Many new bettors struggle with deciding on how to bet on sports. It's an especially intimidating undertaking for bettors without a background in statistics. However, it doesn't take a stats genius to learn and enjoy sports betting. Bettors just need to understand probabilities to get started. This Sports Betting 101 Guide will help you get started.
- How To Understand Betting Odds
- Odds Meaning Betting
- How To Add Odds In Betting Odds
- How Do Betting Sites Calculate Odds
Beginner's Guide To Sports Betting
Anyone asking themselves, 'How does sports betting work?' has come to the right place. Our beginner's guide will help bettors:
- Understand what they're looking at when they open a sportsbook
- Create basic strategies to manage their bankrolls
- Find the best sportsbook – or sportsbooks – to create accounts for
How to Calculate Betting Odds and Payouts. One of the reasons why horse betting is difficult is because the odds fluctuate every time a bet is placed. This fluctuation is called pari-mutuel wagering, or pool betting. In typical betting games, you're betting against the house. With horse racing you are betting against other betters. How betting odds work. Betting odds are usually expressed either as fractions (e.g. ‘3/1') or as decimals (e.g. Fractions were traditionally used to bet on horse racing and were most popular in high street betting shops in the UK, before the advent of internet gambling.
- Betting Odds & Chance. To first understand what betting odds are, we have to first understand the concept of chance. Chance is the likelihood of an event happening. It is often expressed in percentages, also referred to as the probability. Let's roll a dice. Rolling a dice yields a probability of 1 out of 6 for each outcome.
- Understanding betting odds is the most crucial factor in sports betting. The quality of the odds you are getting is essential, and if you don't know how to calculate them on your own, you should learn. Not understanding the odds is the main reason people lose funds in the long run. In our article, we would Continued.
- Updated on: Understanding Football Odds. The biggest thing in regards to understanding NFL odds relates to the point spread that's put up on each game. Betting on football isn't as simple as just picking the eventual winner of the game, you've got to consider who will win, but more importantly by how much.
While Gaming Today can't reveal every winning wager, we can give bettors the tools to do it themselves. The best sports betting sites include:
If any of these sports betting sites are available, they're solid choices for newbies. We have reviews for each of these top sports betting apps on Gaming Today.
How To Sign Up At A Legal Sportsbook
Choosing An Online Sportsbook
All of the legal mobile sports betting apps featured here at Gaming Today offer a comprehensive array of sports and ways to bet. The welcome bonuses and specific betting markets differ across the sportsbooks, however.
Be sure to research each sportsbook and choose the sites that offer the bonuses and markets that suit you.
Verifying Your Location
Several states offer legal online sports betting, with each requiring that bettors are located within state borders when making bets. All legal online sportsbooks use geolocation technology to confirm a user's location when they try to bet.
If you're trying to bet at William Hill Michigan, for example, you must be located in Michigan to make a legal wager. If you're close to the state border, the geolocation services might falsely detect that you're outside of state borders.
If this happens, moving closer inland usually solves the issue.
Registering A New Account
Signing up for a new online sportsbook account usually takes just a couple of minutes. You'll need to provide your first and last name, last four digits of your social security number, and a valid email address.
Once your details are verified by the sportsbook, you're free to make your first deposit and start betting.
Making Your First Deposit
After registering for your new account, navigate to the 'Cashier' or 'Add Funds' tab, usually at the top right of the lobby at most online sportsbooks. This tab brings up deposit options like ACH/eCheck, credit/debit card, PayPal, and Play+.
You might need to upload a digital copy of your driver's license or state ID before you can make your first deposit. Once you've done that, your first deposit should be added to your player balance within seconds.
Sometimes the issuing bank will reject ACH/eCheck and credit/debit card deposits. PayPal and Play+ usually go through 100% of time time, however.
Making Bets At An Online Sportsbook
How To Understand Betting Odds
The betting markets at online sportsbooks include domestic, international, and sometimes niche sports. At DraftKings Sportsbook, for example, clicking on the 'A-Z Sports' link at the left of the main lobby brings up all of the different available sports.
From there, click on the sport you wish to bet, and all available games and ways to bet come up. You make any bet by simply clicking on the line, which sends the bet to your bet slip.
The bet slip will then prompt you to input the amount you wish to wager, and display the potential payoff for winning the bet. Once you've inputted your wager amount, you'll need to click 'Confirm' (or something similar) to send the bet through to the sportsbook.
