Christmas Presents for Sports Bettors
December 25 is quickly approaching and if anybody on your Christmas list is a sports bettor, there are several items out there that would make excellent gifts. We'll look at some of those in this article.Books
Books are a decent gift for any sports bettor. They're both fairly inexpensive and can be entertaining or imformative, depending if you're looking at fiction or non-fiction. Occasionally you'll get lucky and find one that is both.There aren't many fiction books that deal with sports betting, but How to Rig the NCAA Basketball Championship For Fun and Profit by James Wolfe is a solid one that is entertaining and informative.
The book is about a college basketball referee who decides that there is plenty of money to made by rigging the outcome of a few selected games and culminates his master plan with the championship game. There are plenty of twists and interesting characters along the way.
Among non-fiction books, an excellent choice for the basketball bettor would be Gaming the Game by Sean Patrick Griffin. It's a fascinating look at the entire Tim Donaghy scandal that encompasses not only the disgraced NBA official, but also those who had access to Donaghy's wagers and how they used the information.
The book also takes a detailed look at the illegal betting scene in the mob-controlled Philadelphia area, where many sports bettors, including myself, got their start. Those who have been betting for any length of time will no doubt love hearing about the "good old days" and how the sports betting industry has changed over the years.
I'm roughly 80-percent of the way through the book and would have no problem highly recommending it to anybody with an interest in sports betting.
A highly entertaining book about bettors and betting is Michael Konik's The Man With the $100,000 Breasts, the title coming from a dare of a man getting rather large breast implants and keeping them for a year.
Konik, author of another great sports betting book, Smart Money, is an entertaining writer and his non-gambling books are also good reads.
There is a definite shortage of new books on sports betting that inform people how to become better gamblers, but King Yao's Weighing the Odds in Sports Betting is one of the better ones to come over the past few years.
Software
Buying something that will make a person a better sports gambler is a great idea and one way to do that is with the Stat Attack line of handicapping software. Unlike many programs that will spit out a prediction, the Stat Attack programs let bettors look to see how a team, or teams, have done in certain situations in the past and decide if history is likely to repeat itself.While Stat Attack markets programs for college and pro football, baseball and college and pro basketball, my suggestion would be to go for the Stat Attack NBA 2011-12 program, as the new NBA season will start on Christmas Day, although you can't go wrong with any of the company's products.
Sports Services
For those willing to spend a bit more, a subscription to Edward Goldren's Right Angle Sports or Mark Franco's Franco Sports are investments that will likely pay for themselves many times over.Unlike the books or software programs, a sports service simply tells bettors who to wager on. Golden specializes in both college football and college basketball, while Franco, a Las Vegas-based professional bettor, covers all sports.
Both are up-front, honest individuals, who have withstood the test of time.
Holiday shopping can be a chore, but thanks to the Internet you can purchase any of these items and they'll be ready to give in no time. Even without a book reader like Kindle, you can still get books delivered within a day or two, so there's still plenty of time to pick up something for your favorite sports bettor.
