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Sports betting is not quite as simple as it appears to be at first glance. Each individual sport has its own unique bet types; in horse racing, for example, you can bet on a single horse to win, place or show, or you can bet multiple horses with exactas and trifectas. Other example may be football, where you bet against the point spread or on the total number of points that will be scored. You need to have a well planned betting strategy, and you need to be able to manage your money, too. This page attempts to guide you through these issues.
DIFFERENT SPORTS REQUIRE DIFFERENT BETS
Basketball -- whether pro or college, there are really only two types of bets for this sport. You can bet on one team to win the game, or you can bet on the point total being above or below a specified number. A point spread is used for betting on a team (or side); the spread makes betting more attractive because no matter which team you bet on, the odds are always the same, usually 10/11 (in other words, you stake $11 to win $10 and receive a payoff of $21). This is how the spread works -- if Denver are playing on the road at San Antonio, the bookies might make San Antonio the favorite by 6½ points (usually written as San Antonio -6½). If you like the Spurs to win the game and want to bet on them, at this line they must win by at least 7 points for you to win your bet. If you chose to bet on Denver, you would win if they won the game outright by any score, or if they lost by no more than 6 points. Betting against the total is easy, because you only have two options to bet, the over or the under. if the total is listed as 187½ points, the total points scored by both teams must be no more than 187 for an under to win, and no less than 188 for an over to win. Note that ties are possible -- if the line is 7 points, and the favored team wins 93-86, your bet is tied and is refunded. Such a tie is usually called a "push" by sports bettors. Unless otherwise specified by your bookie, overtime always counts when deciding whether bets win, lose or push.
Football -- The same types of bets are offered as for basketball above, and the rules apply. Note that football on this site refers to American football, not soccer.
Horse racing -- We do make horse racing selections from time to time, and we limit ourselves to three different bet types -- win, place, show. If you place a win bet, it means that your horse must be declared the official race winner by the racing authorities, i.e. it must be the first horse across the finish line. A place bet means your horse can finish either first or second, and a show bet means your horse can finish first, second or third. If you are betting with a reputable bookmaker, the payoff is the same as that determined and posted by the track where the race took place. Note that it is important to find a reliable bookie for making horse racing bets; we discourage betting at the track itself because that would normally kill our odds -- if 100 of us are all betting saying $2,000 on the same horse at the track itself, that means that our small group of bettors would be placing a total of $200,000 on that horse. In most cases, that is way more than the total amount of dollars in a betting pool and by using bookies we spread the risk around and do not significantly affect the odds.
Major league baseball -- The only baseball for which we make selections is the American Major Leagues. As for basketball, you can bet on one of the two teams to win, or you can bet on unders and overs. Win bets in baseball come in two different flavors, however. If Oakland were playing on the road at San Francisco in an interleague game, a typical betting line might be shown as Oakland -114, San Francisco +104. That means simply that if you wanted to bet on Oakland, your odds would be 100/114; you would stake $114, would win $100 if Oakland won, and your payoff would be $214. On the other hand, a bet on San Francisco would be at odds of 104/100; you would stake $100 for a win of $104 and a payoff of $204. It does not matter what the winning margin is; regardless of which team you bet on, they have to win the game -- by any score -- for you to win. There is an alternative way of betting to win on baseball, however, involving a point spread which is always 1½ runs. For this type of bet, and for the same game used, the bookie may offer Oakland -1½ runs at +145, and San Francisco +1½ runs at -165. Now you get a much better payoff if you bet on Oakland, but of course they have to win by at least two runs for you to win your bet. If you were betting on San Francisco, they could lose the game by a run and you would still collect -- but at much worse odds than before. Note that in baseball betting, the two starting pitchers are always named by the bookie, and if those two pitchers do not start the game the bets are cancelled and refunded.
Over and under betting in baseball is similar to other sports, i.e. you bet that the total number of runs scored will be under or over a number set by the bookie. In baseball, however, the odds are not always 10/11 as in football or basketball; the odds line may look like this -- 7 runs, over -120, under +100. If you thought that more than 7 runs would be scored in the game, you could bet that at odds of 100/120, while the under is offered at 100/100 (i.e., even money).
PARLAYS
A powerful betting tool is the parlay bet, sometimes called the win accumulator or similar. A parlay is simply rolling two or more bets into one; the downside is all have to win, but the upside is the odds are much better than if you had made individual bets. For example, let's say you like two very short-priced horses -- Horse A is going to start at 1/2 and horse B at 4/5. If you put $5,000 on Horse A and it won, you would collect $7,500. Then you put $5,000 on Horse B, and if it wins you collect $9,000; thus your total payoff for the two bets is $16,500, and your profit is $6,500 (don't forget you staked a total of $10,000).