Most Common Types Of Sports Bets
Bettors will find these core bets at every sportsbook:
- Straight bets
- Futures bets
- Prop bets
- Parlay bets
Since these bets are everywhere, understanding them is critical to becoming a successful sports bettor.
Straight Bets
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Straight bets are the foundational basics of sports betting. They're single bets on single games. These include:
- Moneylines
- Point spreads
- Point totals
For example, if a bettor wanted to wager on the Patriots beating the Titans, they could place a moneyline wager on the Patriots. It's one bet on one outcome. No matter how any other bets turn out, the Patriots wager would win or lose on its own terms.
Futures Bets
Futures bets are high-risk high-reward wagers on a season's outcome. That includes everything from Championship winners to award winners. A wager on the Packers winning the Super Bowl would be a futures bet. So would a wager on Aaron Rogers winning an MVP award at the end of the NFL season. The odds of betting correctly is challenging, even for sophisticated statistical models. But the rewards are massive for bettors who wager correctly. So, high-risk bettors with strong opinions may be drawn to these.
Prop Bets
Prop bets are also called fun bets. They're wagers that have nothing to do with a game's outcome. They're on random events during the game. They could include everything from the first team to score a set number of touchdowns to the length of the high note at the end of the National Anthem. They're fun random wagers, and are good for parties.
Parlay Bets
Parlay bets are a string of bets that all have to come true for the bet to win. So, bettors could create a parlay bet that wagers the Broncos and Notre Dame will both win their games. In a parlay bet, both wagers have to win for the parlay to win. There's no partial credit. It's risky, but it boosts the odds and increases payouts.
10 Common Question About How Sports Betting Works
Many bettors have similar questions at the beginning. Here are the top ten.
What Is A Point Spread?
Point spreads are the number of points a team has to win or lose by. Us online betting sites. Here's what they mean:
- -2.5 means the favorite to win has to win by at least three points.
- +2.5 means the underdog has to lose by less than three points.
That gives bettors who wager on their favorite teams the same chance to win bets as bettors who wager on the best teams.
Any betting guide worth it's salt can answer that.
What Is A Moneyline Bet?
Moneyline bets are the most basic of sports betting basics. It's a bet on who will win the game. Here's an example from an NBA's live bet:
- Milwaukee Bucks: -530
- Orlando Magic: +380
These are the odds from the third quarter, so bettors have a lot of game information to work with. Anyone confident the Bucks would carry the game could wager on the Bucks to win. But anyone confident in a comeback from the Orlando Magic could bet on them to win.
What Is A Favorite And What Is An Underdog?
A favorite is the team expected to win the game. The underdog is the team expected to lose. Favorites are marked with a negative sign, and underdogs are marked with a positive sign. Those signs tell bettors how risky their wagers are. The lower the negative odds, the higher the chances the favorite will win. The higher the positive odds, the lower the chances the underdog will win.
What Does Over/Under Mean?
Over/Unders refer to point total bets. Bettors who wager over the point total are betting that the two teams will score more combined points than the sportsbook says. Unders wager that fewer the teams will score fewer combined points than the sportsbook says. For example, a sportsbook might offer odds like this for a hockey game:
- St. Louis Blues: O 5.5
- Colorado Avalanche: U 5.5
Either the Blues have to score six or more goals, or the Avalanche has to score five or fewer goals.
What Does -125 Mean?
-125 tells bettors a few things. First, these are odds on the favorite. Whichever team this is is predicted to win – in this case, 55.6%. (Online odds calculators can convert sportsbook odds to probabilities.) These odds also mean that bettors have to wager $125 to win $100. Since this team is more likely to win, sportsbooks aren't going to pay more out than they accept. Bettors may profit individually, but underdog wagers and house advantages are going to keep sportsbook profits up.
Where Can I Place A Bet?
Since placing bets is integral to sports betting, bettors should know how to find sportsbooks. Many states list licensed sportsbook operators either on the Department of Revenue website or the Lottery Division website. (It depends who runs sportsbooks in that state.) Bettors can also search for sportsbooks at casinos or find sportsbook websites and apps in states that allow online wagering.
Odds Meaning Betting
The list of states with legal online sports betting is growing by the year. Currently, almost two dozen states have legal online sportsbooks or are in the process of launching sports betting. Some of the most popular states where sports betting is legal include Michigan, Colorado, and Illinois.
What Is Live Betting?
Betting on sports games is one thing, but betting during them can be exhilarating. Live betting allows bettors to make wagers during a game. Sometimes, teams will have a rough start, but bring it together in the end. Other teams have a great start then finish poorly. (Broncos anyone?)
