Betting Basics: The Different Types Of Sports Betting

What are the types of sports betting?

One of the reasons why sports betting is great is that there are lots of ways you can bet on a game. You don’t need to just bet on one team you expect to win a match, you can bet on the probabilities like the margin of victory, total number of points scored, and different types of bets too.

But, sports betting is still a complex passion and has lots of depth. Most of its depth is based on the fact that there are a variety of options attached to the type of bet you want to place.

Whether you are an experienced or new bettor, have a good understanding of the bet types you can wager on. The more knowledge you have, the more informed your betting decisions will be.

With this in mind, let’s now talk about straight bets, money lines, point spreads, and prop bets. Let’s talk about the betting options that are available from your sports books.

Read also: Key Differences Between Betting For Fun And Betting For Profit

13 Types Of Sports Betting 

Below are the types of sports bets and how they work:

1. Money Line Bets 

Moneyline bets are the most common and simplest bet types. When you bet a team’s moneyline, that means you’re backing them to win.

For instance, if you favour the Cincinnati Bengals to win, you’d bet on their moneyline. If the Bengals win, you win your bet. But if they lose, your bet loses.

When you visit a Prediction Site, money lines are the first bets you see, then points spreads and totals.

These types of bets differ in the odds they provide. A match might have an underdog with long odds and a huge potential payout, while the favourites who are expected to win have short odds and low payouts.

2. Point Spread 

Point spreads are entertaining for more experienced bettors because they level the playing field.

Here, the underdogs are given additional “phantom” points. The bets may be listed as:

• Buffalo Bills +14 (-110)
• Cincinnati Bengals -14 (-110)

In this scenario, the Bills are expected to lose by 14 points. The oddsmakers gave them 14 “extra” points to add to their total.

For that bet to the payout, Bills must win or lose by less than 14 points.

If the final score is Bills 21 and Bengals 27, that would mean that the bills covered the spread. With the extra 14 points given by the point spread, they would have won over the Bengals.

Similarly, the Bengals would need to defeat the Bills by more than 14 points to cover the spread. A final score of Bengals 31 and Bears 10, would show that Cincinnati covered the spread and won the bet.

3. Handicap Bets

Handicap bets are quite similar to point spreads and are one more way for sportsbooks to level things for unevenly matched teams or players. The handicap present is to give an advantage to underdogs by giving them a “head start” the favourite has to overcome.

The advantage a head start gives comes as points the underdog starts with to get an edge. The favourites must pass the edge or the underdogs use it to their advantage and you win that wager.

Here’s an example:

Manchester United is favoured against Leicester, this is the handicap the bookmaker gives:

• Manchester United: -3
• Leicester: +3

This simply means that Leicester is starting the game with 3 extra points. If you back Manchester United, you’ll have minus 3 points from their final score. If they have more points than Leicester after the subtraction, then you win the bet. 

Or maybe you backed Leicester as the underdog. You’ll add 3 points to their total score, and if it’s higher than what Manchester scored, you’d win the bet.

If Manchester scored three goals in that match, the official score is – Manchester 3 – Leicester 0.

But with the underdog’s handicap, the final score at the sportsbooks will be:

Manchester United 3 – Leicester 3

A handicap like this for Leicester creates a tie, so if you bet on them for the match, you’d win the bet.

4. Over/Under (Totals)

The over/under bet also known as totals bet is a wager made for the combined score of two teams playing in a match.

You bet against a total set by the sportsbook and if the combined score will fall over or under the number given.

If you’re previewing the NBA odds at a sportsbook for the Golden State Warriors playing the San Antonio Spurs, the over/under for the game is 214. You’d think the matchup will be a shootout and wager on the over. If you win, you collect your earnings.

Over/under are typically set at around -110 unless the total is overly high or low. This means betting $110 on the over would earn you $100 if it won.

Total bets are another simple wager you can make whether you’re betting for football in the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB or collegiate sports. These types of bets are present in halftime or period scoring.

5. Parlay Bets 

A parlay bet is a wager made on multiple bets winning. For a parlay to win, every “leg” or bet in the parlay must win for you to cash out your bets. If what you have is a four-leg parlay and only three bets win, you’d have a losing parlay ticket.

