Sports betting is whereby someone predicts what the outcome of a certain sport will be and in the process places some money on that prediction. The main reason as to why people bet is to actually get some extra cash. The sport that people most frequently place bet on, worldwide, has got to be soccer. Betting can be done legally or illegally. A lot of legal betting is done online as that is where most sportsbooks are found. Illegally, it is done through some betting enterprises that are run by private investors. The wagebrokers earn profit by simply taking a certain percentage of all the money that is placed on the bet. This percentage is called a vigorish. Sportsbooks tend to increase their profit by making the result with a higher risk to have a higher winning. This entices the bettor to take the risk. For most of these sportsbooks, one can only place a bet after you have paid. However, for the illegal betting, most wagebrokers will only take money from the losing bettor. Accurate odds are set by using some systems in analysis. Sports betting is somehow infamous as it has led to some undesired behavior like match fixing.

There are various kinds of sports bets. Some of which are more popular than others, obviously. There is the Single bet (money line), multibet, prop bet, teaser bets, futures betting, over/under bet, parlay betting and the straight bet. Straight bet is where a bet is placed using the point spread. For the over/under bet, the sportsbook is the one that predicts the points that each team scores, it predicts an actual number.The bettor places the bet deciding whether the prediction is right or wrong. That is, whether the score will be higher (over) or lower (under) than the predicted one. The futures betting is where you predict the winner of a certain season before it actually begins, weeks or sometimes even months. This kind of betting has no point spread. Mostly the betting is on something specific, like who will win a certain premier league. You can also bet on the number of games a certain team may win or lose.The major setback for this kind of betting is that your money is held for quite some time. Proposition bet (prop bet) focuses on predicting quite a specific outcome in the game. Most of the time it is about an event that is somehow unrelated to the game’s final outcome. For instance, a pitcher’s number of strikeouts. Another kind of sports bet is the half-time also known as the 2nd half bet. Here the bettors place their bets only in the second half of the game. The payouts are given dependent on the outcome of the game during the second half. Now, let us focus on the most common types of bets, the single bet (money line) and the multibet (parlay).

Single bet (money line), is basically similar to the straight bet, only that there is no point spread involved. Here it is simple, the team that you bet on has to win. Odds are attached to both teams (that is, both the underdog and the favorite team). Odds for an event are simply what determines the amount to be won. In money line, someone may think that betting on the favorite team is attractive because all it has to do is beat the weaker opponent. In real sense, though, when you bet on the stronger team and they win, you get a lesser amount because the risk level is quite little. If you bet for the weaker team and they win, you win a higher amount. So in this kind of betting, the stronger the favorite team, the lesser you win if you bet on it. In this betting type, if you stake a higher amount, you increase your potential earning.

Parlay betting (multibet) is a combination of two or more single bets. For the bettor to win all the teams on the parlay must win. Some sportsbooks will let you combine up to 25 bets. All these individual bets are joined to form a single bet. An individual bet in a multibet is called a leg. The odds multiply with every additional bet. The advantage with parlay betting is that a bettor gets to increase their odds without necessarily increasing the risk level. There is a type of parlay betting known as a progressive parlay bet. Here, a successful bet rewards you with an attractive payout, though not as much as an ordinary parlay. The good thing about a progressive parlay, is some teams in your parlay lose, you will still get a payout from your successful legs, though it will be less.

Since single bet (money line)and multibet are the most common types of betting, I thought it wise to compare and contrast them and maybe see if one is better than the other one. One advantage that single bet has over multibet is that it (single bet) is less risky. Successfully predicting the outcome of one game is easier than predicting more games, especially since in multibet all your legs have to be successful. This is actually pure Math. But still, a successful multibet promises a higher payout. Betting experts actually recommend single bet. They say that it is ‘safer’. You may place a multibet on, say, six games. Five games may be successful but unfortunately one fails you. You end up losing the payout and even your stake.

Some people like to think of betting as more of an investment than gambling. This is half true. Sometimes some outcomes are sure bets, you are somehow assured of the win as in the case of a strong team and an underdog. Well, the payout may not be high enough but it is better than nothing. All in all, betting is all about taking risks. The higher the risk, the higher the payout. All you have to do is get your Math right and you may get lucky. So bet away!

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