Seriously. No jokes here. If you want to combine your transcendant love of gambling with your just-more-than-lukewarm love of the human race, Wil Wheaton wants you. Um, wants you to play poker for hurricane relief. PokerStars’ Lee Jones, by way of Guinness and Poker:
Hi folks -Many people have contacted us at [...]

· UIC CEO Lim Hock San to chair the Singapore National Council on Problem Gambling. Is it wise to put a guy whose middle name is a synonym for pawning all your shit in charge of problem gamblers? [Channel News Asia]
· Gambling in Germany has begun to boom. If things play out [...]

The UK’s gambling addiction has swelled nearly six-fold in the past
three years, jumping from ?7.6bn waged annually to ?40bn. Once the
domain of shifty fellers with the form guide stuffed in their
overcoats heading into a smoky bookmakers’, gambling has obtained
living room acceptability: every fifth program (channel, sometimes) on cable TV is some kind of Hold ‘Em [...]

Creepy looking Grandpa Munster-like journalist Frank Deford waxes poetic about legendary gambler George E. Smith–or “Pittsburgh Phil” as he was known by his contemporaries– and the 100th anniversary of the Daily Racing Form:
The tendency of most gamblers — at a race track, casino, card table, wherever — is to try and get out of the [...]

7:05 p.m. Tampa Bay Devil Rays (55-78, C. Fossum) at Boston Red Sox (76-54, T. Wakefield) Best Line: BOS -200, TB +195 I always have a hard time distinguishing between Tim Wakefield who leads the Red Sox in wins with 13, and Tim Busfield who led the cast of Thirtysomething in whines. So bear with me here. Anyhow, yes, Wakefield and his silly knuckleball lead the BoSox with 13 wins, but he also leads the BoSox in losses with 10. What that says to me is the seams don’t always stay as still as he’d like. The other quirky pitcher on the hill tonight is Casey Fossum, who continues to use his curveball as a changeup, dropping it down to the moth-fart speed of 45 mph.

PinnacleSports is making things very lucrative for football bettors this year, reducing all sides to -104 instead of -110:
Instead of paying $110 to win $100 on the Patriots versus the Raiders in the NFL season opener, customers only have to lay $104 to win $100 at PinnacleSports.com. Using this model, although a player would stand [...]

Who says hot girls don’t know anything about football? Ugly dudes, that’s who. And Gambling 911 unveils its own version of Peter King in former Indianapolis Colts cheerleader Lisa Perry.

7:05 p.m. Detroit Tigers (62-67, N. Robertson) at Cleveland Indians (74-58, C. Lee) Best Line: CLE -154, DET +149 It’s funny you say "breaking balls," because I was just thinking how Cliff Lee’s breaking ball will have Tigers’ batters unable to get their bats off their shoulders, thus breaking their balls in the process. The crafty lefthanded Lee has won his last five starts, with his last being a 4-hit, 5-K ditty against the pesky Devil Rays. And wait…the legend of Lee’s breaking ball gets better: He has just given up one run in his last two starts . Meanwhile Detroit’s Mike Maroth has given up 10 hits in each of his last two outings, not to mention getting his tits lit against the ChiSox for 8 earned runs before the 4th inning.

Via the cranky cappers at Sedge Court Journal:
Temple (+31) at Arizona State.
I am rolling with the Owl’s on this one. 31 points is a lot to give against a suspect and cocky Arizona State. I say who gives a fuck that Temple just benched 7 players for academics. The starters and benchwarmers are all of [...]

Most inexplicable quote from Bodog owner Calvin Ayre about Bodog’s MTV Video Music Awards’ Miami weekend:

Does that mean Bodog rips off popular music and repackages it as hip hop? Or does it mean that Diddy gives huge online poker bonuses and a couple of extra juice points for sports bets? You decide.