Although most experts advise that you stay away from parlays because they suck you in, these bets are attractive because with a low amount you could win a larger amount, as your profits get multiplied after every win.

So, betting $10 on a five-leg parlay including:

• Boston Bruins Moneyline (-215)
• Vancouver Canucks Moneylines (-155)
• Pittsburgh Penguins+4.5 (-110)
• David Pastrnak to score (+650)
• Sidney Crosby to score 20 points (-105) 

If all these 5 bets won, you’d earn a payout of $663.80.

See: Betting Basics: Optimizing Your Betting Selections

6. Teasers

Teaser bets allow you to change the lines of two bets by a set amount. If you were betting on these lines:

• Los Angeles Lakers – 5.5
• Dallas Mavericks -4

But you believe these teams could profit from a boost because you reckon both games are close.

You could “tease” this parlay by +5 points, adding 5 points to each point spread to get:

• Los Angeles Lakers – 0.5
• Dallas Mavericks +1

The spreads changed by 5 points each, and the odds of this two-leg teaser parlay are now +100.

Bettors who track a team’s performance over time, use Teasers.

7. No Draw Handicaps / Asian Handicaps 

No Draw Handicaps and Asian Handicaps are pretty much the same concepts, except Asian is only used in Soccer Predictions.

If Manchester United and Leicester ended up in a tie, bettors who prefer a straight win-or-lose scenario will opt for a No-draw handicap bet.

No-draw handicap bets use partial numbers so that there won’t be a tie. This can be 0.25, 0.5, or 0.75 increments.

Handicap -0.25

• Manchester United: -.025
• Leicester: +0.25

Manchester is favoured over Leicester by one-quarter of a goal. This quarter minimizes the risks because you can choose two options not to lose your bet. 

If you bet on Manchester and they win, you do too. If the match ends in a tie and it’s like “half a loss” you’ll get half of your original bet back.

Handicap 0.5

• Manchester: -0.5
• Leicester: +0.5 

Manchester United is now being favoured as a half-goal better than Leicester. If you wager on Manchester they must win outright for you to win your bet. The underdog bet for Leicester is considered a win if they win the match outrightly or tie.

Handicap 0.75

• Manchester United – 0.75
• Leicester: +0.75

If you’re betting on Manchester as the favourites, and they win the game by two goals or more, you win the bet. If they win by a single goal, you’ll earn half of your wager back. If they tie or lose, you lose the bet.

Leicester ending in a tie or winning outright means that any bet you place on them as the underdogs will win. If they lose by a goal, you get part of your wager back. If they lose by two or more, you lose the bet.

No-draw/Asian Handicaps are a solid way to minimize your risk. Instead of a typical bet that gives you the option to win, lose, or draw, you’d be getting a one-in-two chance of getting half of your money back.

8. Futures 

Futures bets are a wager you place on something to happen in the future. They are offered mostly on season-long championships in major sports, individual awards like the Golden Boot, or standalone events like the Daytona 500.

These types of bets are still moneyline bets and are represented in the same way. If you want the Chicago Bears to win the Super Bowl at +500, then a $100  bet will net you $500 if the Bengals win the title instead.

However, this bet comes with a risk/reward component; if you bet in advance, you get more favourable odds than you’d get if you wager close to the event. Still, any player injuries or sudden factors can topple your team’s hopes of winning and your hopes of collecting your due earnings.

Futures are thrilling, simple bets to make, and are available in every sportsbook. They’re most effective when you find very favourable odds on a team or an athlete that can buck the odds to become the champion. 

9. Live Betting (In-Play Betting)

A live bet or in-play betting is a wager you place after a game has started.  These types of bets are fun because the odds change based on what’s happening in a match.

Apart from using live bets on other types of sports betting like money lines, spreads, and totals, you can live bet too on specific wagers like the next possession.

10. Prop Bets

Prop bets or proposition bets are wagers that don’t really affect the outcome of a match. Instead, they include stats about an individual player’s or team’s performance that don’t affect the final result.