If you were to parlay these horses, the odds would be 17/10; for one bet of $5,000 you would collect $13,500 and a profit of $8,500. You have only risked losing your $5,000 one time, and the profit margin is considerably higher.
So how do you calculate parlay odds? Very easily! For an easy example, you have two horses at 2/1 and 3/1. You add 2+1 (i.e., add the two numbers in the odds) getting 3, and 3+1 to get 4; now multiply the 3 and 4 together for 12, and subtract one. That's it -- two horses that are 2/1 and 3/1 give you parlay odds of 11/1. So, to go back to our previous example of 1/2 and 4/5, the two added odds are 3 (1+2) and 9 (4+5); multiply 3 times 9 for 27, and now divide by the two numbers 2 and 5 (if the odds are XX/1, no division is necessary; you only divide when the odds are XX/2 or XX/5, that is to say when the odds are something other than /1). Okay, so 27 divided by 2 and then by 5 gets you down to 13.5 and then 2.7 to one. Now don't forget to subtract 1 -- ALWAYS -- so the odds are 1.7/1, which is the same as 17/10, but as you can see the 17/10 is easier to work with and understand, which is why we use it.
Now what if you had a baseball favorite at -135 and an underdog at +125, and you wanted to parlay the two? Use the same principle, bearing in mind that baseball bets are always in units of 100. Thus, the two baseball teams you like are actually 100/135 and 125/100, so the parlay odds would be +291, or 291/100. Remember, though, that both teams have to win, otherwise you lose. If you normally pick baseball winners at the rate of 60% when selecting single game winners, your success rate will drop dramatically when picking parlays, to around 36%. Only by keeping records will you able to tell which way is best for you.
YANKEE PARLAYS
A Yankee is a bet of British origin. You select four teams with a winning chance, and play all six possible two-team parlays, all four possible three-team parlays and one four-team parlay. All eleven bets must have the same stake. For example, if the four teams you like are A-B-C-D, you would play parlays of A-B, A-C, A-D, B-C, B-D, C-D, A-B-C, A-B-D, A-C-D, B-C-D and A-B-C-D.
MONEY MANAGEMENT
If you are going to be successful in sports betting, the first thing you have to do is keep accurate records. You need to record every penny that you spend, and not just on bets, but on ancillary costs. If you frequently bet the horses, and buy the Daily Racing Form every time you visit the track or betting shop, you have to account for that cost. You also need to add up entrance fees and travelling costs, otherwise you are kidding yourself about your real profit or loss. If you visit the track 100 times in a given year, and it costs you $25 just to prepare, that means you have laid out $2,500 before you start. Obviously, you should also keep track of whatever you have paid for any type of information.
It is absolutely vital for you to be able to tell which type of bets you win with, and which types you lose with, so you need to record every bet you make. Let's say you like the track, and usually bet $200 to win or place. To keep things interesting, however, you may have a $10 exacta box on every race too, and that has to be recorded, because it can amount to a huge amount of money over a very short time. There is not much point in making a profit of $5,000 for the year on win bets, then losing $6,000 on "fun" bets. Record every bet you make as an expense, no matter how small; and record every win you make, too. Only then can you get a true picture over time, and of course if your intentions are to be a successful bettor the only true measure is how much money you win or lose over a specified period.
If you bet frequently, you are going to lose sometimes. Nobody wins every bet they make and if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, they are either misinformed or just plain lying to you. Thus, given that you are going to win some and lose some, you have to be able to tell how much you are winning, how much you are losing, and what type of bets are giving you those results. Let us say this again, because it is very important -- YOU MUST KEEP FULL AND ACCURATE RECORDS OF YOUR BETTING ACTIVITIES.
Included in money management is the question of how much to bet. We suggest that you start out with a capital of 40 times what your bet size is; in other words, if you are going to start out betting $250 per game, you need to have a capital of $10,000 (which is 40 x 250). After that, you should divide your capital by 40 to find the size of your bet. For example, if after a month or so your capital has increased to $12,000 your betting unit would be $300. On the other hand, if you had a poor start, your capital might be down to $8,000 after the first month, in which case your betting unit would now be $200. In this way you increase your capital every time you win, but minimize your losses when you are on a losing streak.
If you are a new subscriber to our services, our suggested bets may be too high for you. If you can only set aside a capital of $5,000 -- by way of example -- when you start out with us, you should start out with bets of $125 and increase the size of your bets over time until you catch up with us (Our limit is $5,000 regardless of capital). As already described, it is imperative for you to keep records, so it is a simple matter for you to figure out your bet size as time goes by -- it should always be your capital divided by 40, with a maximum size of $5,000.
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