In-Depth Beginner’s Guide to Sports Betting in 2024

How to Know If Sports Betting Is Right for You

How to Know If Sports Betting Is Right for You

Not sure if betting on sports online is right for you? A simple way to find out is by taking a look at these questions and answering them as honestly as possible:

• You enjoy watching sports?
• You consider yourself knowledgeable on certain sports?
• You are good at predicting game winners/scores?
• You have spare cash to use?
• You want to earn money while watching sports?

If you answered “yes” to all or most of these questions, then it sounds like sports betting is right for you! The next question is, “What kind of sports bettor do you want to be—a casual bettor or a full-time sports bettor?”

Let’s look more into it below.

Casual Betting

Casual sports bettors make up a good chunk of the sports betting market. They enjoy watching sports, have spare cash to spend on betting, and know a little bit about what is going on in the sports world.

However, as a casual sports bettor, you most likely will not be placing extremely large wagers on any single game or event. In fact, casual bettors tend to try and make a profit steadily through a sports season to increase their total bankroll.

Questions to determine if you should be a casual sports bettor:

• You are likely to place most of your bets on your favorite team or sport?
• You plan to make less than five bets per week?
• You do not plan to wager more than $1,000 on any given bet?
• You plan to start sports betting with a small budget?

If you answered “yes” to these questions, then it sounds like you are more of a casual sports bettor!

Full-Time Betting

Full-time sports betting is a huge commitment and requires a large amount of risk on your end. However, many successful full-time sports bettors earn a living through their betting decisions.

Questions to determine if full-time sports betting is for you:

• You plan to do thorough research before making a betting decision?
• You plan on betting as much as possible?
• You are willing to wager large sums of money at one time?
• You have a large amount of money to spare on betting?

If you answered “yes” to these questions, then it sounds like you are willing to take the leap and try to become a full-time sports bettor.

If so, make sure you do a ton of research before you get started to learn about other full-time sports bettors and the methods they used to become successful and profitable.

Understanding Sports Betting: The Basics

Understanding Sports Betting: The Basics

Before you can begin betting on sports for real money, you need to understand the basics of doing so. While some of these may seem obvious, they are all greatly beneficial to know and will help put you on the fast track to becoming a successful and lucrative sports bettor.

Here are some great resources for understanding the basics of sports betting.

Mechanics of Sports Betting

Similar to most things in life, it’s important to understand how sports betting actually works before you dive in headfirst. This page will help you better understand the mechanics from bet selection to your stake, and even betting odds.

Benefits of Sports Betting

Sports betting for real money is one of the most popular forms of gambling there is. This is partially due to the popularity of sports but can also be attributed to the great benefits of wagering. Check out this page to learn more about them.

Understanding Sports Betting Odds

The entire purpose of betting on sports is to make money, right? Therefore, you should gain a full understanding of how sports betting odds work before wagering your money. This will help you better understand the potential reward based on the size of your risk.

How Sportsbooks Make Money

You may be asking yourself, “If sportsbooks pay you for winning bets, how do they make any money?” Through specific techniques and tactics, they ensure that they stay in business by collecting money on nearly every bet placed. This page explains more about their process for making money.

Understanding Probability and Value

Knowing how to identify great betting opportunities is crucial in your ability to become a successful and profitable sports bettor. This page will explain the concept of value and how it plays into probability.

How to Place Sports Bets

There are many options when it comes to placing your sports bets. If you have never placed a sports bet before, then check out this page to learn about several betting methods, including online sports betting, telephone betting, brick and mortar casino sportsbooks, and more.

Useful Resources for Betting on Sports

Now that you understand the basics of sports betting, here are some other useful resources you should check out in order to improve your success at the books.

Tips for Beginner Sports Bettors

It never hurts to receive some free advice, especially if you’re new to sports betting online. Start with the basics and check out this page to find some sports betting tips and get started on the right foot.

Common Sports Betting Mistakes

Mistakes happen, and you can’t expect to win every single bet you place. However, you can aim to avoid some common betting mistakes that new sports bettors tend to make. This page highlights some of the most common sports betting mistakes that you should aim to avoid.

Types of Sports Bets

Types of Sports Bets

One of the most exciting things about getting started with sports betting is that you have a ton of options to choose from when it comes to the type of bet that you want to place.