Live betting lets bettors take advantage of these changing odds. It tests a bettor's ability to guess how the game will change during play. It's a fresh challenge for bettors who pick the basics up quickly.
How Much Should I Bet?
No more than you're willing to lose. Learn how to bet on sports one at a time, first. Then you can make a few wagers at a time. Eventually, bettors will be able to put several wagers on one bankroll. Professional bettors know how to distribute their bets so they can balance wins against losses. They begin to run their bet slips like sportsbooks run books.
And it all starts from learning how to make one bet at a time.
What Sports Betting App Offers The Best Odds?
How To Add Odds In Betting Odds
It depends. Some sportsbooks offer strong odds on the favorite, the underdog, certain sports, or offer so many boosts and promotions that they beat the competition. Here are some common trends:
How Do Betting Sites Calculate Odds
- DraftKings: Competitive odds on favorites
- FanDuel: Competitive odds on underdogs
- FOX Bet: Bet boosts that can improve odds over other sportsbooks
- SBK: Competitive odds, overall
No sportsbook will have the best odds every time. The best way to bet on sports is to understand your own preferences, then find a sportsbook that matches them.
What Are The Most Common Betting Mistakes
Betting on your favorite team instead of the best team is the best way to burn through your money. If you keep losing wagers, don't keep trying to make the same strategy work. Chasing losses doesn't work in Vegas, and it doesn't work on DraftKings. Failing to learn and adjust will hurt new bettors more than most things they can do. (It's as true on the field as it is off the field.)
Understanding sports betting means understanding that feelings can't be part of your wagers. Deliberate strategies beat feelings over the lifetime of a sportsbook account.
Sports Betting 101 FAQs
Pick a sportsbook. Bettors don't have to know the ins and outs of sportsbooks to start betting. They just have to choose a licensed brand, create an account, and start betting. Bettors shouldn't deposit more than they're willing to lose, though. Responsible gaming is important. They should also take welcome bonuses into account when they're making their first deposits and wagers.
Some states allow them. Sports betting has spread across the United States, but not every state has implemented it the same way. Some sportsbooks only allow retail sports betting. Others have online and mobile sports betting. Bettors can check their states' laws to see whether mobile betting is on the table for them.
Here are the states that legalized online sports betting and whose online sports betting industries are live:
- Michigan
- Virginia
- Nevada
- Colorado
- Iowa
- Illinois
- Indiana
- West Virginia
- Pennsylvania
- New Jersey
- New Hampshire
Reliable payouts, site security, and state regulation. In Colorado, licensed sportsbooks are required to keep enough cash on hand to pay bettors. Most states require security audits before sportsbooks go live so social security numbers aren't stolen en mass. Finally, state governments can twist sportsbooks' arms into operating legitimately. The risks of abandoning these protections aren't worth the potential rewards of using illegal sportsbooks.
While Gaming Today can't reveal every winning wager, we can give bettors the tools to do it themselves. The best sports betting sites include:
If any of these sports betting sites are available, they're solid choices for newbies. We have reviews for each of these top sports betting apps on Gaming Today.
How To Sign Up At A Legal Sportsbook
Choosing An Online Sportsbook
All of the legal mobile sports betting apps featured here at Gaming Today offer a comprehensive array of sports and ways to bet. The welcome bonuses and specific betting markets differ across the sportsbooks, however.
Be sure to research each sportsbook and choose the sites that offer the bonuses and markets that suit you.
Verifying Your Location
Several states offer legal online sports betting, with each requiring that bettors are located within state borders when making bets. All legal online sportsbooks use geolocation technology to confirm a user's location when they try to bet.
If you're trying to bet at William Hill Michigan, for example, you must be located in Michigan to make a legal wager. If you're close to the state border, the geolocation services might falsely detect that you're outside of state borders.
If this happens, moving closer inland usually solves the issue.
Registering A New Account
Signing up for a new online sportsbook account usually takes just a couple of minutes. You'll need to provide your first and last name, last four digits of your social security number, and a valid email address.
Once your details are verified by the sportsbook, you're free to make your first deposit and start betting.
Making Your First Deposit
After registering for your new account, navigate to the 'Cashier' or 'Add Funds' tab, usually at the top right of the lobby at most online sportsbooks. This tab brings up deposit options like ACH/eCheck, credit/debit card, PayPal, and Play+.
