Major Sporting Events

For any sports betting fan, major events, the ones that come up once a year or once every few years, present unique opportunities to freshen up their wagering rutines. Sportsbooks take advantage of these events, offering special betting promotions and bonuses, along with an almost litless variety of prop bets and betting lines.

Major events all over the world

March Madness

March Madness is a single elimination tournament held each spring featuring 65 college basketball teams in the United States. This tournament, organized by the NCAA, was first developed by the National Association of Basketball Coaches in 1939. The NCAA took over the tournament the following season. The tournament takes place over three weeks at sites across the United States, and the national semifinals (the Final Four) have become one of the nation's most prominent sporting events.

World Cup Soccer

The next Soccer World Cup will take place in South Africa this year. As in all recent editions of this world soccer championship, the 2010 FIFA World Cup will see the top 32 national teams in the world battle it out for the title of World Champion.

Super Bowl

Super Bowl is the name given to the championship game of the NFL, the National Football League. It was first played on January 15th, 1967 as part of a merger agreement between the NFL and its then-rival league, the American Football League (AFL).

The day on which the Super Bowl is played, Super Bowl Sunday, is now considered a de facto American national holiday. It is one of the largest days for food consumption in the US, coming second only to Thanksgiving Day.

Tour de France

The Tour de France is perhaps the most important bicycle race in the world. It typically has 21 stages, covering some 3,500 kilometers. The individual times of each stage are totalled to determine the overall winner for the event. The rider with the lowest aggregate time at the end of each day wears a yellow jersey for the next stage. The course changes every year, but it has always finished in Paris.

World Series

The World Series is the annual championship series for the MLB, Major League Baseball, the top baseball association in the US and Canada. The World Series match the two winners of the MLB's two major sections, the National and the American League. The World Series have been played every year since 1903, with the exception of 1904 (boycott) and 1994 (player strike).

Triple Crown

The Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing (Triple Crown) consists of three races for three-year-old Thoroughbred horses. Winning all three of these Thoroughbred horse races is considered the greatest accomplishment of a Thoroughbred racehorse. In recent years, winning a Triple Crown has become a very rare achievement, with most horses specializing on a limited range of distances.

The three races that compose the Triple Crown are:

• Kentucky Derby, run over 1 and 1/4 miles (2.01 km) dirt track at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky.
• Preakness Stakes, run over 1 and 3/16 miles (1.91 km) dirt track at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland.
• Belmont Stakes, run over 1 and 1/2 miles (2.41 km), the longest dirt track in thoroughbred racing, at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York.

No horse has won all three races since Affirmed did it in 1978.