While some bet types are simple to understand, others are more complicated and can prove to be more difficult to win for less-experienced sports bettors.

Take a look at these different types of sports bets below to determine which one sounds like the best fit for you.

Moneylines Explained

Moneylines Explained

For the most part, moneylines are used when there are two possible outcomes. For example, if you’re placing a moneyline wager on a basketball game, then you’ll essentially be betting on which of the two competing teams will win. Your two choices will be to either back the favorite or to back the underdog.

Favorites are always listed as negative moneylines. Underdogs are always listed as positive moneylines.

With a negative moneyline, the odds show how much stake is needed to win $100. With a positive moneyline, the odds show how much a $100 stake will pay in winnings.

When betting in non-$100 increments, you’ll have to do all of these calculations on your own.

Calculating Moneyline Payouts

We’ve written a whole article on how to calculate moneyline payouts. Anyone interested in learning more about all the formulas and configurations involved should definitely check this article out. Otherwise, you could just follow this quick trick.

When betting on the favorite, simply divide the negative moneyline by 100 to get a decimal. When betting on the underdog, the first step is the same. Divide the positive moneyline by 100, then multiply your stake by that number to get your potential winnings.

Finding Value in Moneylines

Finding Value in Moneylines

All moneylines have what is referred to as an implied probability. This is really just a fancy term pertaining to how often a wager needs to win in order to breakeven, but it’s something you need to understand in order to make a profit from betting moneylines.

Calculating implied probability is relatively straightforward, as long as you use the following formula.

Risk / Return = Implied Probability

Risk is the initial amount staked on a wager, while return is the initial amount staked plus the potential win.

Technically, probability should always be a number between 0 and 1. It’s often expressed as a percentage though, which makes things easier for the purposes of betting. Theoretical value exists in a wager when we estimate that its chance of winning is greater than the implied probability of the odds.

This is basically what finding value is all about. When we think that a wager is more likely to win than the odds suggest, we should place that wager. As long as we’re estimating those chances accurately, we should have no problem making an overall profit.

The Importance of Value

The Importance of Value

To say that value is important in sports betting is a major understatement. It’s a little like saying that breathing is important to humans. In other words, “important” doesn’t quite cut it. Vital would be much a better word.

Value basically determines whether a wager is good or bad.

While this statement does simplify things, it’s still accurate. Contrary to popular belief, the quality of a wager isn’t determined by whether it wins or loses. A good wager can still lose, and a bad wager can still win.

What’s crucial to remember is this; good wagers win money IN THE LONG RUN. Bad wagers, on the other hand, lose money in the long run.

How to Find Value

In an ideal world there would be a perfect system for finding value in the betting markets. Although, if there was, sports betting probably wouldn’t exist at all. If we could find value easily, then we’d be able to put the bookmakers out of business in no time. That just isn’t the case, however, as finding value is actually very challenging.

Why is it so hard? We have listed the two main reasons below.

• Bookmakers are skilled at pricing the markets.
• Value is subjective

A lot of people think that the bookmakers have it easy. It’s a widely held belief that they are profitable simply because of the inherent advantage they have in being able to set the odds. While being able to set the odds themselves does allow them to have a built in commission, it would be ignorant to say that their job is easy.

It takes a great deal of skill to set betting odds at a level where they are attractive enough for people to want to bet, but still advantageous to the bookmaker. That’s why bookmakers and betting sites typically hire several highly trained odds compilers and traders, who are typically very good at what they do. It’s their job to set the initial odds for the betting markets and then adjust them as and when necessary based on the money coming in.

It’s an odds compiler’s responsibility to make sure that there’s little to no value for us bettors. Luckily, they aren’t always successful, which is why it’s possible to make money. Still, they go out of their way to make sure that this won’t be easy for us.

The fact that value is subjective is what ultimately makes it impossible for there to be a single system for finding it. Value exists in a betting market when the chances of a wager winning are greater than the odds suggest. There’s no definitively correct way to determine value in sports betting.

Ultimately, finding value comes down to making the best possible judgment. When considering the probability of a sports event’s outcome happening, we need to try to be as accurate as possible.

