Sports Betting Online
Read more about the various Betting Types
Just in the United States, there are 182 stadiums that can seat at least 30,000 people. These stadiums range from Kidd Brewer Stadium, at 30,000 fans exactly, and home of the Appalachian State Mountaineer, all the way up to Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor with a capacity of 107,601. It is one of eight stadiums in the U.S. that can seat more than 100,000.
And this is to say nothing of the hundreds of smaller stadiums for soccer and college football, high school football, or indoor arenas for basketball and hockey. Or the 114,000-seat stadium in North Korea, the largest in the world. Or the 100,000 fans that can fit into the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Or the eight football stadiums in Europe that can each hold at least 80,000 fans.
Human beings love sports. We always have. And as fans who love watching sports, being able to place money on sports was always the natural evolution of things.
Sports Betting History
It is quite likely that at some point during the Paleolithic Age, two guys with clubs decided to place a friendly wager on who could get the largest saber tooth tiger, with the winner getting the Cro-Magnon Cup and his picture painted on the wall of the cave.
The first recorded history of a sports wager, however, is from Ancient Greece, the creators of the Olympic Games. From there, sports betting spread to the Roman Empire, where the Romans discovered their love of gambling on gladiators and other “sports” that took place in the Roman Coliseum.
Unlike today, back then, it was usually a good bet to put your money on the lions.
The rest of Europe got in on the act; fighting to the death with swords was replaced by fighting to the near-death with fists, and since everyone had a horse, horse racing became popular.
In the United States, these two sports, boxing and horse racing, can trace their gambling roots back to before the United States was actually a thing. The first horse track in America was built in 1665.
By the 1860s and 1870s, all three legs of the Triple Crown were running, pari-mutuel wagering could be found all across the country, and gambling on sports in America was largely acceptable. Right up until the Black Sox scandal of 1919, in which members of the Chicago White Sox threw the World Series.
From that point, forward sports betting became immoral to a large portion of the population. And each time the legalization of sports betting seemed to be making headway, the government stepped in. Finally, in 2018, the decades-long fight came to an end when the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that each individual state could pass its own sports betting laws, and the federal government could no longer stand in the way.
Thanks to that ruling, sports betting in America today has never been better.
Evolution of Sports Betting Online
As big as the Supreme Court’s decision has been in growing sports betting in the United States, the revolution really began with the invention of the internet. Even where sports betting was legal, prior to the internet, you had to be at a retail sportsbook or on the phone with a bookmaker to place a wager on sports.
The inconvenience of having to travel, and the unreliable nature of calling some guy on the phone to place a clandestine bet, prevented many people from participating in sports betting. But then the internet came to be, and suddenly you could connect to a reputable sports bookmaker from the comfort of your own home.
Then smartphones came to be, and as mobile technology continues to advance, so does the amount of access you have from the device that you always carry with you. Online sports betting evolved from the convenience of being at home to the convenience of betting anywhere and anytime.
With 24-hour access comes the ability to bet on sports taking place in all 24 time zones on Earth. It’s never been easier to fund a sports betting account, withdraw funds, find a sport and bet you like, and even participate in wagering on events as they unfold.
Types of Online Sports Bets
One of the great things about doing your sports betting online is that not only do you have access to all of the types of bets you can place in person at a retail sportsbook, but there are some types of bets only available online.
Point Spread
This is the most common type of bet that is placed on higher-scoring sports, like football and basketball. The bookmaker sets a point spread that represents the margin of victory in which the favorite must win by in order for the bet to win. Typically a point spread pays -110 on a winning bet, meaning that you need to wager $110 to win $100. This extra fee goes to the sportsbook and is known as juice or vig.
Totals Bet
Also known as an over/under; this is a bet on the combined total points, runs, or goals that are scored by both teams in a single game. Who wins and who loses the game does not matter, only the total score, and if you bet over or under the line posted by the sportsbook.
Moneyline Bet
With a moneyline bet, you are wagering on the winner of the game outright. There is no point spread to cover, and only the winner of the game determines if you win the bet. But in order to level the playing field, which is what a point spread does, the moneyline pays on odds depending on which team is the favorite and just how big a favorite they might be.
- For example, a smaller favorite might pay -120, which means you need to bet $120 to win $100. A heavy favorite could pay -185, meaning that in order to win $100, it will take a wager of $185. Conversely, bets on the underdog pay more than the wager amount, like +150, which means a $100 bet pays you $150 if the underdog wins.
Just like with a retail sportsbook, you can combine events into one large wager online. Although when doing it online, it can often be easier to build a combined bet and see exactly what it will pay before you actually place it.
Parlays
The most common type of combined bet, a parlay, is a combination of two or more single bets that payout on escalating odds the more bets you place in the parlay. For example, if you combine a point spread bet with a totals bet, the payout is $2.60 for every $1 you bet. Add in another point spread bet to make it a three-team parlay, and the payout is $6 for every $1 you wager.
- Most sportsbooks have a maximum number of bets that you can add to anyone’s parlay, but this maximum tends to be higher when betting online. Also worth remembering, the reason the payouts are higher the more wagers you add is that every single game must be a winner for the entire parlay to be a winner. Just one loss, and the entire parlay is lost.
Teaser Bet
This is a parlay, but one that comes with the ability to improve your chances of winning. If a sportsbook offers you a six-point teaser – the most commonly offered teaser when betting on football – the favorite that you bet that is giving 7.5 points is now only giving 1.5 points.
