After the Superbowl, the betting world for sports slows down for the better part of February. There is no more NFL games to bet on and there are only the dedicated gamblers that are betting on your average NBA or NHL game. College Football won’t be back until August and College Basketball doesn’t heat up until the first week in March.

March is when things start to heat up all over the sports world. The largest event that will happen in March is the NCAA college basketball tournament known as “March Madness”. This starts off with Championship Week the first full week in March. The madness begins on Selection Sunday, which is March 11th this year.

After the tournament brackets are set, everyone will be in a mad dash to fill out their brackets for the office pools and contests before the start of tip-off in the first game which will take place the following Thursday (March 15) around Noon ET. Of course, there is the introduction of the “First Round” which consists of four games to play-in to the main tournament. This includes the 4 lowest ranked tournament selections playing in 2 games and the 4 weakest conference champions playing in 2 other games.

March Madness is one of those sporting events that draws a lot of betting, like the Superbowl or the start of the NFL or College football seasons. The closer that we get to the tournament, the more offers that you are likely to see from the sports betting sites.

Other Sports in March

One sporting event that does take place in late February is the Daytona 500 in NASCAR. This is the traditional starting race of the NASCAR season. There are a couple of preliminary events but the Daytona 500 is the event that most racing fans will be betting on. The race begins on Sunday, February 26 at 1:00PM ET. From there, you will find one major race per week all the way up to the Chase for the Cup in September.

Unless you have a favorite team or have a vast knowledge of all of the teams in the league. I would stay away from betting on the NBA this year. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that the people in the know can make a killing on predicting the average NBA matchup based on tired teams playing 4 games in 5 nights or playing back-to-back road games.

All I have to say is that the product looks very watered down for two reasons: Teams do not have enough time to practice and teams are bound to be tired and lay an egg on a given night. There have been too many blowout and bad games for me to try to gamble on the NBA this year.

Here’s a perfect example, the Detroit Pistons were getting blown out by an average of 20 points a game for the majority of the season. Then they inexplicably go on a 4 game winning streak because of a combination tired opponents and good shooting; but then they promptly lose by 20 points at home to Washington, one of the worst teams in the league. That’s just one example of this NBA schedule really messing with players.

MLB also gets started in March with Spring Training. However, there isn’t much betting until the start of opening day which is March 31st this year.

Golf is another sport that is starting to get underway. There is usually one event each weekend, but March is when all of the best players start to get ready for the Masters which is the first Major tournament of the year. The Masters begins this year on Thursday, April 5th and the Final Round will take place Sunday, April 8th.

Horse racing will be in the background during most of March except for when people in England bet on the Cheltenham Festival. The majority of the races in the United States are warm-ups and qualifiers for the Kentucky Derby which will take place in early May.

Finally, let me hit on soccer really quick. The Premier League and the other European football leagues are already in full swing. Many of these teams will be giving up some of their players back for the start of the MLS season in the United States. The MLS season begins on Saturday, March 10. The major events for soccer this year will include the Euro 2012 and the Men’s and Women’s Soccer Medals at the Olympic Games in London.

A lot of people are starting to get excited about news that might effect online gambling in the United States. The Department of Justice has recently stated that the Wire Act only pertains to the betting on sports and not anything else.

The Wire Act is the only Federal Law that was used in reference to illegal gambling online. It was assumed that this law prohibited all online gambling including poker, casino games, bingo and so forth. It appears that this is no longer the case.

It is currently unclear how this will effect the global markets for these legitamte games. Many of the online casinos and poker rooms do not accept players from the United States because they believe that they would be breaking a U.S. federal law. It appears that this is no longer the case.

However, even if there is no longer a federal law stating that online casinos and online poker rooms are illegal, there still may exist state and local laws against online gambling. For instance, the state of Washington has made playing online poker a felony.

What about UIGEA?

The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was created to crack down on online casino and poker sites back in 2006. However, it does not specifically ban gambling activities by name. It only states that the internet gambling be unlawful. Currently, that only applies to Sports Betting.

They did have examples of legal internet gambling in the UIGEA. Specifically, they made Horse Racing and NFL Fantasy Football completely legal. This is why you can bet on the Kentucky Derby from your local track and why you can play Yahoo! Fantasy Football for money.

Some companies left the US market willingly because of UIGEA and some companies like PartyPoker had to pay fines up to $300 million for accepting American Players. What happens to them now? They didn’t break a law, did they?

Other companies stayed in the American market. Originally, nothing was done for a couple of years. This was because the government left it to the banks to police the transactions that were going through. Finally, they started to crack down on these transactions and companies had to commit fraud in order to get the transactions through.

This decision isn’t going to have any effect on the charges against Full Tilt and PokerStars for this reason. The charges that are going to stick are the fraudulent services and products that were used in order to get the American player’s money.

Where do we go from here?

This is going to depend on what happens next. The legitimate online casinos in Europe aren’t going to come back unless there is a law that specifically makes online gambling legal. Therefore, you aren’t likely going to see the big players come back until then.

