Originally Posted by regnis View Post
While sports betting has been legal in Illinois for a year or two, other than a very brief period you couldn't sign up on-line but instead had to go to a brick and mortar.

Last week, it finally became legal to sign up on-line and the offers are flying.

One offer from Caesars is if you lose your first bet up to $1,100, they will reimburse. Fan Duel has the same for $1,000.

My initial thought is sign up for both and bet opposite sides. Any suggestions or thoughts as to a better approach?

If it were football, I could probably give you some specific recommendations besides that, but given that it's hoop season, that's the percentage thing to do. Just check the following:

1) Pin each place down on the rules regarding pushes. Do they reimburse the free play on a push? If not, you need to make sure each wager is on the half, obviously.

2) Check the rules on buying half points. If you feel like throwing away some money to try to win both, it may be worthwhile, considering how spot on end-of-season hoops algorithms are. But if you do, again refer back to #1 above.

Good luck. I have some friends in Chicago, and the book they use does occasionally have marginally better futures than anywhere else. I'm personally saving my sign-up bonuses for a rainy day.

And FYI, the defending Beat the Host champ finished 50th out of 850 this last week in the final. She was positioned in 16th with three races left, but then a cap horse hit and it was all for naught. She had a shot at back-to-back.