Player props are common in Basketball Predictions, like the following examples:

• Steph Curry to score 40+ points (+340)
• Anthony Davis over 6.5 rebounds (-104)
• Luka Doncic to hit a home run (+410)

Proposition bets span across different occurrences. 

You can wager on all types of different props for various sports.

11. Ifs & Reverses 

Reverse and “if” bets can be a bit complicated, so rank-and-file bettors don’t use them often. 

“If” bets string wagers successively: “If I win this game, then I bet on that game.” This is a good way to use your bankroll modestly, and your winnings to bet more often, provided you don’t run out of luck.

Every “if” bet wagers the total amount of winnings from the bets before, so you don’t collect until you stop.

Likewise, there’s also a reverse bet, which is a type of “if” bet that covers you against two potential outcomes.

If your original “if” bet is the Bengals win then the Bills win, and your reverse is the Bills win and then the Bengals, which raises your odds of at least a payout, although you won’t get back the exact amount of your initial wager. 

Read: Betting Basics: How Do Bookmakers Make Their Money?

12. Full Covers

Full covers are package bets that contain multiple wagering options within a number of betting selections. 

Prominent in the United Kingdom, full covers have unique names based on the number of total bets involved – Trixie (four bets), a Super Yankee (26 bets) and the Goliath (247 bets).

Just like in parlays, the more bets you add, the more the risks and potential payout multiply. However, all your bets must not win before you cash out, if you win only two of the bets, you can get an earning in return.

13. Sport-Specific Bets

There are sports that have their own types of sports betting and these are some of them:

• Grand Salami (baseball and hockey): You choose the over-under for the total lines in all games played on a given day.

• Run line (baseball): This is a point spread that’s always 1.5 runs.

• Puck line (hockey): The puck line is hockey’s equivalent of the run line, with a point line set at 1.5 points.

• Correct score (soccer): For this bet, you’ll have to predict the exact score the game will end with. It’s challenging to predict, but it can give you good payouts.

Different Types Of Sports Betting And Where They Are Used 

Every sport has different types of sports betting or variations that it uses. Here are some of them below:

NFL And College Football Bets 

The most popular types of sports betting you’d see in the NFL and college football (NCAAF) are point spreads, total, and moneyline.

Player props are popular in NFL Predictions due to fantasy football, while player props are less common in the NCAAF because of different state regulations.

NBA And College Basketball Bets 

Common sports bets in the NBA and college basketball (NCAAB) are spread, moneyline and points total bets.

NCAAB spreads are more favoured than NBA spreads in Basketball Predictions because the number of lopsided matches in college makes moneyline bets less attractive.

MLB Bets 

Moneyline bets are the most prominent bet types for baseball because games are closely decided.

Other popular bets you’d find in MLB Predictions include run total, spread (“run line”) and player props.

NHL Bets

The types of bets popular in the NHL are moneyline,  spreads (“puck line”), and totals.

Soccer Bets 

The most popular bets your Soccer Predictions will find are three-way moneyline bets for either side to win or for a tie.

Two-way money lines, spreads, and total goals.

Golf Bets 

For Golf, wagers that are popular are player props, especially on which golfer will win a tournament.

Head-to-head bets, where two golfers pit against each other are common too.

Tennis Bets

In Tennis, moneyline bets, player props on which player to win a set and future bets on who will win a major tournament are common.

MMA/UFC Bets 

In Mixed Martial Arts leagues like the UFC, moneyline bets are the most preferred choice. 

Other types of sports betting in MMA include the total number of rounds, fighting props for a method of victory or if they’ll be a knockout.

Knowing the different types of sports betting and how they are used in each sport is one part,  the other equally important part is mastering which one works for you.

Different bettors do well with different bet types

Bettors who predict player performance better than team performance can gravitate towards sports that favour player props.

Punters interested in team performance can find sports that favour either moneyline or spread bets.

If you can predict the pace of a game, bet on more totals than moneyline and spreads.

Finally, as a bettor, focus on a handful of sports and find value in places where the public or sportsbooks make mistakes and take advice from them.

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