Watching sport is one of the most enjoyed hobbies across the globe. The most recent Olympics in 2016 had over 3 billion viewers.The World Cup final in 2018 between France and Croatia was viewed by 884 million people. The 2020 Super Bowl between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers was watched by 102 million people. It can be tense and exciting, but this exhilaration can be enhanced, simply by adding sports betting into the equation.
It can be difficult to know where to start with sports betting, with all the different terminology floating around, confusing matters. This Beginner’s guide to online sports betting will try and give you an idea of the basics, which will hopefully aid you in your quest to get into betting on sports online.
Odds Explained
Betting odds represent the chance of an event or outcome in any given sports happening. The more likely it is to happen, the shorter (or lower) the odds will be. For example, if Team A (PSG) are in good form and playing Team B (Toulouse) who haven’t won a game in months, Team A are the favourites, so might be 2/1 to win. Team B however are the underdog, so might be only 5/1 to win.
Odds can be displayed in either fractional or decimals. Fractional odds are what we used in the previous example. So if you were to bet $10 on something that has 5/1 odds, and the bet wins, you would win $60, your original $10 stake plus a profit of $50.
Decimal odds are a little different. The same example will be displayed as a decimal would be 6. Most sports betting websites will allow you to toggle between the two, so you can pick whichever you prefer.
Over/Under
If you are struggling to decide on a clear outcome or winner for a sports match, over or under bets can be a great way to bet instead. Always written to the nearest 0.5, it means that you can bet on the total number of goals, corners, or fouls etc. So if you think they’ll be at least three goals in a football match, you could place a bet on over 2.5 goals. Or, if you don’t think they’ll be more than 10 yellow cards, you could place a bet on under 9.5 cards.
Handicaps
Another element of this Beginner’s guide to online sports betting are Handicaps. If a match is seen as one sided (say PSG vs Toulouse) bookies can offer a handicap of say -2. This means PSG would start at -2, and would need to win at least 3-0 to actually win in the terms of this bet. It can really help to liven up potentially uneven events or games.
Singles/Doubles/Trebles/Accumulators
Many sports betting websites will allow you to add multiple bets onto a single betting slip. The more bets you add to your slip, the higher the potential winnings will be. However, you’ll need to be aware that it will then increase the unlikeliness of the betting coming off, as each individual bet will need to win. So you might bet on the correct winner of five football matches in one combined accumulator. Unless all five bets are correct, you won’t win.
So hopefully this Beginner’s guide to sportsbetting websites proves to be helpful, and gives you an idea of how it all works. It certainly can get more confusing than this, with many more technical terms thrown in, but we at Best-Online Casino NZ believe this Beginner’s guide to online sportsbetting should be a solid introduction to set you on your way.
