All's Super at Freddy's Online Betting Parlor
While you are watching Sunday's Super Bowl, Freddy
Harris will be in sunny San Jose,
Costa Rica, counting up the
gold rolling in from U.S. gamblers.
It's his biggest payday of the year. Harris is
pegging it at $5 million.
The New York-born (and bred) Harris also pegs
himself as "a large gambler" as the chief oddsmaker
and general manager of YouWager.com. His site is one
of roughly 500 online gambling sites in the world --
all headquartered offshore and beyond the reach of
laws in the
United States where sports
wagering is illegal outside of Nevada.
"There's a $100 billion bet every year and only one
percent of that is bet in Las Vegas," Harris told internetnews.com.
"Where do you think the rest is being wagered?"

According to Harris, YouWager rakes in about $500
million a year in sports bets, mostly from
U.S. bettors. YouWager also offers an
online casino and poker room. The site has 27,000
registered users.
Harris sets the odds (known in the business as
"props," short for propositions) for just about
everything that moves in sports, professional,
collegiate or otherwise: football, basketball,
baseball, golf, tennis, horse racing, hockey and
soccer.
Not interested in sports? Freddy's got other props:
will Bird Flu will infect humans in the
United States
before April 6? Will U.S. BlackBerry service be shut
off in the next 90 days? Will Nick Lachey receive
half of Jessica Simpson's $40 million?
But nothing beats the Super Bowl, America's annual orgy of football,
advertising and, of course, betting.
"Americans love to bet," Harris said.
And has Freddy got some Super Bowl props for you. In
fact, he claims, he has 100 different ways to bet
the big game from who wins the coin toss to whether
the total points scored in the game will exceed the
distance of the longest field goal.
Will a player be ejected from Super Bowl XL? Will
the shortest touchdown scored in the game be over or
under 1.5 yards? Will Big Ben Roethlisberger's first
pass of the game be complete, incomplete or an
interception? Will both teams have the lead in the
first half?
Freddy's got the odds on all those and plenty more
exotic gambling plays.

Still too mundane for gambling tastes? Youwager
offers play-by-play wagering (PxP) for the "player
that needs more action." In PxP play, online bettors
wager on the type and outcome of every single snap
of the game.
"It's not a regular NFL Sunday and people want a lot
of action," Harris said.
Harris moved from New York to Costa Rica,
which he describe as "undeveloped but not a Third
World country," 11 years ago, just about the time U.S. authorities
were cracking down on sports wagering sites located
within its borders.
The Department of Justice contends existing laws
make all Internet gambling illegal for Americans.
The 1961 Wire Wager Act specifically prohibits the
use of telephone lines for the purpose of placing a
sporting bet. Since the Internet uses telephone
lines, courts have ruled the Wire Act also covers
Web sports wagering.
Harris insists he and YouWager are doing nothing
illegal, noting the site is properly licensed in
Costa Rica.
"We advertise in the
U.S., but the site sign-up is here.
All money is sent through locations outside the U.S.," he said.
"We don't collect in the United States. We don't believe we
are breaking any U.S. laws."
Odds are, Freddy's got some props on that too.
