Sports Betting
Sports Betting
Online sports betting can also extend to non-athletic events, such as reality show contests and political elections, and non-human contests such as horse racing, greyhound racing, and illegal, underground cockfighting. Sometimes sports betting also offer their wagers for entertainment events such as the Grammy Awards, the Oscars, and the Emmy Awards.
A company that provides sports betting services can be called a bookmaker, bookie, sportsbook or betting agency. A service that provides a marketplace in which odds are set is called a betting exchange. A customer who places bets can be called a punter (popular in the UK) or a bettor (popular in the USA).
One point of difference between sports betting and casino gambling is the probabilities of winning are not known with sports betting – they are only estimated. Unlike a casino game, where the house edge is known with certainty, sports betting rewards patience and research.
(Sports betting has resulted in a number of scandals in sport, affecting the integrity of sports events through various acts including point shaving (players affecting the score by missing shots), spot-fixing (a player action is fixed), bad calls from officials at key moments, and overall match fixing (the overall result of the event is fixed. )
Types of bets:
Moneyline bets: A moneyline bet is the simplest and most straightforward wager in all of sports betting. It is a bet that has potentially two or three outcomes depending on the sport. When there are two players or teams listed on a moneyline bet, bettors are choosing one player or team to win.
Spread Betting: The bets are made against the spread. The spread, or line, is a number assigned by the bookmakers which handicaps one team and favors another when two teams play each other and one is perceived as being more likely to win. The favorite "takes" points from the final score and the underdog "gives" points.
Total (Over/Under) bets: Wagers are made based on the total score between both teams. Example, if an MLB game has a total of 10.5, an over bettor will want the combined total to be greater, and the opposite for a bettor taking the under. If the combined total is the same as the proposed total, the bet is a push. Most sportsbooks refund all wagers on pushes, though a minority counts them as losses.
Proposition bets: In these type of bets, wagers are generally made on a very specific outcome of a match not related to the final score, usually of a statistical nature.
Parley: A parlay involves multiple bets that rewards successful bettors with a greater payout only if all bets in the parlay win. A parlay is at least two bets, but can be as many as the bookmaker will allow.
Teasers A teaser is a parlay that gives the bettor an advantage at a lower, but still positive, payout if successful.
If bets: An if bet consists of at least two straight bets joined together by an if clause which determines the wager process. If the player's first selection complies with the condition (clause), then the second selection will have action; if the second selection complies with the condition, then the third selection will have action and so on.
Goal line bets: These are wagers offered as alternatives to moneyline wagers in baseball, hockey, or soccer, respectively. These bets are effectively point spread bets that have the same moneyline odds on either side of the wager (i.e. industry standard of -110 to -115). Sportsbooks will occasionally shift the moneyline by a few points on either side of these spread bets.
Futures wagers: While all sports wagers are by definition on future events, bets listed as "futures" generally have a long-term horizon measured in weeks or months.
Head-to-Head: In these bets, bettor predicts competitors results against each other and not on the overall result of the event.
Totalizators: In totalizators (sometimes called flexible-rate bets) the odds are changing in real-time according to the share of total exchange each of the possible outcomes have received taking into account the return rate of the bookmaker offering the bet.
Half bets: A half (halftime) bet applies only to the score of the first or second half. This bet can be placed on the spread (line) or over/under. This can also be applied to a specific quarter in American football or basketball, a fewer number of innings in baseball, or a specific period in hockey.
In-play betting: In-play betting, or live betting, is a fairly new feature offered by some online sports books that enables bettors to place new bets while a sporting event is in progress. In-play betting first appeared towards the end of the 1990s when some bookmakers would take bets over the telephone whilst a sports event was in progress, and has now evolved into a popular online service in many countries.
Cash Out: Cash Out betting functionality lets the user of a betting website take profit early if their bet is coming in, or get some of their stake back if their bet is going against them—all before the event is over. 'Cash out' is offered to users by online sportsbook operators based on the profitability of offering the option to the user to divest their existing bet on an outcome and is sometimes available on singles and multiples.
Edit My Acca: This feature allows gamblers to remove selections from their accumulator after the bet has been placed and in some instances after the selected event has started.
Edit My Bet: The ‘edit bet’ feature can be used by gamblers to ‘unsettle straight accumulators’ before matches have started or whilst they are in-play.
