Different Types of Sports Bets

If you’re unfamiliar with online sports betting, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s all about correctly predicting the winner of a game, competition, or tournament. Many sports betting portrayed in movies, television, and other media shows people betting on a single, significant event like the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, or the Daytona 500. And we don’t blame the media because who wants to talk about the intricacies of how point spreads, parlays, or teasers work in the middle of your movie that is targeted toward Joe Sixpack?

Sports betting goes far beyond these kinds of moneyline bets—there’s a wide range of exciting ways to wager on sports. If you’re a newbie bettor, we recommend reading our guide on different sports bets, how they work, and how you can leverage them to enjoy a hefty payday. Understanding different types of bets is important so you can continue enhancing your betting strategies!

Straight Bets

These are the most common kinds of wagers you’ll find in sports betting. A straight bet is an individual wager on a game, match, or event—it’s wagering on the result of a single outcome. However, there are three ways that bettors can get in on straight betting: moneylines bets, point spreads, and totals (over/under bets).

Moneyline Bets

Most people’s minds will jump to this kind of bet when the subject of sports betting comes up. This is a bet on a game, match, or event winner. And the final margin of victory doesn’t factor in the bet. The favorite team or player to win is signified by a negative sign (-), and the underdog is denoted by a positive sign (+). If the favorite wins, you can earn a decent payout, but you win much more betting on the underdog if they can sometimes pull out a win.

Check out an NFL moneyline example to see how this all works:

The Bills are favored to win the game, but you must bet $200 if you’d like to win $100 (it’s a total payout of $300 because you get your original bet back). If you feel the underdog Steelers can cause an upset and win the game outright, you can win $180 for only a $100 bet. You’re risking less money to bet on the underdog, but you could win a larger sum of money.

Point Spread Bets

Point spread betting involves predicting the correct margin of victory, so there’s plenty of betting action for the favorite and the underdog. This one is really popular amongst football and basketball bettors. Let’s look at an example to see how your bet can be considered a win when doing a point spread.

Again, the Bills are favored to win over the Steelers, but there are options for winning betting on either team. For a bet on the Bills to win, the Bills need to win outright and by over 3 points against the Steelers. For a bet on the Steelers to win, the Steelers need to either win the game outright or lose to the Bills by less than 3 points.

Totals (Over/Under)

When the oddsmakers develop the total bets, they try to correctly predict the final combined score for both teams or players. Let’s look at another example involving a match-up between Buffalo and Pittsburgh:

The combined final score is 37 points, so the oddsmakers will use this number as the basis for the bet. Sports bettors will then try to predict whether the final score will exceed this number correctly.

Exotic Bets

Exotics are sports bets that don’t fall under the “straight bets” category. These are more advanced forms of sports betting, so you see these more often with seasoned bettors, those with much more experience and closely follow specific teams or individual competitors.

The bettor will buy specific points and must parlay two or more selections. Teasers are most popular in football and basketball betting. The most common teaser is a six-point football teaser, where bettors adjust the point spread for two games. Like parlay bets, teasers are only considered a win if the bettors correctly predict every leg involved.

Pleasers

Pleaser bets are like teasers, but the point spread is moved against you instead of in your favor. There’s an increased risk of placing a pleaser bet, but the reward is a much bigger payout if your predictions are correct.

Proposition Bets (Props)

Prop bets differ from traditional betting, where you bet on the outcome of a game or match. Props are placed on individual players in a game or something that may or may not happen during the course of the event. These bets are popular for NBA bettors because there are so many things that individual players can accomplish on the court. For instance, you can bet the over/under for:

• How many points a player scores
• How many rebounds a player gets
• How much assists a player distributes
• How many three-pointers a player make

Those are just a few examples of common prop bets in basketball, but these bets can extend beyond gameplay and individual performance. In an NFL game, you can bet on which team will win the coin toss, how long the National Anthem will take, or the color of the Gatorade that gets dumped on the winning team’s coach.

Because there are so many things that a prop bet could be placed on, they can be the most exciting wagers you’ll ever place using an online sports betting app. Prop bets are an exciting set of opportunities to make some additional money, that’s for sure!

Futures

The idea behind this bet is all in the name. Future bets are noted for their long-term nature because they are wagers placed on events or games in the distant future. Examples of future betting include the following:

• Betting on the winning Super Bowl team at the beginning of the NFL season
• Betting the winner of the Cy Young Award at the beginning of the MLB season
• Betting on a team’s final season record
• Placing a wager on a Monday Night Football game a week ahead of time

A lot can happen in the course of a season or even in one week, so future bets can be difficult to predict. They usually require good research, a decent grasp of team dynamics, and individual player performance.