Handicapping the Market in Sports Betting

Handicapping the Market in Sports Betting

Sharp Books and Square Books

Every sport has what is referred to as sharp book, with some sports having more than one. An example is Pinnacle Sports that, despite not accepting US players, offers reduce juice -104 pricing on NFL sides and takes up to $30,000 maximum bets with multiple max bets allowed for this league. It’s well known that Pinnacle Sports is one the most difficult sports gambling sites to beat, even though they generally offer what appear to be great odds.

Meanwhile, Bookmaker.eu (US players accepted) is also in many ways a sharp book. They are relevant to professional bettors, because they were the first to open betting odds, have a great reputation for fast payouts and no personal limit collars, accept US players, and have betting limits of up to $50,000 per bet on NFL football point spreads.

The opposite of sharp books are “square books” or in more politically correct terms “recreational sportsbooks.” A good example in the US market is Bovada, an online betting site with a great reputation that only allows United States residents to open accounts. It has no interest in professional players and therefore posts their betting odds much closer to game time than other sites, offers smaller maximum bets, and doesn’t offer moneylines on all markets.

Off Market Prices

What does it mean that some betting sites are sharp and others are square? Shop for off-market prices, and you’ll find out. Let’s say dozens of betting sites are offering New England Patriots -7 -105 and their opponent the Washington Redskins +7 -115. We then notice Bovada has the Patriots -7.5 -105 / Redskins +7.5 -115. Of course it would be silly to bet the Patriots at Bovada because this would be taking the wrong side of an off-market price; however, for reasons covered in our article on buying half-points, here at Bovada, Redskins +7.5 -115 is likely close to a neutral expected value bet.

Steam Betting

To introduce you to the most powerful concept that comes from monitoring betting odds, we’ll give an example of steam betting. For the example, let’s imagine every online betting site in the industry is offering betting odds for an NBA basketball game between the Milwaukee Bucks -7.5 -105 and Washington Wizards +7.5 -115. You then suddenly notice the line moves at Bookmaker.eu to Bucks -8 -110 and then at 5dimes to Bucks -8 -108. Meanwhile, you notice all the recreational gambling sites such as JustBet, Bovada, and TopBet still have the Bucks at -7.5 -105. The smart play is to quickly place a wager at one of these websites taking Bucks -7.5 -105 before they get a chance to also move the line.

The reason steam betting is highly profitable is because odds movement is triggered by something: a highly successful professional bettor such as Billy Walters making a bet or by insider knowledge of an injury, player illness, lineup change, or something else. These odds aren’t moving at sharp betting sites without reason, and more times than not, moves are the result of professional bettors using their syndicates to make bets. Obviously, our goal here is to use recreational sites to make the same wagers as professionals at the same exact odds.

Sharp Line Movement

Betting steam is difficult to do as the betting odds tend to move quite fast at online betting sites, while slow moving sites are quick to limit collar or ban anyone betting steam too often. The same concept is far more effective by developing the intuition required to spot sharp line movement before steam actually occurs.

An example might be seeing an NFL point spread move +6.0 -110 at Bookmaker.eu when the consensus market price is +6.5 -110 everywhere else. This situation happens frequently when professional bettors from the US make large wagers. Many of these big players don’t have syndicates, and the only professional book left in the US market is bookmaker.eu.

How to Handicap the Market

How to Handicap the Market

Now that we have covered sharp versus recreational sites and some uses of this information, it’s time to actually discuss handicapping the market.

Before doing so, allow us to ask a question. Let’s say all sharp books are offering moneyline odds on an NFL football game of Patriots -550 / Buffalo Bills +450, yet someone comes along and offers your choice of Patriots -500 / Bills +500. Which of these bets would you take and why?

Although many people would answer Patriots for the sole reason they prefer betting favorites over long shots, most might not realize that under these circumstances, the Patriots are a -EV bet and the Bills are a +EV bet.

In order to let that sentence sink in a bit, we move to a new topic before circling back.

Efficient Market

In the early days of sports betting, it was possible to profit using a strategy called “Fade the Public.” This basically meant finding the most degenerate gambler you know, seeing what he’s betting, and then betting the opposite.

This method worked well as most bookies were independent, offering their own point spreads and prices geared toward the recreational punter.

Fade the Public Less Relevant

In today’s betting market, the concept “Fade the Public” in and of itself isn’t a profitable system. The internet has made the market more visible and also has allowed betting limits to increase. While local bookies of the past had low maximum limits, today it’s very easy to get down six or even seven figures using a combination of sharp sportsbooks like Pinnacle, SBO, and Bookmaker while using peer-to-peer betting exchanges such as Betfair.

