Reality has set in with the Hornets while the defending champions from San Antonio have that ‘winning’ feeling again.

The 2008 NBA playoffs just got interesting as 3/4 of the four second round series wars are now tied at two games apiece. On Tuesday night, the best-of-seven face-off between New Orleans and San Antonio will be breaking the 2-2 deadlock, who ever wins the pivotal Game 5 is anybody’s guess.

You read it people, after shocking the world by winning the first two games of their series with the defending champions Spurs, the New Orleans Hornets found themselves back to square one after losing the next two games in Texas. The Hornets were dragged back to reality in San Antonio and on Tuesday night, they’ll be hoping that reality spares them when this series resumes in New Orleans.

However, when reality has set in, especially when the defending champions themselves, the San Antonio Spurs, were the ones who brought you there, cheating it could be a difficult task. The Spurs defeated the Hornets for two straight games by double-digits, 110-99 in Game 3 and 100-80 in Game 4, and coming to a pivotal Game 5, these Hornets would need more than just CP3’s playground antics to pull off the huge win.

Hell, the Spurs, probably irritated after Chris Paul made them…

A few years ago, this fight would’ve been something to watch. This Saturday, it’s just probably going to be a fight between two has-beens.

Yep, unfortunately for their fans, Roy Jones Jr. and Felix ‘’Tito'’ Trinidad are nothing more but a thing of the past. They are nowhere near the form that made their names famous in boxing circles. For what it’s worth, both Jones and Trinidad are still future Hall of Famers and nobody can take that away from them. Probably.

STILL, the light heavyweight main event bout at Madison Square Garden between Roy Jones Jr. and Felix Trinidad still has the green light (imagine that…) and we will talk about it as if it was five years ago.

Let’s start with the guy once dubbed as the ‘’best pound-for-pound fighter in the world,'’ Roy Jones Jr. After all these years, Jones still refers to himself in the third person. Like me sometimes.

‘’I'm going to take Tito down in four. He must go in fo’,'’ Roy Jones Jr. said, referring to himself as ‘’Superman'’ and telling the media that they can expect Felix Trinidad to go down in the fourth round.

At the other end, Felix Trinidad does Jones one better. Trinidad claims Jones will go down as early as round two, that’s despite the fact that he had more retirements than actual fights during the last five and a half years. How in the heck does he expect to beat Jones now?

Hell, Felix Trinidad will come to…

Racism is a BIG WORD, particularly big in the world of professional sports leagues such as NBA Basketball. Racism is different from favoritism toward celebrity athletes.

Ww c’mon! did you ever notice how some players draw fouls every time they move and how the top players get away with a lot of taps, touches, bumps and grinds? But I digress. The New York Times reported about how a recent study found NBA officiating by white referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players. Bias and prejudice against black NBA players, now that is racism!

But wait, a study by a University of Pennsylvania assistant professor and Cornell graduate student also found that black NBA officials called fouls more frequently against white players than black, but noted that that tendency was not as pronounced.

Bias and prejudice against white NBA players by black referees, even though not on the same level as the white refs, is still racism!

Justin Wolfers, an assistant professor of business and public policy at Penn’s Wharton School, and Joseph Price, a Cornell graduate student in economics, said the difference in calls “is large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the racial composition of the refereeing crew.”

The study, conducted over a 13-season span through 2004, found that the racial makeup of a three-man officiating crew affected calls by up to 4 percent.

With the 2007 Super Bowl XLI game still a good couple of hours before coin toss. Calvin Ayre’s BODOG already realeased the odds to win the 2008 Super Bowl XLII. What a treat for truly adventurous sports bettors, eh?

With Marty Schottenheimer still on board for coaching the Chargers 2007 season, bookmakers are counting that MVP Running Back La Dainian Tomlinson and Quarter Back Philip Rivers (who will miss NFL’s PRO BOWL) will charge through the 2007 NFL football season and hoist the Vince Lombardy trophy on Feb. 3, 2008 in Glendale, Arizona

Odds to win 008 Super Bowl XLII
San Diego Chargers 6/1
Indianapolis Colts 7/1
Chicago Bears 8/1
New England Patriots 10/1

But don’t ya worry about Super Bowl XLII yet, there’s still time to place a bet on the 2007 Super Bowl between the Chicago Bears and Indianapolis Colts. Inside, we have a list of Super Bowl propositions that are not only fun, but can also be profitable to wager on.

Pinnacle is an offshore sportsbook regarded and preferred by professional sports bettors for its discounted juice (vig or vigorish) and competitive sports betting odds on football, basketball and baseball games – not to mention VERY HIGH betting limits – they will take a $5k bet without batting an eyelash.

However, this morning – the professional gamblers received a shocker when they were greeted with a SHOCKING message on the site.

Player balances are not a concern though. Aside from Pinnacle ready to return balances, other Internet sportsbooks have already lined up offers to abandoned sports bettors - dangling bonus incentives as high as 25%!

The question on industry pundits minds and mouths are WHY and WHO’S NEXT? Which US-facing sportsbook will bow out of the US market next? Will BODOG kowtow to the pressure? And where the hell is Calvin Ayre?

With Party Poker shutting American poker players in the USA out of its systems, same with other poker rooms like Pacific Poker, Paradise Poker, Poker Room and a few more - the question is where can Americans play online poker today - right now?

Good news! It’s business as usual at BODOG’s Online Poker Room - yes, that poker room home of Jamie Gold - the 2006 World Series Of Poker (WSOP) Champion. BODOG has poker games tournaments for all types of poker players, from Texas Holdem to Omaha to STUD poker games - from sit n go’s to guaranteed $100K poker tournaments, to World Poker Tour (WPT) 2006 qualifier tournaments.

BetWWTS stopped taking US bets and servicing customers in the USA since Friday Oct. 13 when Pres BUSH signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act - their parent company Betcorp PLC like all other publicly traded online companies scrambled in the last minute to get BETWWTS into private hands - the strategy taken by Sportingbet […]

So it’s been awfully quiet from the CALVIN AYRE show that it felt weird? With Bush signing the new Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement (UIGE) legislation in regards to online gaming - backdoored via the Safe Port bill early Friday the 13th, the AYRE camp wants to assure you that - contrary to the other […]

Poor shareholders on UK based Leisure and Gaming, their top performing and top earning properties (THEIR MISERY based on the new UIGEA) have been taken away from them, for $1! If Sportingbet’s US facing business was sold for a dollar - why should Alistair pay more than a dollar to get his brands back? Back […]

The Daily Racing Form (DRF) - bible of America’s thoroughbred horse racing - web site has dropped its offshore racebook sponsors just this week. Prior, each and every page of the DRF.com web site - from the home page to the horse racing results to the horse racing entries and horse racing data pages were FULL of Sportsbook dot com banners - NIKKI COX’s innocent smile all over the DRF site.

This is a major score for onshore pari-mutuel horse betting sites like YOUBET, BRISBET and TVGNETWORK - all of which are licensed by the states to offer Intestate horse betting via the Internet. Yall should buy YOUBET’s stock right now coz I bet ya their Breeders Cup 2006 horse bettiing handle will be OVER THE ROOF, and for 2007 expect their 2007 Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes betting turnover to break records.

Even track operators that offer Internet betting are going to benefit, from companies like Woodbine Entertainment and Magna Entertainment to Fairgrounds in Louisiana - these companies will not be facing the stiff competition for new customers from offshore racebooks. Offshore racebooks offer the horse bettors a lot value for their horse betting money - from bonus on their deposits to rebates/cash back on their total horse betting turnover.

To illustrate the value for money betting with offshore racebooks…