The three most common types of sports bets are money line, point spread and game totals.
Every prior to the internet, bookies would offers wagers on these three markets. If you’re completely new to sports betting I’ll explain the three most common types of bets briefly.
Common Types of Bets Sports Bookies Offer
Money Line (Ex: Patriots -275 vs. Bills +225): On a money line bet, the bettor needs to predict the winning team only. A bet on the Patriots (-275) would require a $275 bet to win $100.
Point Spread (Ex: Patriots -6 vs. Bills +6): With point spread bets the player needs to bet on a team to win or not lose by X amount of points. The team with the negative spread is the favored team. In the example, the Patriots have to win by 7 points to cover. The Bills cash if they win or lose by 5 or fewer points. If NE wins by exactly 6 points the bet is a push (tie).
Game Total (Ex: Patriots vs. Bills Over/Under 36.5 Points): With a game total wager, the player needs to predict the total amount of points. In the example above, if the game has 37+ total points scored than the over wins. If there are 36 or fewer points the under cashes.
These bets are common, but online bookies need to offer more markets to remain competitive.
Sports bettors today love putting action on just about anything. It’s important your bookie has a variety of betting markets, including futures, props and alternative lines.
1. Alternate Lines
Offering alternate lines as a bookie is a great idea to increase profits. Alternate lines are commonly found for point spread and game total markets for all of the major sports.
For example, let’s say the 49ers are -4 (-110) favorites in the point spread market. Bookies can offer alternate lines with varying payouts. An alternate line for the 49ers would be -9 (+230). As you can see, the amount of points the 49ers need to win by increases along with the payout.
Casual bettors love to target plus money payouts and will take chances on alternate lines even if it isn’t the smartest bet, especially in the NFL where point spreads are so sharp to begin with.
2. Futures
Futures are season or event-long wagers, such as betting on the Super Bowl winner or betting on who will win the Stanley Cup. These are great bets to offer your clients as a bookie owner.
The majority of bettors will place a small ($10-$100) bet on their favorite teams for each sport and you’ll get action on a lot of teams that have little chance of even making the playoffs.
3. Props
Player and game props have grown in popularity with the rise of daily fantasy sports (DFS) players and this is a category you want to start focusing on to target more casual players.
A lot of younger sports bettors grew up playing fantasy sports. Many of them don’t even care about picking winners and simply want to bet on a single game player props for major sports.
Just make sure you track your players to make sure they aren’t crushing you on player props. Keep limits low. However, it’s a great way to bring in new sports bettors to your sportsbook.