Meanwhile, there are a plethora of odds tracker sites like oddsportal.com where anyone can view the betting odds at dozens of sportsbooks. For this reason, while recreational betting sites such as Bovada shade their lines in such a way that you can often get better value on underdogs and unpopular favorites, they are not shaded so much that +EV betting opportunities exist.

The reason +EV bets aren’t routinely found at recreational betting sites is because not only would sharp bettors beat them badly, but so would arbitrage players and those good at shopping odds and/or handicapping the market. It doesn’t take a genius to realize if the sites dealing with the largest bettors in the world are offering -275 on a Moneyline while recreational JustBet.cx is offering the other side at +280, then JustBet is almost certainly offering a +EV bet. Because the Internet allows bettors to shop the odds at dozens of locations with a few mouse clicks, recreational betting sites can change the lines some, but not so much, that the other side becomes +EV.

How Bookmaking Works

To have a decent grasp of the betting market, it’s important to understand how the sharp bookmakers controlling that market operate. The first step in the process is opening the betting lines. For NFL and college football betting, the first site to open is Bookmaker.eu which opens the lines early Sunday evening for the next week’s games.

When betting lines first open, they are considered rough and therefore have small betting limits. The goal of the bookmaker is to sharpen the odds by taking small bets. As these bets come in they adjust the lines until they find a line where lopsided action stops. They then keep increasing the betting limits making additional adjustments.

Come game time, the bookmaker has long since arrived at a price where the largest and most successful bettors in the world have no interest betting either side. For all intents and purposes, he now considers the lines efficient, meaning if we removed vig, the betting odds given would represent the actual probabilities of each side winning.

No Vig Prices

Now that you understand more about the betting market, let’s come back to the question asked earlier: if all sharp online betting sites were offering -550 / +450 on a game, and you had a choice of -500 / +500, which would you take and why? Under these circumstances, -500 is a -EV bet and +500 is a +EV bet. Many novice punters struggle with this concept, because they are fooled into thinking the no-vig price of -550 / +550 calculates to -500 / +500. This is false; money lines cannot be averaged to remove vig.

How to Remove Vig

To remove vig from a moneyline, you need to calculate the implied probability of each side. The implied probability represents how often you need to win to break even. By dividing the risk by the return, you can determine the implied probabilities. For example, in a -550 / +450 moneyline, the implied probability for -550 is 82.32% and for +450 is 17.68%. These probabilities account for the bookmaker’s vig. To convert these probabilities back into American odds, you can use an odds converter. The fair market price for the -550 / +450 moneyline is actually -466 / +466, not the +500 / -500 that novice bettors might assume. The bookmaker adjusts the probabilities by adding a margin (juice) to create a profit.

Simple Logic Leads to Profit

Using the information and practice gained from this section, you can make wise sports bets even on leagues you’re unfamiliar with. By observing the odds on different betting sites, you can identify the fan favorites and determine which sites offer favorable odds. By observing off-market prices, steam plays, and sharp line movements, you can further refine your understanding of the betting market.

Even if you lack expertise in a specific sport, understanding the betting market and making informed decisions based on market analysis can still lead to successful betting. If you’re already an expert in a particular sport, combining that knowledge with a deep understanding of the betting market can further enhance your winning potential.

If you are an expert on a sport such as NFL football, equipped with this new understanding of the betting market, you’re now ready to learn advanced football betting strategy. Clicking the link and reading the articles contained within will no doubt help you win more money this betting season.

Alternatively, if you are ready to place wagers and put all this into practice, head back to our gambling homepage to find the highest-rated sites for online sports betting.

Fading the Public & Chasing Steam

Fading the Public & Chasing Steam

I’ll discuss what this means more in the following sections.

Fading the Public

Many bettors hope to find a simple betting system that guarantees consistent winnings with minimal effort, but such a system doesn’t exist. While there are strategies that can help win money, none of them offer guaranteed success. One popular strategy is “fading the public,” which involves betting against the majority to exploit the tendency of most bettors to lose.

This strategy used to work when the betting markets were less efficient, and bookmakers took advantage of the public’s bias. However, with the advancement of online betting and more sophisticated odds makers, it has become harder to profit from fading the public.