- You get to move the line on all three teams you wager in a parlay, improving the odds significantly that you will win each bet and win the overall parlay. The overall payout is also less since the odds that you will win have improved.
- Teasers are hard to find at retail sportsbooks but are far more common when betting online.
Round Robin Bet
These bets are similar to a parlay in that you pick a number of different bets and combine them into a single round-robin bet. But they are also different because each possible combination of two-team parlays becomes its own separate bet. If in your round-robin you pick four bets to put into two-team parlays, you would have a total of six parlay bets. If one team loses, the three bets that it is involved with will lose, but the other three bets will still be alive.
- Round robins carry less risk than a standard parlay, and because of that, they pay less.
These are bets that focus on individual or team achievements inside the game and are not influenced by the team which wins the game. For individual prop bets, examples range from which starting pitcher records the most strikeouts, to if Tom Brady throws for 300 yards, or if Lebron James scores more than 28 points.
Player props can also include season-long bets, like which player will win the league MVP. Team props are similar to individual props and also usually don’t have anything to do with the outcome of a game – like which team hits the most three-point baskets, who hits the most home runs, and who wins the opening coin toss.
Futures Bets
These are bets on events that have yet to take place, like which team will win next year’s Super Bowl or who will end up winning the U.S. Open. These are bets that can sometimes be placed year in advance, like in the case of the FIFA World Cup, or up until just moments before the event begins.
Live Betting
Unlike all the bets listed above that must be placed before the opening pitch, tip, kickoff, or serve, live betting, also called in-play or in-game betting, is betting that takes place as a game or event is in progress. It is also exclusive to online and mobile wagering and can’t be done at the betting window of a retail sportsbook.
It’s the most interactive way to participate in sports betting. Instead of being nothing more than a spectator when your point spread bet begins, with live betting, the odds and spreads change, and new bets become available as the game progresses. You get quarter and halftime lines, multiple buyout options that change as the game changes, and you can even place wagers on small events inside the game. These can vary from each pitch in baseball or point in tennis to the end result of a possession in football.
Live betting has become popular throughout the world, and as online and mobile technology continue to improve, so does the enjoyment of live sports betting.
The Advantages of Online Sports Betting
Live betting can only be done online, so that is a major advantage of online sports betting. But there really are a number of reasons why online sports betting is making the industry better for both the customers and the sports betting providers.
Online sports betting, and specifically the ongoing legalization of online sports betting, is the primary driver of the massive expansion in the industry that has taken place over the last few years. It is easier than ever to place sports bets, and that is why so many new sportsbooks are coming online. The monetary pie is huge, and everyone wants a piece.
But that also makes the competition for your betting dollar even more intense, and this has become a buyer’s market because of it, with you, the consumer, being the buyer.
Everyone wants you as a customer, and that means everyone is willing to give you free money to sign up. This can come in the form of registration bonuses that are put into your account the moment you sign up, to deposit matching bonuses that give you money when you make your first deposit.
These types of bonuses are only available online.
And speaking of deposits, when placing bets at a retail sportsbook, you can only use cash. When funding your online sports betting account, you can use cash if you’d like, but also a credit or debit card, online bill pay, e-wallet accounts like PayPal and Neteller, prepaid cards, and in some cases even bitcoin.
When betting online, there is, of course, the convenience of being at home, but the number of sports and sports betting options is also larger. And many sportsbooks will offer live streaming options on the events you wager, like European basketball or international soccer.
So not only can you wager from the comfort of your couch, you can then watch the game in which you just bet. You simply will not find that kind of personalization at a retail sportsbook.
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Legality of Sports Betting Online
We can all thank the state of New Jersey for filing the lawsuit that eventually led to the Supreme Court’s ruling that individual states could set their own sports betting laws. And since that ruling came down in May of 2018, many states have, and many others are in the process of doing so.
Chances are that you have legal sports betting in your state, or you will soon. And it is important to know that because each state has its own laws, regulatory bodies, and sports betting tax rates, that you must be within the borders of a particular state to place wagers in that state.
If you are in Colorado, you will not be able to place wagers at an online sportsbook that is operating in New Jersey. But the good news is that many of the sportsbooks operating in New Jersey are also operating in Colorado, and you simply need to go to your state-specific website or download the specific app for your state.
And if your state doesn’t have online sports betting, the other good news is that none of the legal states require that you be a resident. So if you live near the border of a legal state, you’re just a short drive from being able to place legal online sports wagers.
Because not all laws are uniform, be sure to understand the laws in your state before you begin placing sports wagers. Almost all states have set the legal age at 21. But in terms of which college athletics can be wagered, location of college events, and proposition bets involving college athletes, there is some variation.
Sports Betting How To Guide
How Money Line Works?
Moneyline betting is by far the easiest way to place a sports wager. There are no point spreads to parse, no garbage-time free throws to ruin your betting day, and no last-minute meaningless touchdowns to take you from a winner to a loser.
How to Bet Odds
When we, as sports fans, learned our multiplication tables, we aced the number 7. Seven, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 were easy because we all watched football on the weekends. Multiplication by sevens, then add a three, a six after a missed PAT.
How to Bet on NFL Games
Baseball is America’s pastime, but football is America’s crazed passion, with its weekly schedule of games, millions of television viewers across the country and the world, and the billion-dollar stadiums that serve as Sunday cathedrals in 32 American cities.
What is the Spread?
If you are a golfer or have ever played on a bowling team, think of a point spread like a handicap. It is a way for two teams of differing abilities to play each other on equal footing. The better team, and the favorite in the game, gives a certain amount …
