2024 Ultimate Sports Betting Guide

Are there any fans of sports? We bet there are. Why? If you were not into sports, you would hardly be reading this article, would you? It does not matter which sport you like; it is very likely to be available on a betting site, with several markets to choose from and a variety of bet types. If you have not practised sports betting before, it may be difficult for you to understand what we are talking about. Don't worry! With our 2024 Ultimate Sports Betting Guide, you will learn everything you need in case you want to place a bet or two on a sport you like. Let's start with the basics: namely, what is sports betting and how does it work?

How Does Sports Betting Work?

First, let's explain what the term sports betting means. In practice, it's exactly what it sounds like. Sports betting is betting on the outcome of an event. In other words, you place a bet on a certain aspect of the sporting event, and if you guess the course of events, you will receive a certain amount of money. For example, if the player or team you bet on wins, you will win and vice versa.

According to Daily Mail sources, the global sports betting market could reach three trillion a year. It is one of the fastest-growing industries related to some kind of entertainment. However, sports betting is still prohibited in many countries. Fortunately, Britain is not one of them. In fact, the United Kingdom was one of the first countries in the world to legalize the sports betting industry in 1961 and has quite developed laws in this direction.

Even so, finding people who can talk about sports betting confidently is a really hard task. It is essential for every bettor to be able to analyze what his/her chances of winning a wager are as well as how to interpret the betting odds. These are the bread and the butter of betting on sports. Plus, you have to keep in mind that regardless of the betting site you chose, a small fee will be charged to you called “vigorish” or “juice”. It will be detracted from the amount you have wagered. This information could be found in the t&cs section of every reputable and licensed bookmaker.

When it comes to types of wagers, there are plenty of opportunities you can choose from. For instance, there are simple bets such as which team or player will win the match, but there are complicated betting options as well about let’s say by how many points the game would be won. Today, the world of bookmakers is so highly competitive that numerous betting scripts are available. In this blog post we will introduce you to the most common types of bets in the UK and how they work.

Match Bet

Matched betting, which is also known as double betting, back bet matching, and lay bet matching, is a betting technique related to free bets that many punters use. Simply speaking this is a system of taking advantage of betting sites’ promotional offers. Typically, free bets allocated to punters through a welcome bonus or some kind of weekly offer are placed in such a way, so that all possible outcomes of a given sports event are covered and a positive return will follow regardless of the match’s result.

Nonetheless, the bookmakers’ set range of prices for sports events has the so-called betting margin or house edge, which means that even if your wager wins a percentage of the winning is for the betting site. That is why many punters tend to do match betting by using a betting exchange. What is this? A betting exchange allows bettors to bet not against the bookmaker but against other players. In this case, gamblers offer odds or demand them from other players. Finally, the betting exchange only receives a small commission from the winner.

Bet Builder/Same-Game Multi

There are more and more betting options. One of the newest and at the same time most popular types is the same-game multi or as it is more common – bet builder. In order to be able to understand how the bet builder works you need to be aware of what accumulator or acca bets are. We could say that same-game multi is some kind of incarnation of the acca format. In essence, the accumulator is a set of bets whose weight is mutually transferred. What does that mean? If all betting selections are correct, the bet is winning. If there is even one wrong selection, the bet is lost.

Why are these types of bets preferred, since if you get one option wrong, the bet is lost? Because combining different bets in a sequence creates higher odds that could potentially bring a big win from a small bet. Unlike acca bets, bet builders allow multiple selections but only from one game. Your bet only wins if all your selections turn out to be correct. The maximum selections you can place within one bet builder depends on the bookmaker, but usually, the maximum number of combined bets allowed is six.

Player Props/Player Stats

Prop betting emerged and became widely popular in the US, thanks to Super Bowl. However, he is becoming player props bets are becoming more and more common on betting sites around the world. But what is a prop wager? Prop betting is the shortened version of proposition betting. First, it is important to be said that prop bets relate to the result of the game for a given period (the whole match, half, quarter). Basically, prop betting offers bettors questions that may or may not have any effect on the final outcome of the game.