While there may still be occasional opportunities to go against public opinion, these instances are rare, and relying solely on this strategy is not recommended. It is essential to develop your own handicapping skills and consider public opinion when analyzing betting lines.

Chasing Steam

Chasing steam is another strategy that has been around since before the era of online sports betting. Unlike fading the public, though, it has significant merit.

It can be a successful strategy if implemented correctly, although we should point out that it’s not easy to find the right spots. We should also explain the term steam before we continue with explaining this strategy.

In the context of betting, steam is when odds and lines for a specific market start to move rapidly.

The theory behind chasing steam is that most steam moves are caused by betting syndicates and/or a few high stake pros getting their money down. The aim is to get your own money down before the whole market has time to adjust.

If you see a line move at one betting site that you think is steam, for example, you’d try to place the necessary wager(s) at another site that hadn’t yet moved its line. You’re basically trying to follow the smart money with your own.

Unfortunately, there are three major challenges with chasing steam.

• You need to be watching the market at the right times to spot steam moves.
• You need to be able to react quicker than the rest of the market.
• You need to have funds in place at a number of different betting sites.

Reduced Juice: An Explanation

Reduced Juice: An Explanation

Let’s start with the word juice. You’re probably familiar with the term vig, or vigorish, if you’ve been betting for any length of time. This is a term used to describe the commission that’s effectively charged by bookmakers on each and every bet that they take.

Juice is simply an alternative word used to describe the same thing. In basic terms, this is what reduced juice betting is all about. It’s simply a way to pay less juice.

Pros & Cons of Reduced Juice Betting

With reduced juice, you have to risk less money to win the same amount. To put it another way, you get a better return relative to your stake on all winning bets. Maximizing your returns is crucial and betting with reduced juice helps you achieve this.

There’s another big advantage of using reduced juice betting sites too. You’ll typically be able to bet more. A traditional betting site might limit you to staking $1-2,000 on each wager. But the limits at a reduced juice betting site might be $5,000, $10,000 or possibly even higher. This is a real benefit if you’re a winning bettor and want to stake higher amounts.

Reduced juice betting sites are not without their disadvantages, though.

These sites are obviously making lower margins on each wager they accept, due to the lower commission. This has to be offset somehow. Generally speaking, it’s via some or all of the following:

• Lower bonuses (or none at all)
• Less special offers and promotions (or none at all)
• Sharper lines
• Poor customer support

Some bettors are prepared to accept these disadvantages in exchange for paying less juice. And it may be that you are too. It’s important to be aware of them though, and they should certainly influence your decision about where to bet.

The Importance of Research & Analysis

The Importance of Research & Analysis

Research and analysis are crucial in sports betting as they provide valuable information for making informed betting decisions. It is logical to bet on sports you know well because your chances of selecting winning wagers increase.

To make good betting decisions, we need to have plenty of information at our disposal. We can’t simply rely on our existing sports knowledge. We might have an in-depth knowledge of football and how it’s played, for example, but that in itself doesn’t necessarily help us when we’re betting on the NFL. Not in isolation of other information.

Knowing the different factors that affect the likely outcome of a football game such as team statistics, recent form, injuries, and other variables is essentially useless information unless we actually research and analyze those factors.

Proper research and analysis help in identifying value and making accurate predictions. It’s important to dedicate time and effort to gather relevant information before placing bets.

Our Top Tips for Your Research & Analysis

This might surprise you, but there’s no “correct” way to carry out the necessary research and analysis. The only definitive rule is that you should actually do some. Beyond that, it’s really down to you to work in whatever way suits you the best.

Obviously you need to research and analyze different things depending on what sports you bet on. The type of wagers you typically place, and the strategies you use, will also play a part in determining what information is most relevant to you.

For these reasons, we can’t provide you with a perfect guide to exactly what to do and how, as it really depends on your betting preference. Instead, what we can do is offer some useful tips that can be applied in a general sense. None of these are especially complicated, but they’re still solid advice. Follow them, and you’ll definitely be on the right track.

We’ve listed our top tips below.

Useful Resources for Sports Betting Research

Useful Resources for Sports Betting Research

We could simply provide you with a list of recommended resources here, but that’s not what we’re going to do. Although this would be useful to some extent, we’d have to keep it constantly updated.