However, you will probably see more of the smaller companies try to get into the US market. As long as they don’t commit the same fraud that the poker sites did and they don’t offer sports betting, they will have an argument that they aren’t committing any crime.

Of course, everyone hopes that this will lead to the legitimacy of most online gambling games. If that happens, not only will you see Party Poker and the UK online casino giants come back, but you will also see a whole lot of competition from Las Vegas. Up til now, the Las Vegas casinos could never have an online casino, unless they wanted to market to non-US players.

I receive visitors from both sides of the Atlantic, so I want to make sure that both sides are accommodated with this post. There is a big difference between the American version of bingo and the version played over in England. Therefore, I will be providing a couple of sites to check out whether you are from the UK or USA.

You will see both prominent versions of the game of bingo played at most online bingo websites. There will be separate rooms where you can play either game, along with other specialty bingo rooms.

The American version of bingo consists of 75 balls and a 5×5 bingo card. This means you will often hear this referred to as 75 Ball Bingo on online bingo sites. Each vertical row will be filled with 5 of the 15 available numbers. The B row is 1 – 15, I is 16 – 30, N is 31 – 45, G is 46 – 60 and O is 61 – 75.

The object of the game is listen for the caller to retrieve a ball with a letter/number combination like N/32 and you will cover that number on your card if it is there. The way you win is by having any row, column or diagonal of 5 numbers covered.

The English version of Bingo is a little bit different. It consists of 90 balls and a 3×9 bingo ticket. On each ticket, 5 of the 9 spaces in the row will receive a number. 4 of the spaces will remain blank.

The 9 vertical columns is what determines the range of numbers available. The first column can have numbers 1 – 10, the second column is 2 – 20 and so on up to the final column which is 81 – 90.

The object of 90 ball bingo is to cover the 5 numbers in one row in order to win a Line. You can also be the first to cover 2 Lines completely and the Full House is when all of your numbers are covered.

American Bingo Sites

This is going to be in the order in which I like playing at them. The one thing that makes these American Bingo Sites is that you won’t find 90 ball bingo rooms here.

Big Time Bingo

Big Time Bingo offers over 100 different patterns which have to be covered in order to win. These patterns will be in rotation and you will know what needs to be covered before you start.

There are 4 different rooms which offer different stakes for buying bingo cards. The $1 per card room is considered the High Roller Room. There is also a 25¢ Quarter Room, the 10¢ Dime Room and the Free Bingo Room.

Big Time Bingo will give you a $5 bonus for free in order to try playing their bingo games. You will instantly receive the $5 free when you create a login. If you decide to make a deposit, Big Time Bingo will match you with a 200% first deposit bonus!

Cyber Bingo

Cyber Bingo not only offers bingo games, but also other side games, arcade games and casino games as well. This is in addition to offering at least one bingo game every hour!

While you are participating in a bingo game, you can also play chat games at the same time. These games range from Keno and Lotto to Yahtzee and 8 Ball and many more.

The Christmas Bingo rooms are currently the most popular. You will find that most of the Bingo Freerolls take place after 6pm ET and up until 1am.

Cyber Bingo is currently offering a limited time only 500% bonus which will give you between $125 and $500 free when you make your first deposit between $25 and $100. The bonus is only valid for purchasing bingo cards and cannot be used on the side games. The bonus money will be put in a separate account from your real money; if you make a request for a withdrawal, the remaining bonus money will be reset to $0.

UK Bingo Sites

Since I live in the States, I don’t have any personal experience playing at a UK Bingo Hall. Therefore I am only go to make one suggestion and recommend that you visit my friends at BingoBonuses.net to check out the best UK Bingo rooms.

William Hill Bingo

William Hill has many different bingo rooms to try, including several different 90 ball and 75 ball variations, 80 ball bingo and Deal or No Deal Bingo. The top bingo jackpot is at the Money Mountain room and currently top £40,000. On top of that, there are a couple of jackpot slots that are approaching £1,000,000!

There are also monthly specials that come around as the month changes from November to December. All of the Christmas themed games and promotions are coming around. There is also special events involving free and bogof bingo tickets.

For those of you in the UK who would like to try William Hill bingo, you can receive a £25 bonus if you deposit and spend at least £10 on bingo tickets. You can also receive a 250% bonus up to £150.

Preseason for the NFL starts tonight. That means that all of you sports betting nuts can start betting on all type of NFL action! There are 5 games on the schedule tonight and 5 more games for Friday and Saturday. There will also be a Monday Night to end the first week of the preseason.

If you are in the mood to watch some of these preseason games, a couple of these preseason games will be shown nationwide. Tonight at 8:00PM ET, ESPN will be showing the San Diego Chargers at home against the Seattle Seahawks. On Friday night at 8:00PM, Fox will be televising the Kansas City Chiefs at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers; and on Monday night at 8:00PM, the Houston Texans will take on the New York Jets.

If you want to bet on your favorite NFL team, you can do so at Bovada’s sportsbook. If you wanted to bet on tonight’s game between the Seahawks and Chargers, you can choose to bet on either the Point Spread or the Total. San Diego is favored by 3 points while the total for the game is 35 points.

