Orlando Area Bookies: Orange County, Central Florida

News flash!  Mickey Mouse likes to bet sports.  You know how we know this?  Mickey and the gang from Disney just entered into a multi-million dollar deal with one of the leading daily fantasy sports sites Draftkings.

For the local bookie, you don’t have all that Mickey Mouse loot, nor do you have the luxury of running a local bookmaking venture from your home or office.  Florida is among the toughest states when it comes to cracking down on bookies.  Nearly all the large size operations have begun utilizing the services of what are called Pay Per Head businesses located offshore in places like Costa Rica.  

This doesn’t mean you can’t find a bookie in just about every neighborhood spread across all of Orange County.  They are easily found in the usual places: sports bars, pool halls and barber shops. 

For the Orlando area bookie, utilizing a Pay Per Head operation eliminates the need for expensive call centers and accounting, along with the dreaded paper betting slips.  These businesses do not, however, engage in money transactions. 

Orlando, with a pretty significant Latin population, has begun to embrace worldwide soccer, something most local bookies know nothing about.  Most of the international Pay Per Heads have folks specializing in soccer matchups as they also cater to clients across the globe.

The real love of those sports fans living in the Orlando area is for College Football and, more specifically, those Florida Gators out of Gainesville, a good two hours away.

Some of the more entrenched in the region support the Miami Dolphins while truly hardcore fans might back the Tampa Bay Bucs.

Sure Jacksonville is around the same distance from Orlando as Gainesville, but if there are Jaguars fans living near Disney, most won’t want to admit it.

- Aaron Goldstein, Gambing911.com