It’s not often you get to avoid losing money on a horse race, but with odds that favour the bookies, it’s possible. At least, that’s what many people think. So when the UK’s largest racing news website, NitrogenSports, launched its ‘Bookies’ Best’ section, offering ‘Top Tips for betting on horseraces effectively’, it got the attention of a lot of casual punters who were looking to try their hand at betting. But, although there’s plenty of value in the tips, they don’t come with a guarantee. And that’s probably what turned many off.
The problem, as the site’s cofounder, Richard Butler, explains, is that with most places around the world adopting a no-results-no-quotes policy when it comes to match results, there’s seemingly no value in a ‘tip’, as they don’t come with any concrete information to go on. This, of course, is not the case and, in fact, there are multiple ways in which you can effectively gain value from a ‘tip’.
Value From Past Performance
One of the first places that come to mind when someone thinks of betting is Las Vegas, where you can gamble on virtually every sport and event. It doesn’t hurt that the U.S. gambling capital is one of the world’s most popular destinations for tourists, either, which presumably breeds a lot of money-making opportunities for the bookmakers there. What’s more, many casinos offer excellent ‘betting exchanges’, where you can place wagers on sporting events, with the value of your wager determined by how well the team you’re supporting performs. If you’re correct, you win the amount you wagered; if not, you lose.
This system, which operates on a ‘cash-back’ basis, essentially means that no matter what happens, you can’t actually lose – unless you bet on the wrong horse!
Value From Draws
Another way to make money from a ‘tip’ is to place a wager on the outcome of a specific event, such as a horse race or other sporting contest. Not all bookmakers offer this service, but the ones that do often give you the option of ‘backing’ the favourites, believing that the odds are usually in favour of the home team. This, of course, can work both ways – if the team you’re backing loses, you still lose, but as long as they win, you make a profit. It’s basically a ‘heads-I-win-tails-you-lose’ situation, which makes it a bit more tolerable for the average punter. Or, at least, it would be if the majority of the time your prediction ends up being correct.
Ticket Price
It’s not always easy to make money from a ‘tip’, especially if you’re placing a straight-up wager on the winner of an event. Sometimes, you can find yourself at a loss, particularly if the favourite wins in a ‘steaming pile’ of rubbish, as they say in the racing circles. Still, it’s fairly common for bookmakers to offer a ‘ticket price’, where you can effectively wager on the winner of an event for a set price, instead of the odds, which is likely why NitrogenSports launched its betting section in the first place.
What this effectively means is that, as long as the favourite wins, you make money. But, of course, the opposite is also true – if the favourite loses, you still lose, but at least you didn’t lose money on it.
Value From Future Performance
This is, in some ways, the most profitable type of betting you can do. The idea is that you try to predict the outcome of an event and, if successful, you profit from it. Futures betting, which is also commonly known as ‘prop-slating’, is a common form of betting on the outcome of sporting events and other competitions. What’s more, it’s incredibly easy to get started with – all you need is a betting account and a bookmaker that offers futures options. Still, a lot of people get stuck in debt because they don’t know when to stop trading and, as a result, lose a large amount of money. It’s a dangerous game and one that not everyone should be playing around with.
Value From Event Themes
Some sportsbooks will actually pay you to take part in betting contests where you have to pick the winner of an event, based on the outcome of a series of matches. For instance, if you pick Liverpool to beat Man United in the Premier League this coming season, you’ll be entered into a competition where you’ll get a free bet if your prediction is right and you make money depending on how many goals the match ends up being. Or, if you think Chelsea will win the Champions League this year, you can enter into a competition where you get paid to pick the correct winning team. These types of betting contests can be found at most online sportsbooks and some of them even offer you the chance to win big sums of money, if you’re able to select the right outcome for a series of matches.
Choosing winners of sporting events is a popular form of betting, especially in the U.S. According to stats from Betting Analytics, 13% of Americans wager on sports on a regular basis. And, on average, they wager about $10 a day, with the most common sports covered being football and basketball. Major League Baseball was the fifth most popular sport with 12% of the market share and the average daily wager was $5. The site also found that college basketball is the most popular sport in the U.S., bet on by 18% of the population. That’s a lot of people making a lot of money from a popular sport that most people have never even heard of!
To give you an idea of how much money is in play when it comes to sports betting, the global market was valued at $10.8 billion in 2017 and is anticipated to rise to $16.9 billion by 2027, Forbes reports. The industry is also growing steadily, with the World Cup 2022 attracting a lot of attention from people interested in betting and sports alike.
Thanks to the various methods that can be used to gain value from a ‘tip’, as well as the growing popularity of betting, the market for sports is likely to remain lucrative for bookmakers for the foreseeable future.