I know betting on preseason games may not be very appealing to you. However if you are going to bet on preseason games, I would suggest that you do so in weeks 1 through 3. The four preseason game mean virtually nothing to the starters on each team.

NFL Player and Team Props

If preseason betting isn’t your thing, maybe you would be interested on an NFL Prop bet. Propitiation bets are bets that will be placed before any action has taken place. Unlike a bet that you would make on a particular game, a prop bet will often not be won or lost for several weeks or months.

As an example, you can bet on one of 31 NFL players to win the 2011 NFL MVP award. Currently the favorite is Aaron Rodgers at 11/2. This means that if you place a $50 bet on Rodgers to win, you will receive $275 if he wins the award at the end of the year. You can also pick the rest of the field (not one of the top 31 players) for 10/1 odds.

You can also choose who you think will be the AP Offensive and Defensive Rookie of the Year. One of the more amusing prop bets offered is whether an NFL Player will test positive for HGH during the 2011 season (Yes is the heavy favorite). A secondary bet is what will be the position that the first player that test positive for HGH play.

As far as NFL Team Prop Bets go, these can be thought of more as the in-game types of bets. The bets shown will be for the preseason games that about to be played. Some prop bets include: Which team will score first in the game? Will the first score be a TD or FG? Will there be a score in the first 7:30 of the game? You can also bet on the over/under of the individual team scoring.

NFL Futures Betting

Futures betting is often one of the most popular bets before the season gets started. You can place a bet now for the current odds that a team will win the 2012 Super Bowl. The favorites are the New England Patriots at 13/2 followed closely by the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles at 7/1.

Not only can you bet on which team will win the Super Bowl, but also which team will win the AFC and NFC conferences in 2012. This represents which team from each conference will make it to the Super Bowl. Obviously the odds are a little bit more favorable with the Patriots getting 3/1 odds and the Eagles receiving 7/2 odds on winning.

If that wasn’t enough, you can also bet on which team will have the best record in their own division. If your favorite team’s odds aren’t very high for winning the Superbowl, maybe you can reach and bet for them to win their division. Obviously, if you are a fan of the Green Bay Packers, you probably won’t want to bet on the -190 for them to win the NFC North. You won’t win much if they do win and stand to lose more than it is worth if they make the playoffs but don’t win the division (like last year).

There have been a lot of changes in the world of online gambling and it can sometimes be pretty hard to keep up with it all.

The big news is the loss of one of my favorite online casinos, English Harbour, along with all of its sister sites. They will all be closed for business as of August 1st.

This means that Vegas Technology is a casino software without any casinos running on its platform. That’s a shame because they offered some of the best in all types of gambling games.

Online Poker

Of course the hardest hit was online poker as almost all of the poker room except the cake poker network have excluded deposits from U.S. poker players. This does seem like it is setting up for the legalization of online poker by punishing all of the offenders who ignored the law previously.

Many of the poker room websites have been taken over by a seized by ICE – Department of Justice webpage. This didn’t stop these poker sites as they will simply acquire a URL from a country that the United States can’t seize, like .eu .ag and etc.

Online Sports Betting

But, not only poker was affected as online sportsbooks had to drastically change their business models for fears of reprisal. Many of these sites will no longer accept new customers; but behind the scenes, they are accepting deposits from trusted customers.

Sports gambling is the most closely associated with illegal betting because it is mentioned in the original law that forbade placing bets over state lines. This is what the U.S. tried to lump the internet gambling under to try to make it illegal before UIGEA. Because of that, online sports betting will probably be the last betting activity to become fully legal in the States.

Online Casinos

Many online casinos decided to keep a low profile by excluding U.S. customers from playing, at least temporarily. Some, like BetUS, decided to tell people that they are no longer accepting deposits only to lie and continue to accept deposits while cutting out all advertising. Casinos like this are shady at best. If they can’t afford to pay their advertisers anymore, what makes you think that they won’t pull a Full Tilt Poker and start to not pay players.

Other online casinos decided to stop accepting US customers and have held true to their promises. These include all online casinos that use Microgaming, Cryptologic and Playtech casino software. Not accepting real money bets from U.S. players is part of the software provider’s agreement with the online casino. Other software providers have not cared as much and turn a blind eye to what the online casino does with the software.

Some online casinos have dropped out of the US market because of their processor for accepting deposits was no longer available. This was the case for almost all of the Rival casinos that dropped out back in April. If you would like to see a current list of casinos, click here for online gambling sites.

I think that the legalization of online casinos in the U.S. is closer than you think. That is, of course, unless you think it will happen within the next two years. The government is consumed by other issues and a looming presidential race before any talk of legalizing anything will occur.

The reason that I think it will happen is because Las Vegas is hurting, mainly because of the extended recession. The casinos on the strip have never been able to access any of the billions of dollars that is currently going to overseas countries. If they were allowed to enter the online casino market, it would be a game changer. Las Vegas would have millions of more dollars coming in and there would be a mad rush on casino customers. Not only that, but all of the shady online casinos would instantly disappear because they won’t be able to match a quality casino at any level.