Sports betting tips: how to bet

Sides and totals bets on major sports like baseball, basketball, and football are the most common bets available everywhere. However, many sportsbooks also offer proposition bets (or short props) for betting on non-team sports such as golf, tennis, boxing, and auto racing, including NASCAR, due to its growing popularity. The two main ways to bet on non-team sports are “Betting to Win” an event and “Pairing Bets” which pit one individual against another individual or a group of individuals.

betting to win

Before every major event in non-team sports like golf, tennis, and auto racing, bookmakers set the future. These are not fixed and are adjusted multiple times before the event by sportsbooks and are sometimes released months before an event. The same goes for major team sports like the NFL and college football, the NBA and MLB college basketball and baseball.

The main advantage of futures is that you can get attractive odds by betting long before the event takes place. For example, betting now on the 2006 Masters golf tournament could provide much more value to Tiger Woods, who may be 10/1 right now, but drop to 6/1 closer to the event if he is on a roll.

An example with team sports would be NFL futures, where you can often get much higher odds on a team by betting before the season starts. A future NFL bet on a team to win the Super Bowl could be 20/1 in the preseason; but midway through the season, their odds could drop to 10/1 if they turn out to be legitimate championship contenders.

“Betting to win” on a result event like The Masters is the most common way of betting on people competing for a particular non-team title. Unlike team sports like football, non-team sports also have multiple events over the course of a year, so “Betting to Win” obviously occurs much more frequently than a futures bet. of the NFL once a year on the winner of the Super Bowl.

It is very important to note that not all competitors in an event may be listed, so another betting option is on the “field” that includes all other competitors that are not listed. The odds on a “field” bet are typically comparable to a bet on the favorite to protect sportsbooks from taking a big hit if a big upset occurs. For a lower payout, field bettors get the advantage of having more than one participant who can win for them.

matchmaking bets

For non-team sports such as golf, boxing, tennis and NASCAR, “Matchup Betting” offers an alternative to simply betting on the winner of the event. “Pairing bets” generally involve one individual facing off against another individual in a head-to-head event, such as a tennis match, and the odds are determined using the money line.

For example, if Serena Williams were to face an outmatched opponent in the US Open tennis tournament, a reasonable money line would require bettors on Serena to risk $400 to win $100, while a $100 bet on her opponent would win $360.

Here’s how the money line would list: Serena Williams -400 / #102 Ranked Opponent +360.

Every $400 bet on Serena generates a profit of $100 if she wins (plus the return on the $400 risked). If her opponent is surprised, the $100 bet on the underdog would generate a profit of $360 (plus the return on the $100 risked). For more information on how this works, be sure to check out How to Read the Money Line.

Also, a tennis match would be considered a tournament-style head-to-head matchup, as the competitors involved play directly against each other in the event. An artificial heads-up matchup involves competitors in an event such as a golf tournament or car race competing indirectly against each other, as they are actually competing against everyone on the field, not just one other competitor. These artificial pairings are also bogus in the sense that they are created by bookmakers, solely for betting purposes, and different pairings are often offered by different books.

Pool matchups are another way “pairup betting” is used, which are particularly popular in golf and auto racing events like NASCAR, where you can select whether a leading competitor or a few other minor competitors will finish higher among the group, with the odds again based on money lines. Since golf and NASCAR are pre-qualified, not everyone makes the cut on the last day of competition, and these group matchups require everyone to qualify to be eligible for action.

Proposition bets for non-team sports are not limited to ‘Bet to Win’ an event and ‘Head-to-Head Bets’, but those are the main ways to bet on them. Other examples of props for non-team sports include which racing team will finish better in a particular NASCAR race (Chevy, Ford, or Dodge) or how many rounds the fight between Mike Tyson and Kevin McBride will go on (Over/Under 8.5 rounds). Props, also known as exotic bets, are also extremely popular at high-profile team sporting events like the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. The Imperial Palace Casino sportsbook is known for the huge number of bets it offers. For example, you can bet on:

Which team will win the coin toss?

Which player will score the first touchdown of the game?

What will be the exact margin of victory?

As you can see, there is much more to betting than just totals and sides, especially when it comes to betting on non-team sports. So consider all of your betting options and don’t miss out on the excitement that non-team sports have to offer with prop betting!