Sports Betting

The term ‘sports betting’ is generally accepted to refer to wagering on all types of sport other than the main two – horse racing and greyhound racing.

In the UK, football-related betting is massively popular, while plenty of money is also staked on rugby, golf, tennis, snooker, motor sports and cricket, as well as the four main US sports – American football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey.

Although there are occasional controversies relating to matches being thrown, sports betting is generally accepted as being harder to manipulate than the racing game, which has probably helped the rapid growth in recent years. Another factor is the huge prize money that is often at stake, particularly in televised sports, which often dwarfs the maximum payouts that would be on offer to a crooked sportsman via a bookmaker.

Whilst key insider knowledge in horse or greyhound racing is hard to come by for the average punter, the wealth of statistical information available for other sports, means that a studious and active punter can often achieve a level of expertise that does not fall very far short of bookmakers, particularly ones that offer prices on a particularly wide range of sports. It is also worth noting that there can be fairly wide discrepancies in the odds on offer from different bookmakers, which can drastically cut the bookmaker’s margin of profit, thereby making sports betting even more favourable to the knowledgeable gambler.

By reading through this guide, you can start to understand the many different general types of bet that are available to make, as well as the ones that are specific to various sports or types of competition. You can then choose to make bets online in one of the many bookmakers listed, which can also be viewed according to which sports they offer betting on. Alternatively, of course, you can elect to bet in a real-world betting shop, amongst your friends, or not at all…

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