Common types of sports bets

Understanding the Most Common Types of Sports Bets

For beginners in the world of sports betting, knowing the various kinds of bets is crucial for your gaming success. The bets you place can create a real impact on your overall gaming success. There are some bets that you can only do offline but most you can do online. However, this is just a guide. Even if you memorize the description of the bet on the betting site, you will still not be able to grasp its real value if you do not put it into practice. Here are some of the most Common types of sports bets that you will encounter in most sports books. Analyze them, absorb them, and practice them. You will most certainly need it for your success.

The Point Spread

The point spread bets on the outcome of an event, where the payout is based on the correctness of the wager instead of betting simply on the outcome i.e., win or lose. The spread is the range of outcomes and betting takes place on whether the result will be above or below the spread. This is usually used only on basketball, hockey and football. This is the number of points in which the team who will win is expected to have. Usually, you will see positive and negative signs on the odds. The negative is for the favored team. The positive is for the underdog team.

The Straight Bet

This is by far the easiest bet to make and is the most recommended bet meant for beginners. It’s a simple wager to make, since you are betting on the outcome of the game. In case of baseball, you’d be placing a straight bet on one team that you think will win. In football, the point spread is involved. The odds for the favorite team are denoted by a (-) sign whereas the underdog or team not likely to win is denoted by a (+) sign. In case of the favorite, you would deduct these points from their score while you would add them to the team’s score in case of the underdog. The team with the highest points after the addition or subtraction will be the winner.

The Total Bet (Over/Under Bet)

The Total bet is another very common and very simple form of bet. It is also known as the Over/Under Bet. In this kind of bet, the person makes a wager on the total scores made by both teams. For instance, if the total score as predicted by the Sports book is 45 and you think that the total score will be more than 45 then you are betting ‘Over’. Almost all sports will have a total bet. For football, the total accumulated scores will be the basis. For boxing, it will be the total rounds that take place until the end. Again, you need to be aware that this is just a single bet and has only one outcome. Usually, this bet pays $100 for each $110 wagered.

Parleys

The Parlays are much more popular in Europe than in the US. In the US, many are also starting to take advantage of this kind of bet. What is good about this is that it has a very good ratio between the bets and payouts. The parlays are actually a number of straight bets and total bets all combined into a single bet. Of course, it cannot be all good. There is a catch with this kind of bet and that is you need to guess all the outcomes of the bet right. If you lose on one, the whole bet is lost. In case there is a tie, your payout is reduced. You can bet small amounts of money but a great advantage is that you can win big since the odds of the bets are multiplied.

ng on Parlays can be very profitable for the Player because the payouts are much larger than your typical Straight Bet. However, it is also risky because all your wagers must win or tie in order for the Parlay to payout.

The Teasers

The Teaser bets are becoming quite popular since in this kind of bet, you can manipulate the odds. It is similar to the Parley Bet but the payoff is comparatively less. You can have these kinds of wagers in basketball and football but not baseball. The sports book will allocate some points that are determined by the kind of teaser that you can utilize to put it on your favor by placing points on both teams. All wagers must win for you to win your bet. In case of a 2-team Teaser bet, your money will be refunded if there is a tie. This kind of bet is best described with an example. Let us say you are betting for a football game with 2 games and 7 points. Let us say the first team has a spread of +6 against the 2nd and the 3rd team has -3 spread versus 4th team. You have 7 points to spread out to the total of the 2 teams which you can place to your advantage.

The If Bet

This is a straight bet followed by an “If” clause. Each of the two bets must be of the same value or the second must be less than the first. If your first straight bet wins, you are able to double your action on the second straight bet. This following bet will not happen unless you win the prior bet.
onclude. Let?s say a game with the Carolina Panthers has a -8 spread. This means they are oints.

The Money Line Bet

The money line is where the odds will be established when one team beats another team. The two sides of the money line will be given values. Again, like the point spread, there is the minus for the favorite and the plus for the underdog. So, the favorite team will have say, (-) 130 while the underdog will have (+) 120. So those betting on the favorite team will have to bet $130 to win $100 and those counting on the underdogs will have to bet $100 to win $120. Money line bets are used for sports like boxing, auto racing, tennis, baseball, soccer and hockey, where the point spread is not relevant.

The Asian Handicap

The Asian Handicap is another popular kind of bet and this is usually offered on soccer games. This is because there can be three outcomes in soccer, unlike at the NFL where there are only two outcomes. In soccer, there can be a win, loss or a draw and draws are quite common. You could say that this bet is a variation of a point spread. In regular Asian handicap, the options are either to lose or win. There is also another one variation of this bet known as the Double Asian handicap where you multiply your chances of winning a wager on the same game.

Learn how to use these bets and take advantage of these bets so that you can increase your chances of winning.