June of 1979 seems along time ago as almost two-thirds of my life has taken place since then. As someone who was starting college later that fall in New York with a growing passion for horse racing and having an Aunt and an Uncle with varying degrees of interest in the sport, I went out to the Big Apple for Spectacular Bid's quest to follow in the footsteps of Seattle Slew and Affirmed, which would have made it three straight years with a Triple Crown winner.

Dave Gutfreund longs for the days of playing Betfair and London and hopes it will become legal stateside in the not too distant future.

Dave blogs about playing Betfair back in England and how too much of a good thing can come back to bite you.

Exchange Wagering 101 dives into what it means to "lay" a horse and why it's more difficult than it sounds.

So, what is so great about exchange wagering ? Well, let me tell you a few things in this brief introduction to exchange wagering. First of all, whenever a 'trade' on a betting exchange is made, just like in the stock market, there is a buyer and a seller which will be referred to here as a backer and a layer. The backer is betting on a horse to win and the layer is betting on a horse to lose. A trade is made when a backer and layer 'match' prices on the exchange and the price agreed upon at the time of the trade is then locked in. What this does is give players so many more options getting involved in a race. One can back and lay the same horse while perhaps locking up a profit if backing the horse at a higher price than laying the horse. Sometimes, you can lay a horse on the exchange at a lower price than a horse will go off in the pari-mutuel market and one can use that as a hedge as well. For many years, I have often heard at the track or at an OTB regarding a shor