This type of betting works on the basis of counting something. Therefore, sports such as basketball and football are more suitable for this type of betting because they have many opportunities for statistics to be kept. They are a subset of what are known as derivative markets, which means that the numbers offered are derived from other markets. Therefore, prop wagers have low limits.

Asian Handicap Bet

As the name of this type of wagering suggests, the origins of Asian handicaps are South-East Asia. To be more specific, the system originated in Indonesia and became popular in the first years of the XXI century. It is important to clarify that the Asian type of handicap betting is slightly different from the standard betting that you have no doubt seen if you have any experience in sports betting.

Generally speaking, handicap betting means at the start of the game to give a team a virtual deficit or advantage to win. For example, if you give a team a handicap of -2, it means that to win the bet, the team needs to score 3 clean sheets. If they score just one or two, it will be lost. But what differentiates the Asian Handicap from the standard? It is just that punters have more alternatives. Depending on how the game goes, you can get your bet back or half of it. Also, Asian Handicap margins tend to be lower, so you would have better odds.

Double Chance

Double Chance betting is exactly what it sounds like. Placing a double chance wager means that you combine two possible outcomes of a game into one bet which increases your chances to guess the result of it right. As an illustration, if one football team is playing against another and you believe that the first one is going to win but you also think that there is a chance for the teams to draw, this is a double chance wager because you have bet that both outcomes are likely to occur.

This type of bet is popular with punters because the possibility of a potential winning bet is greater. For example, as you know in football there are three possible outcomes: win, loss, and draw. If you place a double chance bet, it means that the possibility of being right about the outcome of the game is 2:1. For this reason, double chance odds are usually shorter.

Accumulators

The abbreviation acca bet is also common. In some parts of the world, this type of betting is called parlays. This is a bet constructed from several selections called legs. To win the bet, all your selections must be correct. What is the difference between accumulator bets and bet builders? Accumulator bets allow combining different markets, that is, all your selections do not have to be related to one game as in the same-game multi bet. Nevertheless, some bookmakers may have restrictions for combining multiple sports into an accumulator.

The number of selections can vary from four to twenty, with the maximum number in most cases specified by the betting site. Why are parlay bets preferred by punters? Combining several individual bets could potentially give you a better win with a low stake. This is because theoretically, the returns would be higher. The return + the returned bet from the first leg becomes the wager for the second leg, then the return + the returned stake from the second leg is a placed bet for the third leg, and so on.

Correct Score/Scorecast/Wincast

Are you a little confused? Do not be. We will explain these types of bets right away. To start with, with a correct score wager, you make a prediction about the exact score of a match. For example, if you believe that the first team will win the game 2-0, then your correct score bet should be 2-0. Usually, bookmakers put limits on how many goals can be predicted. Correct score betting odds tend to be longer. If you are able to choose from, let’s say, between 0 and six possible goals for both teams, then the potential outcomes for this match are estimated to be 49.

What about wincasts and scorecasts stakes? The wincast wager is a type of double bet. In effect, you are betting on two events in the same game where you are trying to guess the outcome of the game and the potential scorer. You must guess both to win the bet, no matter what time of the game it occurs. The scorecast wager is a double bet type as well. What distinguishes it from the wincast is that you have to guess not only the goal scorer but also the exact outcome of the game in points.

Over and Under Betting

Over/Under wagering is also called totals betting. This type of bet does not care about which will be the winning team or the goal scorer. The only thing important is the total score of both teams. To be more specific, how little or how much scoring happened between the two teams during the gameplay. Oddsmakers determine the total for the two games based on how they imagine a game will play out in terms of points.

Your stake will be a winning one, if you predict correctly both teams’ combined score. You need to make a decision whether the total score will be higher or lower than the set number by the oddsmakers. Let’s give an example so as to make things easier to understand. The most common choice is over/under 2.5 goals. In this case, three or more goals have to be scored (over 2.5) or two or less goals (under 2.5) for your bet to be winning.

Draw No Bet

This type of bet is extremely popular, especially in rugby betting. Theoretically speaking this bet removes the tie as a result of three-way markets and gamblers bet on either the away team or the home team winning. If the team you bet on wins, your wager is a winning one. If the match ends in a draw, the money will be returned to you. The punt is lost if the team you bet on is defeated. On the opposite to this, in the other wagers with three options related to the outcome of the game, if the match ends in a draw, the stake will also lose.

