This was the lay of the land for years until 2015 in fact. Existing players would need to invite friends to play, and that’s the only way you could bet online at Intertops. Intertops even had a bit of exclusivity early on in the game, to register and bet on their site, you had to receive an invite as an American, meaning their referral program was worth its weight in gold. Many sportsbooks have come after them, trying to mimic the experience one might get from the Intertops experience. Not only did Intertops claim the first online sports wager, but they were t he first sportsbook to offer a mobile betting site in the year 2000. Then the internet happened, and the very first online sports wager was placed at Intertops on January 17th, 1996 from a Finnish bettor. Phone wagering was popular at the time, many had to call into their bookies to place wagers. Intertops was established in 1983, in the pre-internet days, and certainly, before online gambling became a thing. Intertops was the first online sportsbook to hit the world wide web and paved the way for many of the online sportsbooks we see online today.