A good resource today might not be so good in the future. Some resources, for whatever reason, let their standards drop. Meanwhile, other resources improve and new ones come along that have a lot to offer.

So what we’re going to do instead is suggest a few different types of resources that you should consider using. Here’s our list.

Now, we’re going to do our best to explain each one of these resources in detail to give you a better understanding of why they are useful and why we recommend using them. Where appropriate, we’ll also list some specific resources that we know are useful.

Please note that not everything we discuss here is relevant for ALL sports. Most of it applies to mainstream sports though.

General Sports Media

This should be your first stop as you begin your sports betting research. General sports media includes any of the many sports channels on TV in addition to what’s found in the written press.

These sources are both useful, but the most valuable sources of all are the websites operated by the big sports outlets.

Here are a few sites that we consider to be especially valuable sources.

• ESPN.com
• SkySports.com
• CBSSports.com

Official Websites

Official websites of the appropriate leagues or competitions that you’re betting can also be useful sources of information. You’ll only find bare facts here, but sometimes they’re all you need.

There are details of schedules and fixtures, for example, as well as league standings. Some official sites also have sections for the news or stats.

Here are the official sites for some of the most commonly bet on leagues and competitions.

• NFL.com
• NBA.com
• PremierLeague.com
• NHL.com
• MLB.com
• ATPWorldTour.com
• PGATour.com

Stats Websites

For a lot of the sports we can bet on, statistics can be very powerful information to have, assuming we’re able to analyze them properly and interpret our findings of course. If we do that well, then stats can really help us make good betting decisions.

Finding the stats we need on the internet is not hard at all. As we just mentioned, the relevant stats are often displayed on official websites. The NFL website, for example, publishes extensive statistics for its teams and players. Many others do the same.

There are also lots of “unofficial” stats sites out there that provide even more detailed statistics than official websites. The top quality sites provide accurate data that are regularly updated. We won’t list any here simply because there are so many of them, for a variety of different sports.

We are positive you won’t have trouble finding them yourself though; a simple Google search will be proof of that.

Fan Websites, Blogs & Forums

Sports fans can be very passionate about the teams (or individuals) they support and follow. Some are passionate enough to launch their own websites and blogs dedicated to their favorite team or athlete.

A lot of the websites and blogs are pretty useless for any kind of meaningful research, but that’s not the case for all of them. Some of these resources can be very helpful for getting some alternative points of view, or even real insight, from someone who knows a lot more about a specific team or player than we do.

The same principle applies to fan forums. Most of the professional sports teams we’re likely to bet on will have at least one or two dedicated fan forums. These can be very useful for picking up some information from people who are more knowledgeable and up to date about a particular team than we are. Just remember to be wary of biased opinions!

Sports Betting Websites, Blogs & Forums

Expect to uncover countless sites dedicated to sports betting on the internet. These include informational sites (such as ours, which you’re reading right now), as well as blogs and forums.

As in the previous category, many of these sites will not be very useful. Others (like this one!) are excellent, and provide lots of valuable information.

These kinds of sites aren’t necessarily the best for researching specific events you’re planning to bet on, but they’re great for researching sports betting in general. Some of these sites ARE useful for researching specific events.

Take our gambling blog for example. We write a wide variety of different posts and articles for these, including previews for sports events.

Social Media

Social media is full of sports betting tipsters, especially Twitter. Most of these tipsters barely deserve the label, as they’re not very good at what they do. Some of them, however, are worth following. It wouldn’t be wise to just blindly follow their tips and picks, but it doesn’t hurt to take what they say into account when it comes time to make your own decisions.

The best tipsters will thoroughly explain their reasoning for choosing to pick what they did, so this is also a great way to gain more perspective.

An especially useful social media site to use is Reddit. There are lots of sports and sports betting related sections on here, many of which feature very interesting discussions. We definitely recommend taking some time to explore this site.

Sports Betting Online

Sports Betting Online

Sports betting is more popular today than it ever has been before. And with the ability to bet on sports online, your options as a bettor are nearly endless. Starting is simple.

Before you jump in, there are a few things every gambler should know about sports betting online.

How to Get Started

The first step to starting sports betting online is choosing a top-rated sportsbook. There are plenty of bookies available to potential customers, and it’s best to find one that offers the sports you want to bet on.