Some seasonal punters see it as a way to reduce the likelihood of a losing bet. For this reason, they use it to back an underdog, to "hedge" their bet if they believe the match may end in a draw, or to perform an in-play swap of a favourite if it loses.

Next Manager and Player Odds Markets

Betting on the next manager is not as widespread perhaps because it is not as simple as betting on who will win the match or who will be the top scorer. For example, in football, managerial positions are constantly becoming vacant due to resignations or dismissals, since in this sport the performance of the team plays a very important role in whether the manager will keep his job. Sometimes it takes a while before a new club manager is appointed. Meanwhile, bookies are setting odds and opening markets on who will be next in that position.

Here are some important things to keep in mind. For such markets to appear on betting sites, there must be sufficient interest. For a Premier League club or a major national team, odds are likely to appear, but for a club in the Arab world, it would be unlikely. Please read the bookmaker's rules for this market carefully as there may be different interpretations of the next manager bet. Besides, if you are going to bet on such a market, keep your level of awareness up by following the clubs' official social media accounts, their websites, and the media.

In-Play Betting

As the name suggests, betting, also known as live betting, refers to placing bets after the game has already started. It is a relatively new opportunity in sports betting that is becoming more and more popular. Only a few years ago it was unthinkable that a single website could handle the load caused by rapidly changing odds and live betting. Today, there is an increasing demand for bookmakers that also offer live streaming, due to the convenience of having these two services on one site.

It will not be exaggerated to say that live betting has changed the sports betting industry. Thanks to it, there is an expansion of the number of things on which you could possibly place a bet. As you can probably guess, the betting frequency has also changed as live bettors monitor the gameplay and can react to the changing flow of the game. The interval in which live bets can be made depends on the bookmakers.

How to Find Value When Betting on Different Sports Events?

Let's start this point by clarifying the concept of value betting. Simply put, this is a bet where there is a higher probability of a given outcome occurring than the odds suggest. In other words, with a value bet your odds of winning a bet are greater than the bookmaker's calculated. It is not easy to find such odds, especially when you are a beginner. But you do not have to be a mathematician to see the value, or lack thereof, in a bet.

It is important to distinguish between a team's chances of winning in general and the odds it has against the bookmakers' odds because one is not necessarily equivalent to the other. It is better to place bets on sports that you have at least a basic knowledge of, as this will help you determine whether a bet is worth it or not. If you do not know much about sports, take some time to at least familiarize yourself with the main competitions and participants. Thus, you will have an idea of which teams are stronger, who would have a better chance of beating their opponent based on their previous performances, etc.

Let's say you are already aware of the sport you have chosen for your bets. The next thing you need to start understanding is probabilities. Why? Well, betting odds are exactly that - they represent the probability of a given outcome. The term is called "implied probability". In the following list, you can see how it is calculated.

• 1 / Decimal Odds = Implied Probability
• For example, let’s assume that the odds for the possible win of a team are 1.90 and substitute in the formula:
• 1 / 1.90 = Implied Probability
• 0.5263 = Implied Probability
• We multiply the result by 100% to get the percentage probability.
• Implied Probability = 52.63

The difference between a value bet and a regular bet is not small. You can only determine the type of bet by calculating the odds. Usually, bookmakers use special software that fixes the odds. It is rare for a simple bet to be overvalued or undervalued. Conversely, a value bet often happens to be estimated below its exact value. Using the following formula (Probability * Decimal Odds) - 1 = Value, you can calculate whether a bet is a value one. If the final result is more than 0, then you have found what you are looking for.

Sports Betting Tips

We have said so much about sports betting that you might find it too much information. That is why we have prepared a card guide with sports betting tips.

• Learn all the important things about the sport you have chosen.
• Be selective when searching for odds and compare them.
• Take your time to understand the concepts of value and probability.
• Read sports predictions so as to get familiar with the expectations of the experts for the game’s outcome.
• Set a betting budget and stick to it.
• Do not place wagers when you are stressed, under the influence of alcohol or other substances.
• Take breaks regularly to be sure you gamble responsibly.

Sports Betting FAQs