Bookmaker

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.

The first bookmaker, Harry Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795,[1] although similar activities had existed in other forms earlier in the eighteenth century.

The introduction of special excursion trains meant that all classes of society could attend the new racecourses opening across the country.

[5] Bookmakers in many countries focus on accepting bets on professional sports, especially horse racing and association football or Indian Premier League cricket.

Bookmakers do not generally attempt to make money from the bets themselves but rather by acting as market makers and profiting from the event regardless of the outcome.

In 1961, Harold Macmillan's Conservative government legalised betting shops, with tough measures enacted to ensure that bookmakers remained honest.

[7] This number has reduced further to 6,219 as of March 2022,[8] largely as a result of Covid-19 and the forced closure of shops on the UK high street.

In the UK, on-track bookies still mark up the odds on boards beside the racecourse and use tic-tac or mobile telephones to communicate the odds between their staff and to other bookies, but, with the modernisation of United Kingdom bookmaking laws, online and high street gambling are at an all-time high.

Many of the bookmakers are sponsoring some of the major football teams in the major European football leagues,[13] although Werder Bremen are currently fighting the German courts for the freedom to continue featuring bookmaker Bwin on their shirts, as Germany and France take action against online gamers.

[15] Attempts to restrict operators of foreign gambling websites from accessing their domestic market resulted in a 2007 ruling against the US government by the World Trade Organization.

This has led to insecurity from some TABs in Australia, state-run betting agencies that attempted to deny Betfair an Australian licence by running unfavourable ads in the media regarding the company.

The Australian Communication and Media Authority (ACMA) is the regulatory body responsible for all supervising online gambling activities.

Most televised sports in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe are now sponsored wholly or partly by Internet and high street bookmakers, with sometimes several bookmakers and online casinos being displayed on players' shirts, advertising hoardings, stadium signs and competition event titles.