake. That's all well and good, but it's usually gone in the blink of an eye.

More important considerations by far, we suggest, are how easy a site is to use, how good its Help files are (just what is a tricast accumulator and why would you want one?) and of course, its proffered odds on any given event.

Rich man, poor man

There are two distinct types of online bookmakers: long-standing companies such as Ladbrokes and Paddy Power that bring their track records and experience to the web, and internet-only firms such as Blue Square, Totalbet and SportingOdds. After all, it's not often that a bookie goes bust, but we reiterate once more that it's much, much safer to stick with names you know than to give your credit card details to some far-flung and quite possibly spurious site.

Bear in mind, too, that claiming your winnings is seldom as simple as placing a bet. A money transfer from the site's holding account to your bank account can take up to seven working days, if you're lucky (funny that, as it takes approximately seven working seconds for a site to take your cash), so it's hardly worth the bother of setting up an account for a one-off wager.

With this in mind, we leave you with a quote from Martin Amis in Experience: "After two or three years of near-daily patronage, I had stopped going to betting shops. I stopped when I suddenly noticed that betting shops were populated not by rich people getting richer but, rather, by poor people getting poorer."

RAISING THE STAKES

If beating the bookie doesn't appeal, you might consider the person-to-person variation offered by Flutter www.flutter.com.

Here you bet directly against fellow punters. Flutter merely facilitates the contact, guarantees payment and rakes in 5 per cent commission on all winning bets (losers pay nothing). You can also lay your own bets and set your own odds on pre-determined subjects and events.

While there's no guarantee that anybody will take you up on your offer, an attractive proposition is bound to attract a crowd - and probably lose you money.

There's also some scope for inside information: any employee of The Sun newspaper would have the opportunity to check out the following day's "stunner" well in advance, so you'd be a fool to bet on her hair colour. We did, of course, and lost.

Unfortunately, Flutter suffers from a confusing design and it's not quite the bet-on-anything place you might expect. We found it particularly irksome that the player offering the odds controls how much you can stake: that irresistible 10/1 proposition isn't quite so appealing when you can only risk a quid.

An intriguing idea, certainly, but not the best place for a quick, simple bet on a nag or a dog.

We were amused to find odds available on whether Flutter itself would still be trading in August, but nobody would take our money.

PC-FREE FLUTTERS

In partnership with software company Covigo www.covigo.com, Flutter has been experimenting with a Wap version of its website. You can already view available bets on a suitably enabled mobile phone, but the next step is real-time wireless gambling.

Picture the scene: you're sitting in the stand of a football ground and notice the opposition's star keeper sprain his wrist during the pre-match warm-up. Time to whip out the mobile and indulge in a few smart flutters.

One day, perhaps, all sites will offer on-the-hoof betting. For now, you'll find them staking out territory on interactive digital television - an area that is predicted to expand in the near future.

Surrey Sports is available through Sky Digital's teletext service, Paddy Power is on NTL, and Blue Square claims to have accounted for some 60 per cent of all financial transactions on Open last year. We'll wager that placing a bet is only going to get easier.

JARGON BUSTER

Email Short for electronic mail, a system of sending notes and memos between computers via the internet.

Online Being connected to the internet.

Newsgroup Discussion areas on the internet, where you can post a message and read replies from other people, like an office noticeboard.

Wap Wireless Application Protocol. A specification for transmitting data, particularly to mobile phones and handheld computers. It allows you to access information services and some specially-formatted websites easily from the screen of a mobile device.

Web Also known as the world wide web. A collection of online documents housed on server computers around the world, it forms the most visible and easily accessible part of the internet. These are accessed via a web browser.

Website A linked group of one or more web pages, normally dealing with a particular subject or by a single author. Each page or site has its own distinctive URL or "address", usually prefixed by the letters www.