You should also check to make sure that the gambling site you choose offers competitive betting lines as well as attractive bonuses. That way, you can make sure you have the potential to earn as much money as possible from your wagers.

After finding your sportsbook, it’s time to make an account with them. This process takes a few minutes and usually requires a valid email address and a working phone number for verification purposes.

You will also need to provide some other basic information, such as:

• Date of birth
• Home address
• First and last name

Once you have given the sports betting site all of this information, you will then be asked about how you’d like to fund your account.

There are also sportsbooks that offer their customers the option to deposit directly through PayPal, or even by using prepaid credit cards.

Once you’ve submitted all of your sportsbook account information, it will take a few minutes for them to verify your account. Once they have done so, they will usually send you an email confirming that your sports betting account has been successfully created and is now available for use.

When you start making sports bets online with your sportsbook of choice, you’re going to want to look closely at each bet to ensure that the odds being offered are fair.

Sportsbooks update their posted lines quickly in order to ensure they keep as many customers as possible happy with their betting options.

Online Betting vs. Land-Based Betting for Beginners

Online Betting vs. Land-Based Betting for Beginners

You will also need a valid credit or debit card in order to place sports bets online because your sportsbook will instantly charge whatever you choose to deposit. Another advantage of sports betting online is that they accept most major credit cards such as Visa and Mastercard, so you should not have any struggles with choosing a payment method.

Of course, this does not mean that you should never bet on sports at a physical sportsbook. If you are an enthusiast and would like to interact with other sports fans, then bookies in your area might be the perfect place for you.

Betting sports at a sportsbook can often win you extra money from their generous bonuses that online sportsbooks don’t offer. You will also have access to some great food and drink specials that will make it easier on your wallet when the action starts heating up during important matchups on the gridiron.

In-person sports betting is always fun because every bettor gets to watch all of the games they want while enjoying access to live customer service staff who can answer any questions they may have about sports and wagering options.

Online vs Offline Pros and Cons

When comparing the two, there are many factors that one can choose from. Ultimately, the choice lies in your personal preference.

Pros of Online Betting

• Online betting more betting options on a wide range of sports.
• Online sports betting is the best option for line shopping.
• Online betting is the better environment for focusing on picks.
• Betting online doesn’t cost you anything extra.
• Online betting is far more convenient than offline.
• Online sites have lower juice, which translates into having to risk less money with your bets.
• Online sports betting sites offer higher payouts, which means more money when you win.
• Online websites offer some really fantastic bonuses and rewards.
• Online sports betting makes it easier to create and use your library of sports betting resources.

Pros of Offline Betting

• Offline sites are far more exciting than betting online.
• Although brick-and-mortar sites have fewer deposit options than online sites, collecting your winnings right away is far greater than what any sports betting site offers.
• Brick-and-mortar sites have real people to help with customer support, whereas online sites sometimes put you through a dozen hoops before ever speaking with someone.

Understanding the Legality of Sports Betting

Understanding the Legality of Sports Betting

When it comes to sports betting for real money, many people are in the dark about the legality of it. Of course, the laws for real money gambling tend to vary from country to country, but the US specifically can be hard to keep up with in regard to the legality of sports betting—both online and in person.

While federal law technically prohibits the act of wagering real money on sporting events, individual states have the authority to legalize the act and collect revenue from it.

Online Sports Betting

Online sports betting in the US is legal in select states. But you have to keep in mind that sports betting laws in the US vary from one state to another. In some states, it is not legal, while others permit it only through land-based casinos or racetracks.

Finally, there are several states that allow sports betting both online and in person. Many gamblers are permitted to do so using their phones, tablets, and laptops connected to various sportsbook operators’ websites.

Brick and Mortar Sports Betting

In-person sports betting in the US is currently more widely accepted than online sports betting. There are bookies, casinos, and racetracks throughout the country where fans can place wagers.

State laws in physical locations will vary. States that do allow sports betting in person often require sportsbooks to pay a certain percentage of their revenue to state governments.

American sports leagues have been fighting against it for decades due to the potential of negative influence. Most notably, Major League Baseball pressured Congress into passing PASPA (the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act) in 1992 which made it illegal for states other than Nevada to legalize sports gambling within their borders.

However, this law was struck down by the Supreme Court of the United States and has failed to have any impact on current-day sports betting.

Latest Sports Betting Blogs

Latest Sports Betting Blogs