You might need to upload a digital copy of your driver's license or state ID before you can make your first deposit. Once you've done that, your first deposit should be added to your player balance within seconds.
Sometimes the issuing bank will reject ACH/eCheck and credit/debit card deposits. PayPal and Play+ usually go through 100% of time time, however.
Making Bets At An Online Sportsbook
How To Understand Betting Odds
The betting markets at online sportsbooks include domestic, international, and sometimes niche sports. At DraftKings Sportsbook, for example, clicking on the 'A-Z Sports' link at the left of the main lobby brings up all of the different available sports.
From there, click on the sport you wish to bet, and all available games and ways to bet come up. You make any bet by simply clicking on the line, which sends the bet to your bet slip.
The bet slip will then prompt you to input the amount you wish to wager, and display the potential payoff for winning the bet. Once you've inputted your wager amount, you'll need to click 'Confirm' (or something similar) to send the bet through to the sportsbook.
Most Common Types Of Sports Bets
Bettors will find these core bets at every sportsbook:
- Straight bets
- Futures bets
- Prop bets
- Parlay bets
Since these bets are everywhere, understanding them is critical to becoming a successful sports bettor.
Straight Bets
Straight bets are the foundational basics of sports betting. They're single bets on single games. These include:
- Moneylines
- Point spreads
- Point totals
For example, if a bettor wanted to wager on the Patriots beating the Titans, they could place a moneyline wager on the Patriots. It's one bet on one outcome. No matter how any other bets turn out, the Patriots wager would win or lose on its own terms.
Futures Bets
Futures bets are high-risk high-reward wagers on a season's outcome. That includes everything from Championship winners to award winners. A wager on the Packers winning the Super Bowl would be a futures bet. So would a wager on Aaron Rogers winning an MVP award at the end of the NFL season. The odds of betting correctly is challenging, even for sophisticated statistical models. But the rewards are massive for bettors who wager correctly. So, high-risk bettors with strong opinions may be drawn to these.
Prop Bets
Prop bets are also called fun bets. They're wagers that have nothing to do with a game's outcome. They're on random events during the game. They could include everything from the first team to score a set number of touchdowns to the length of the high note at the end of the National Anthem. They're fun random wagers, and are good for parties.
Parlay Bets
Parlay bets are a string of bets that all have to come true for the bet to win. So, bettors could create a parlay bet that wagers the Broncos and Notre Dame will both win their games. In a parlay bet, both wagers have to win for the parlay to win. There's no partial credit. It's risky, but it boosts the odds and increases payouts.
10 Common Question About How Sports Betting Works
Many bettors have similar questions at the beginning. Here are the top ten.
What Is A Point Spread?
Point spreads are the number of points a team has to win or lose by. Us online betting sites. Here's what they mean:
- -2.5 means the favorite to win has to win by at least three points.
- +2.5 means the underdog has to lose by less than three points.
That gives bettors who wager on their favorite teams the same chance to win bets as bettors who wager on the best teams.
Any betting guide worth it's salt can answer that.
What Is A Moneyline Bet?
Moneyline bets are the most basic of sports betting basics. It's a bet on who will win the game. Here's an example from an NBA's live bet:
- Milwaukee Bucks: -530
- Orlando Magic: +380
These are the odds from the third quarter, so bettors have a lot of game information to work with. Anyone confident the Bucks would carry the game could wager on the Bucks to win. But anyone confident in a comeback from the Orlando Magic could bet on them to win.
What Is A Favorite And What Is An Underdog?
A favorite is the team expected to win the game. The underdog is the team expected to lose. Favorites are marked with a negative sign, and underdogs are marked with a positive sign. Those signs tell bettors how risky their wagers are. The lower the negative odds, the higher the chances the favorite will win. The higher the positive odds, the lower the chances the underdog will win.
What Does Over/Under Mean?
Over/Unders refer to point total bets. Bettors who wager over the point total are betting that the two teams will score more combined points than the sportsbook says. Unders wager that fewer the teams will score fewer combined points than the sportsbook says. For example, a sportsbook might offer odds like this for a hockey game:
- St. Louis Blues: O 5.5
- Colorado Avalanche: U 5.5
Either the Blues have to score six or more goals, or the Avalanche has to score five or fewer goals.
What Does -125 Mean?
-125 tells bettors a few things. First, these are odds on the favorite. Whichever team this is is predicted to win – in this case, 55.6%. (Online odds calculators can convert sportsbook odds to probabilities.) These odds also mean that bettors have to wager $125 to win $100. Since this team is more likely to win, sportsbooks aren't going to pay more out than they accept. Bettors may profit individually, but underdog wagers and house advantages are going to keep sportsbook profits up.
