Free online poker is definitely easier to win at than real money games. I get a kick out of people who boast about how good they are because they won over $300,000 pretend dollars online. The action is easier to beat because the play is so loose. Most pots have five or six players still in the hand for the river card, so even the smallest amount of starting-hand selection strategy will give you an advantage over the game.

It’s loose because it doesn’t really matter to the players whether they win or lose. When the game has your money at stake, it takes on a whole new attitude. Your opponents care about how they play and they work hard at being good players. So to compete, you must try and improve your game as well. If you don’t, the real money games will be difficult for you to beat.

“It’s done,” says Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. The it being the Jason Kidd trade, which was reportedly approved by the league on Tuesday afternoon. That makes both the Mavericks and Kidd’s former employers, the New Jersey Nets, solid fade candidates for the next few days.

The Nets are hosting Chicago on Wednesday night, while Dallas is at New Orleans. There are three players leaving New Jersey and four active players (plus Keith Van Horn) coming off the Mavs roster. Both teams could be stuck with very short benches Wednesday, depending on how quickly players report and pass their physicals.

Then there’s the matter of these two clubs becoming acclimatized to their new players, and vice versa. Dallas looks like the better fade prospect after what may prove to be a downgrade from Devin Harris to Kidd. But the Nets are rumored to be shopping Vince Carter, which would create even more chaos in East Rutherford.

Online poker tells are not like live ones. The only things you have to go on are betting patterns and time intervals between actions. If you notice that a player always acts fast, and suddenly they are pausing on the river before betting, they’re usually trying to induce a call and have a good hand.

Another common one is when the player decides to start using the auto-play buttons. You make a bet and they have the raise button already pressed, to make it look like they have the nuts and will raise anything. If the player hasn’t been using these buttons prior to this, they are most likely bluffing.

The old “I have to leave” after the all-in move is a classic. A guy gets pocket aces and goes all-in after he writes in the chat that he has to leave the tournament, like he’s giving away his chips.

If you had the pleasure of surfing the Internet in 1993, you might reminisce about dumb terminals, Usenet and Lynx. But even the most old-school Web curmudgeon has to prefer the way things are today. Technological advances have made the Internet sizzle with video, graphics and applications galore.

The online betting experience is no different. Graphic design has improved by leaps and bounds over the past decade. The content itself is sharper as more and more people turn to the Web as their information provider. Security measures are savvier, and performing financial transactions online is now par for the course, even with the UIGEA running interference.

But let’s get back to the graphics for a second. The Internet of the 1990s reminds me of the television of the 1950s: clunky, minimal and accident-prone. Now sports betting is a virtual casino experience, and the casinos just keep getting swankier. How soon before online martinis are served?

The New York Giants weren’t supposed to beat Dallas. They weren’t supposed to beat Green Bay. And now they’re not supposed to beat the New England Patriots at Super Bowl XLII. The Pats were 11.5-point favorites at press time with a total of 54.

Everything on paper says the Patriots should win this game hands-down. The computer projections at Accuscore say New England has a 75-percent chance of lifting the Vince Lombardi Trophy for the fourth time in Tom Brady’s eight-year career. The pointspread itself is a giant neon sign telling you how great New England is.

But nothing will come easy Feb. 3. The Patriots have the upper hand; however, to win the Super Bowl, they have to endure the top-ranked pass rush in the league during the regular season. They also have to face the very real prospect of Eli Manning having yet another sound football game. It’s happened a lot lately.

The New York Giants are on a 7-1 ATS streak. The New England Patriots are 1-7 ATS. That makes Super Bowl XLII an easy pick, right?

Maybe more so at the open, when the Patriots were pegged as 12-point favorites. That spread was down to 11 at press time and could certainly drop further as money continues to pour in on the Giants. Even the most casual NFL bettors were glued to Big Blue’s performance against the Pats in Week 17; you couldn’t ask for a more obvious demonstration of what could happen at the Super Bowl.

But how far does the spread have to swing to make the Patriots the easy pick? Perhaps something in the single digits; AccuScore’s computer simulations have projected a 30-21 final with New England getting a 75-percent chance of finishing their perfect season. Those chances dip to 55 percent if Eli Manning doesn’t throw a pick – which he hasn’t yet in these playoffs.

Last month, tennis legend and commentator John McEnroe expressed his fears that the Russian mafia may be corrupting the sport. Actually, the U.S. Senate drew the same conclusion over a decade ago after a 15-month investigation. But fresh betting scandals have prompted McEnroe to speak and governing bodies to take action.

Last week, the ATP, WTA and ITF joined forces with the organizers of the four major tournaments to announce a review of their policies. “(This) independent review will help us ensure we are protecting the integrity of professional tennis into the future,” WTA Tour chief executive Larry Scott told reporters.

Whether anything more can be done, or whether the review merely pays lip service, remains to be seen. According to Scott, we may see the establishment of an anti-corruption unit with policing powers. But if the problem is organized crime, do you really want to send in the tennis police?

While bettors in the United States fume over anti-gambling legislation, not everything is rosy across the pond. Germany has ratified an accord unveiling new restrictions on Internet betting; those restrictions came into effect on New Year’s Day.

This state legislation (all of the country’s 16 states are on board) is the latest step in Germany’s attempt to entrench its monopoly over lotteries and other betting. Placing a wager on German soil, even with an offshore book, is once again illegal. So is any advertisement that tries to “directly invite, incite or prompt” customers to place a bet.

The European Union had previously asked Germany to reconsider its anti-gambling measures; now the European Court of Justice will almost certainly be brought into the legal fray, as online gambling operators have already sued to keep their businesses afloat. Like the U.S., Germany argues that its citizens need to be protected against the moral problems of gambling. The EU isn’t buying it.

Sometimes it’s too much work just to get out of bed, let alone do the research required to make a sharp bet. That’s when you decide to risk a mouthful of chalk and go for the easy button. It won’t get any easier in 2008 than betting on these 10 guaranteed locks (Note: not a guarantee).

USC over Illinois (straight up) at the Rose Bowl
The New England Patriots to win the Super Bowl
Tiger Woods to win the WGC-CA Championship
Justine Henin to win the French Open
Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony’s first child (1-3) to be born with brown eyes
Germany (8-13) to win Euro 2008 Group B
Australia (-200) over England at The Ashes 2009
Ken Livingstone (1-2) to win the London mayoral election
Ronnie O’Sullivan (3-1) to win the World Snooker Championship
Kanye West’s Graduation (1-5) to win the Grammy for Rap Album of the Year

The days of having to sign your life away to join an online casino are long gone. Playing slots online couldn’t be any easier than it is now. It used to be a pain to fill out the profile questionnaire and then wait for a download that would take five minutes to complete. Even once it finished, the games were boring and there wasn’t much of a selection to choose from.

Now there are games you can play that don’t even require a download, you just click and play. There are still player profile questionnaires, but you only fill them out when you play real-money games, and they’re much shorter than they used to be.

There’s also many more banking options these days; we’re no longer limited to just one or two options. Most casinos have at least a half-dozen different ways to buy-in and cash out.