Are you a regular gambler? Sports betting is a practice that has existed for many decades. Technology has revolutionized the sports betting industry. Today, you can place single bets or accumulators on your phone. You don’t have to visit a brick-and-mortar casino to receive your winnings. Here is an insight into how sports betting looks like today.
Betting Odds
Each possible outcome of any sporting event has certain odds. Amateur punters need to understand betting odds before they start wagering. There are different types of odds including decimal odds and American odds. Also, live bets don’t have fixed odds. They normally change as the game continues. Factors such as a drastic change in weather or a key player sustaining a serious injury while playing can cause a drop in live bets’ odds.
Types of Sports Bets
Punters who engage in online sports betting can place the following wagers:
- Parlays: they are also called accumulators. Parlays are a combination of several single bets. They have a high-profit margin and a higher losing probability compared to single bets. Some sportsbooks need you to make precise single bets to win a parlay.
- Point Spreads: these bets are common in the U.S especially in basketball and football. They are called straight bets. This betting market doesn’t involve predicting which team will win a match. You wager on the side that will cover the spread. Bookmakers make one side the favorite and the other one the underdog. Then, they deduct several points from the favorite. So, you will predict which participant will lose or win by a specific margin.
- Moneyline bets: this market is popular globally. It involves predicting whether a game will end as a draw, or if either the home or away team will win.
3 Popular Sports Betting Strategies Today
Regular pundits often use the following betting strategies:
1. Prop Betting
Prop betting entails placing any type of bet except totals under/over, moneyline or points spread bet. This strategy is suitable for beginners as it is easy to understand. Line managers set low gambling limits for this strategy.
2. Future Betting
You can predict how a particular season will end. For example, some sportsbooks allow gamblers to place bottom 4 bets for various soccer leagues. The odds for future bets change as the season progresses. Normally, underdogs have the highest odds of leading at the table when the season ends compared to strong teams.
3. Teaser Betting
Teasers are parlays with adjusted point spreads. Most teaser bets in football have a modification of six points. For instance, if you want to place these bets; Arsenal -7.5, Chelsea +1.5, and Liverpool +5.5, instead of placing straight bets, you can create a six-point teaser wager of Arsenal -1.5, Chelsea +7.5, and Liverpool +11.5. Different betting firms offer varying teaser odds.
Many beginners assume that they will start winning huge payouts soon. Some of them don’t research the current form of various key players to predict their scoring probability. Experienced gamblers win about 56 percent of their bets. Some of them place large stakes on single bets to get high-profit margins.