Where Can I Place A Bet?
Since placing bets is integral to sports betting, bettors should know how to find sportsbooks. Many states list licensed sportsbook operators either on the Department of Revenue website or the Lottery Division website. (It depends who runs sportsbooks in that state.) Bettors can also search for sportsbooks at casinos or find sportsbook websites and apps in states that allow online wagering.
Odds Meaning Betting
The list of states with legal online sports betting is growing by the year. Currently, almost two dozen states have legal online sportsbooks or are in the process of launching sports betting. Some of the most popular states where sports betting is legal include Michigan, Colorado, and Illinois.
What Is Live Betting?
Betting on sports games is one thing, but betting during them can be exhilarating. Live betting allows bettors to make wagers during a game. Sometimes, teams will have a rough start, but bring it together in the end. Other teams have a great start then finish poorly. (Broncos anyone?)
Live betting lets bettors take advantage of these changing odds. It tests a bettor's ability to guess how the game will change during play. It's a fresh challenge for bettors who pick the basics up quickly.
How Much Should I Bet?
No more than you're willing to lose. Learn how to bet on sports one at a time, first. Then you can make a few wagers at a time. Eventually, bettors will be able to put several wagers on one bankroll. Professional bettors know how to distribute their bets so they can balance wins against losses. They begin to run their bet slips like sportsbooks run books.
And it all starts from learning how to make one bet at a time.
What Sports Betting App Offers The Best Odds?
How To Add Odds In Betting Odds
It depends. Some sportsbooks offer strong odds on the favorite, the underdog, certain sports, or offer so many boosts and promotions that they beat the competition. Here are some common trends:
How Do Betting Sites Calculate Odds
- DraftKings: Competitive odds on favorites
- FanDuel: Competitive odds on underdogs
- FOX Bet: Bet boosts that can improve odds over other sportsbooks
- SBK: Competitive odds, overall
No sportsbook will have the best odds every time. The best way to bet on sports is to understand your own preferences, then find a sportsbook that matches them.
What Are The Most Common Betting Mistakes
Betting on your favorite team instead of the best team is the best way to burn through your money. If you keep losing wagers, don't keep trying to make the same strategy work. Chasing losses doesn't work in Vegas, and it doesn't work on DraftKings. Failing to learn and adjust will hurt new bettors more than most things they can do. (It's as true on the field as it is off the field.)
Understanding sports betting means understanding that feelings can't be part of your wagers. Deliberate strategies beat feelings over the lifetime of a sportsbook account.
Sports Betting 101 FAQs
Pick a sportsbook. Bettors don't have to know the ins and outs of sportsbooks to start betting. They just have to choose a licensed brand, create an account, and start betting. Bettors shouldn't deposit more than they're willing to lose, though. Responsible gaming is important. They should also take welcome bonuses into account when they're making their first deposits and wagers.
Some states allow them. Sports betting has spread across the United States, but not every state has implemented it the same way. Some sportsbooks only allow retail sports betting. Others have online and mobile sports betting. Bettors can check their states' laws to see whether mobile betting is on the table for them.
Here are the states that legalized online sports betting and whose online sports betting industries are live:
- Michigan
- Virginia
- Nevada
- Colorado
- Iowa
- Illinois
- Indiana
- West Virginia
- Pennsylvania
- New Jersey
- New Hampshire
Reliable payouts, site security, and state regulation. In Colorado, licensed sportsbooks are required to keep enough cash on hand to pay bettors. Most states require security audits before sportsbooks go live so social security numbers aren't stolen en mass. Finally, state governments can twist sportsbooks' arms into operating legitimately. The risks of abandoning these protections aren't worth the potential rewards of using illegal sportsbooks.
Are the 'better' odds associated with illegal sportsbooks aren't worth your social security number?
Yes. Licensed sportsbook sites are audited by either state or independent authorities to ensure player data is safe. The most common security measure is end-to-end encryption. That means a hacker can't even see what bettors are typing into their screens. It's the kind of security bettors should expect in an industry handling such sensitive information.
In most states, 21. However, three states with legalized (but not necessarily live and operational) sports betting allow 18-year-olds to gamble:
- Washington
- Montana
- Rhode Island
Each of these states probably has a fascinating history that explains why it lets 18-year-olds gamble. But in the meantime, all we can say is not to blow all your college money at a sportsbook.
