Sports Betting and How It Works
Sports betting is a form of gambling that allows people to guess the results of a sporting event or game and place a stake on the outcome or on a specific event of the game. The popularity of sporting activities such as soccer, basketball, rugby, cricket, and many others has tremendously increased over the years and the same can be said about sports betting, which has taken sports fanatism to a whole different level. All that one needs to do to place a bet is to look for an online sports betting site using either a mobile phone or a desktop computer.
Sporting Disciplines on Which You Can Bet
The various online bookmakers allow bettors to wager bets on several sporting disciplines. Some of the notable sports you can bet on are namely soccer or association football, basketball, boxing, rugby, American football, tennis, horse racing, and cricket.
Types of Bets
There are many forms of sports betting, and we shall discuss a few of them below.
- Moneyline Bets: This type of bet requires the chosen team of the bettor to win the game outright for their bet to be successful. For instance, in a soccer game, the stronger “Team A” perceived as the favourite side to win the game is assigned smaller odds, whereas the weaker “Team B” is given bigger odds. It is a straight bet. The bigger the odds, the higher the payouts, always in relation to the initial stake.
- Handicap Betting: Handicap betting is a form of betting where a bookmaker gives the favourite team an unofficial 'disadvantage' and the underdogs an 'advantage' in order to offer more competitive odds. Imagine a scenario where you bet on a handicap of +20 points for the Phoenix Suns (the underdogs) against the Golden State Warriors (the favourites), which eventually produced a 121-105 win for the Warriors. If you bet on the Phoenix Suns to win, your bet would have been successful because 20 plus 105 gives you 125 which is greater than 121 points recorded by the favourite team.
- Total Bets: Total bets focus on the total score between the teams rather than who wins the contest. For this form of betting market, the gambler predicts that the two teams will combine to produce more goals, corner kicks, points, etc. more than (Over) or less than (Under) the totals proposed by the bookmaker. For example, if a Manchester United v Arsenal Premier League game has a total of 5 goals, a predictor that believes the two teams will combine for at least 6 goals will bet Over and the opposite bettor who thinks the game will see less than 5 goals will bet Under.
- Proposition Wagers: These are stakes placed on the specific event of a match and not related to the outcome. Examples are placing a bet on the number of goals a striker will score in a soccer match, the boxer to win the first round of a fight or the player to win the first set of a tennis contest.
- Multiple Bets: These are also referred to as a parlays. Parlays involve two or more bets combined into a single bet slip. All the individual bets that form the multiple bets must be successful to make the bettor win. For example, if one bet out of five on a multiple bet slip fails, then the whole bet fails regardless of whether the other four succeed or not.
The Thrilling Option of Live Betting
Almost all the notable online bookmakers implement a live betting functionality that gives the luxury to bettors to place bets whilst the game is ongoing. History and form are necessary parameters to consider in deciding which team or athlete is more likely to win a particular game or competition, but these factors are not foolproof that a team will certainly win a game beforehand, and this is exactly what makes live betting more interesting. As the odds are constantly changing during a live game, more tools are presented to bettors to make their decisions in real time.
