Sports Betting 2.1.0 has been released.

It has a lot of nice changes. Now unlimited contests can take place at once and all stats will be saved properly. Also more than two opponents can be in a matchup, thus opening the door for many new types of matchups, including the Golden Globe Awards Picker.

Unlimited Contests

1. Now multiple contests may take place at once without losing any stats on past contests.

2. The "Picks" page is totally revamped in several ways where you can see the results of all contests.

View Old Categories

1. On the main page there is now a link to view categories which are closed for good for betting, such as past contests.

Closed Matchups

1. Now when you click a link to a category of matchups, it only shows the open ones, and you have a new link to click to get to the old ones if you want to see the results still.

Multiple Choices

1. Now matchups are no longer limites to a home team versus an away team. They can have unlimited choices for such things as award shows, favorites of all baseball teams to win the World Series, etc...

2. Many pages look different now, with different types of information based on whether the matchups in that category are traditional ones or the new multiple ones.

Bug Fixes

1. Several bug fixes, including one which would have caused major issues for any matchup I added with a closing time of 11 P.M. Central Time.

Other Changes

1. Many little changes here and there which you may not notice. Skinning changes, changes with the backbone of the entire system in some spots, and changes to the add forms both for you and for me.

Future Plans

1. NCAA Tourney Picker.

2. Fantasy sports content including a daily game to pick which of several players will have the best day.

3. Photos/logos of teams. I already have the settings there, but have not yet decided where I can put them and have things still look good.

4. Tips area for matchups. You would either pay points or maybe be in a certain user group to be able to read tips for matchups. I think this is a cool idea because I may, for example, point out a trend I notice with a team or maybe something someone else informed me of.

5. Skinning and bug fixing.

6. User Group Permissions.

7. Users submit matchups and if I approve them, memebrs can bet on theirs.

8. Sports Trivia Section.

9. Other cool features. Stay tuned!

Notes

1. Feel free to give suggestions and feedback.

2. Click the "Bugs" link at the top of the site to report problems.

2. For more information and notes about the Sports Betting System, please read the following topics: http://www.gottalk.com/index.php?showtopic=1320 (version 1.0.0), http://www.gottalk.com/index.php?showtopic=1346 (version 2.0.0), and http://www.gottalk.com/index.php?showtopic=1350 (version 2.0.1)

Me and Aaron both smehow got 500 points we shouldn't have had. But then I realized today was the weekly 500 point rewards given to us automatically from the market component. So I sure HOPE that it gave us those 500 points late and the sports betting doesn't have an issue.

Some more things I want to do for the core betting system itself are:

1. Have bonuses for picking underdogs on certain matchups where I don't have to use odds.

2. Maybe distinguish between odds needed to win a bet and a spread just to give an IDEA of what the odds would be.

Otherwise the main betting area is taken care of. I want to have team pages and do some skinning changes, but overall the main betting area is pretty close to having all that can be had in a betting system. So then I can concentrate on making something else.

I am very pleased with what I accomplished out of hours of work tonight. I completed the payout functions for winners of contests. Thus me and Pip received our points for our contest wins. It properly split ours in half for the one we tied on and it properly paid me the whole jackpot for the other one. It also properly closed those categories out and moved them to the old categories page and listed them as complete on the contest page. Feels very fulfilling to have everything work great after doing it. Luckily I caught a few typos BEFORE trying to have it pay the winners and so it worked flawlessly!

As a note, the main file is now 2,027 lines of coding. So in the past few days I added about 500 lines to get the features all put in up to this current state. I am going to skin a little before calling it a new version and listing what all I changed again.

(not to myself: I could start having individual contest matchups be worth different amounts, for example could have had national championship worth more extra points than the others in that contest).

edit: I need to write myself more notes where I don't forget:

1. put bets total in other tables.

2. The jackpots I entered manually in the DB, so I need to add that to my add form.

3. Color the usernames in the 2 areas they aren;t colored.

4. Break down the My Picks page per contest.

Guess that is about it. Then I will change the version number.

I NEED to soon start on the ncaa tourney bracket thing to be sure it's done in time and also I wish I could do a fantasy baseball game, but it may have to start after the season starts.

The Bracket Game will have to involve a lot of clicking to go to next pages I guess since i don't know enough ajax and javascript.

Most of this is done. So I guess yet another version number change in a day or two. lol

Technically I add everything live, so it's actually there now, just haven't changed the version number.

Sorry for so many posts in a row. I need more people here where this doesn't happen! But anyway I need to keep notes and I usually do it in a file instead of topics. I just realized several more things I better make a note of where I don't forget to do them!

As much as it sucks to have to do this, I think I may redo things where any category can have multiple choices. The way I have it now, the entire category must be a traditional home and away team matchup or a multiple choice one. I did this purposely where I could have different table setups dependant on what the category is.

For instance if you click the NFL category, the table on the next page is designed for home vs. away. Since there are different stats for those which arent in multiple choice ones, it would be complicated thinking of a good way to have a single table which would have 2 types of matchups.

However the problem is as follows: Now if I want to make a NCAA Basketball multiple choice matchup, I can't do it in the NCAA Basketball category.

In order to change it, I simply have to put a column in the matchups table and take it out of the category table. But then I must redo the coding to check in that other table AND I have to make one table be abloe to show both types. I will think if there is a good way to do this tonight.

Rather than keep tlaking to myself in topics I am soon just going to make a blog of updates. I will announce things ehre still, but to comment further on them I will do it in a blog if nobody responds in here.

I just revamped the whole multiple choice system to allow it to be done on any matchup and also set up a way for it to tell the favorite for those just as it can for the 2 choice ones. I etsted everything in the new setup and it works fine. I have a few hours of work to do on this later tonight and then I will call it a new version.

I need to give less free and big bets per month becuase it's too easy to win this way. The only solutions are either to add more matchups tobet on or to give less of those becuase as it is people can pretty much wager nothing the entire month and so there is less way to even lose bets. Winnings mean nothing if you never have to risk anything to get them.

I just spent a ton of time trying to figure some things out on it also and I slightly changed the format of the payout foreach area.... so now I once again have to pay close attention on the next payout.

Took a little break. Hopefully will finish things tomorrow. I haven't added the Super Bowl matchup becuase I want to get the whole underdog situtation set up where I can make higher payout if NY wins. I also had a contest I was going to add for something.

Added about 12 things since 2.1, but I want to finish a little mroe before calling it 2.2.

Today I mainly added in the photos, changed around the matchup pages, allow guests to view those pages now (but not view or use the form), finished up the system for underdogs and other things, and added the super bowl matchup. Did it low max becuase of how one-sided it is predicted to be, but made NY a nice payout as underdog.

Main thing I have NOT done is all of these changes for multiple choice matchups. I WOULD make the entire system use multiple choice and then obviously it would work for the traditional 2 team matchups too, but since it already has old matchups using the other system, it will mess things up. Thus have to keep it 2 methods.

edit: I changed the underdog payout ratio from 5:1 to 3:1. Honestly I think even NE is not a big enough favorite tow arrant the 5 times pay. I would have kept it at 5 anyway HOWEVER the big bet feature makes it where you could combine them and get a 10x payout and that is way too high unless NE were favored by 20 or so. As it is you can get 6x.

I am picking NY myself, so I am just trying to make it as fair as I can. I don't want to win too huge of an amount if NY finds a way to win. The old way I would have won 5,000, which is a lot for 1 bet UNLESS it has extremely low chance of happpening.

If someone bets and I do decide to change it back to 5x, I will adjust their bets accordingly.