In-Play Betting

In-play betting, also known as live betting, is a form of wagering on sports that started in the 90s over the phone but has morphed into a robust business for real money betting apps and at retail sports betting centers. The oddsmakers will develop new lines/odds and put them out during the course of a live game, match, or event. This affords bettors the chance to place multiple bets on the same game.

Because the sportsbooks’ odds change in real-time based on game developments, bettors can watch the game live and adjust their strategy accordingly. Retail sports betting centers usually have some lounge area, bar, and big-screen TVs for bettors who want to place their bets, hang out, and see how the event plays out. Bettors using sports betting apps can live-stream select events to keep track of what’s going on. Bettors need to be swift in snagging new lines and odds that come their way because they will typically change in a matter of minutes!

Handicap Betting

Handicap betting is known for leveling the playing field by letting bettors add or remove points from teams to put them at an advantage or a disadvantage. What usually happens is that the favorite to win has points taken from their final score, and the underdog has points added. A level playing field is created where no advantage exists, and there’s close to an even money shot for both teams.

Handicap Betting Isn’t Spread Betting

Handicap betting sounds a lot like a point spread, doesn’t it? There’s one primary difference between these two forms of betting, though they have extraordinary similarities. In handicapping, the handicap is applied to the final score of the game or match. Spread betting, conversely, involves the oddsmakers setting a line to bet on—punters betting above the final line win, and those betting below lose.

Each-Way Bets

Each-way bets are most common in horse racing and involve the oddsmakers offering two separate bets: a “win” bet and a “place” bet. For the win bet to be considered a win, the bettor’s selection must finish in first place. For the place bet to be considered a win, the bettor’s selection must finish in one of the predetermined places, such as first or second place.

Something important to note about each-way bet is that the place bet payouts are typically a fraction of the win bet odds. For instance, your place bets payout will be half or a third of the payout for the win bet.

Asian Handicap

Named due to its origins in Indonesia, Asian handicapping is popular in soccer betting—the idea was to make a more level playing field in terms of betting on the favorite and the underdog. In Asian handicaps, the more dominant team must win by more goals for the bet to qualify as a win.

Spread Betting

A spread is your prediction of what will happen in a particular sports market for any given match, event, or game. In fixed-odds betting, you’re either right or wrong in your predictions. However, in sports spread betting, the more often you’re correct in your bets, the more money you stand to win. You’re getting rewarded for the quality of the bet you place. You earn more as your accuracy, skill, and judgment improve.

You would buy if you feel the market will end up higher than the predicted outcome range. You will sell if you think the market will end up lower than the expected outcome range. If you are more right than wrong in your bets, you can enjoy winning multiples of your original stake.

Betting Exchanges

Exchanges are the middlemen between the bettors and the sportsbook. Professional betting exchanges make money through a small commission from the winning tickets. You can call this juice. The exchange will post bets with two sides and see that both sides are bet on before closing the bet.

Betting exchanges differ significantly from traditional bookmakers. If you’re betting with a bookmaker, you are restricted to backing a winner. You can “back” or “lay” an outcome through a betting exchange. Bettors can choose to play bookmakers, and they can set the odds for a game or event. They can even act as the customer and back the odds set by other bettors at the exchange.

Special and Novelty Bets

Aside from betting on sports, some online sportsbooks will offer betting opportunities in the realm of entertainment and politics. Some examples of these particular/novelty bets include the following:

Tips for Choosing the Right Type of Bet

How do you choose the right sports bet? It depends on who you are and how much betting experience you have. Some bets are better suited for specific punters over others. Keep reading to determine which sports bet is best based on your knowledge of the market or teams and your betting prowess.

• Moneylines: The best time to bet the moneylines is if an underdog has a good chance of winning over the favorite. Betting the favorite won’t get you great payouts, but a bet on the dog in the case of an upset pays well! You need to have a decent knowledge of the two teams to gauge the possibility of an upset.
• Point Spreads: If the underdog isn’t likely to win, but you know they could give the favorite a run for their money, we’d recommend doing a point spread bet. Betting on the dog pays more than betting on the favorite.
• Parlays: You shouldn’t bet on a parlay unless you’re a bettor with some decent experience under your belt and a good grasp on the teams you’re betting on.