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Best ChoiceLet's get on into the nuts and bolts of how to bet on sports in New York in 2024.
8 Simple Tips To Make You A Great Bettor
Betting markets are ever evolving and it can pay to follow some sharp handicappers and bettors who read the odds well. Try to stay ahead of the game by researching where all the latest and best bonuses and promotions are being offered, or new innovative bet types. Read reviews from respected sources and always use New York regulated books.
1️⃣ Sign Up For Multiple Deals
Signing up for multiple sportsbooks is a key way to grow your bankroll and juice every bit of value you can get. There are a few sites to consider if you bet on sports that crosscheck odds between the sportsbooks so you can line shop for the best price. Bettors can also take advantage of various bet promos and odds boosts across to enhance winnings.
2️⃣ Shop The Lines
You can see game-by-game odds movement for each team by checking your accounts at several betting apps. Closing line value is a concept you may hear about when learning how to bet on sports, and you can track that when shopping the lines. If you want to take best prices or lines, pre or in game, line shopping is a must.
3️⃣ Start With Straight Bets
Straight bets are single game bets on an event offering a point spread, total, or moneyline. Straight bets must win the game or wager outright. A straight bet is pretty basic and will help you familiarize yourself with the industry. You can back the favorites or the underdogs.
4️⃣ Bet Smaller Markets
The bigger the market the smaller the edge or that's how the hypothesis goes. Targeting the more obscure or derivative markets gives the bettor a good chance of beating the odds and margin. There isn't as much effort or available data or information to make the prop market lines overly efficient.
5️⃣ Make Small Wagers
A low-risk, high-reward strategy is a decent way to get started in betting. Never bet above your means or you can risk developing a gambling problem. There is often value to be found with higher-odds selections or even in some rare parlays. A high volume of small wagers adds up at the end of the year and turnover can be quite significant. The more bets you make, the more variance evens out.
6️⃣ Live Bet
More than 50% of online gambling bets now are apparently made in game. With not a lot of time to react and several traders monitoring multiple games at a time, you can find all sorts of winning opportunities with an in-play betting strategy. It can pay to watch the games developing to find different angles and edges.
7️⃣ Stick To A Betting System
To prevent a gambling problem, it can be good discipline to practice sticking to a system. You don't want to get too emotional when betting one team, or if you lose on a certain game or in the casino. You can also lessen variance and calculate edges more easily when keeping with the mathematics. Every regulated betting site has a few pages about responsible gaming. These are well worth a few minutes reading time.
8️⃣ Follow Betting Handicappers
Sports handicapping is all about finding an edge over the betting operator, whether it be through researching and analyzing the games, teams and wagers, or setting the lines and the betting odds. Many sports handicappers will supply expert picks and daily tips. Betting handicappers will use an abundance of stats, key metrics, power rankings, probability theory, data models and other tools to formulate their odds and opinion. They need to know in depth how to bet on sports to be consistently winning, especially vs reduced odds in the form of margin.
Sports Betting Basics – Understanding The Numbers
Betting on sports is a game between you and the bookmakers, using teams or players as pieces. The first thing to know is that it's not exactly a fair game. The betting hold is a profit and protection margin the New York betting apps and sportsbooks use to give them an edge. The hold will apply to the selections and market as a whole, and it typically changes often through an automated system that alters betting vig or juice.
Your hope as the sports bettor is to beat this margin, and the betting lines and odds and ultimately turn a profit over time. To do this, you want to look for value bets where the oddsmakers have misjudged the game. Betting on sports is a fabulous pastime for entertainment purposes, but the fun comes with the chance of a big dollar prize.
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Wagering Amounts This is really important to understand before you start betting: Odds are based on $100 wagers, but you do not need to bet $100 at a time. You can wager as much or as little money as you are comfortable with, as long as there are no limits or restrictions at the sportsbook. If you placed $10 on the Jets to beat the Dolphins at +120, you would make a profit of $12 if the Jets win. You would need to bet $12 to win $10 on a team with favorite odds of -120. You could bet $50 on a 3-team parlay and make a profit of around $300 on a standard moneyline, total points scored or points spread bet if each team wins the game. -
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Reading Betting Lines When the bookmaker sets the betting lines, it adds a margin. For example, take a Knicks vs. Nets game. It should be close. Both the Knicks and Nets are -110 on the moneyline, meaning you have to wager $110 to win $100. Let's drill down some more: Divide the $110 wager by the $210 possible payout. That comes back at .524, so each team has a 52.4% percent chance of winning. Obviously, that is bigger than 100% – it's 104.8% – if you add the teams' chances together. This 4.8% is called the bookmaker margin or hold, and the goal for bettors is to beat this as well as the odds. If the betting odds have the plus (+) sign against them this means you need to bet $100 to win that amount (or 1/10th of that amount if you bet $10). You will see plus odds or minus odds (-) against all selections in every online market when you want to place bets on an outcome, whether you're backing the favorite team or underdog to win the game. -
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Underdogs & Favorites Some sports bettors like to pick favorites, while others will look to eke out more potential payout – and a little bit more of a thrill – on the underdog. Either or a mix of the two can be a viable online sports betting strategy. It's all about finding the value when you bet on sports for profit. If you bet the favorites, you might want to place a bigger wager at the shorter odds. For example, if you bet $20 on the favorite at odds of -200, you would get your $20 stake plus $10 profit back if it won. On the other hand, if you took the underdog for $10 at betting odds of +200, you would get your stake of $10 back plus $20 profit if it won. What might suit you as a new sports bettor depends on your risk-to-reward tolerance.
Types Of Sports Bets
Having a wide array of betting options that suit your individual betting style is important, not to mention getting the most value out of your betting odds. You want a sportsbook that offers as many sports, markets, bonuses and ongoing promotions as possible. Sports bettors also want to be able to wager on different bet types whether it be point spread, moneyline, final score, or by how many points a team wins by.
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Moneyline Bets A moneyline bet is a straight win bet on who will win the game outright. Usually a wager in a market like the Yankees vs the Red Sox where the Yankees are priced as -125 favorites and the Red Sox as +102 underdogs. You can see there's a profit margin or percentage hold built into the book here. -
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Point Spreads A point spread is a bet where the oddsmaker creates a "fair game" by applying a (+) and (-) points handicap to each of the sides. For example the Giants (-2.5) against the Commanders (+2.5). If you take the Giants, they have to win by 3 or more for you to win your bet. If the Giants get a late case of turf toe that knocks out a key player that week and you take the Commanders, they need to lose by 1 or 2 points, or win outright, for that bet to pay out. -
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Over/Unders Oddsmakers set the total number for the points scored by both teams by using stats, power rankings, trends and more. Bettors can choose whether or not they think the game will go over or under this line. For example an NBA match between the Nets and Celtics could have an over/under of 215. If you bet the over, they need to finish at 216 combined points or more for you to win. If it finishes at 214 or lower, you've lost your bet. If it finishes at 215 exactly, the bet is a push (or tie) and your bet is returned to you. Pushes/ties are often avoided by lines being set with a .5 at the end. -
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Live Betting Live betting or in-game wagering is very popular. You don't have to get involved pregame – you can wait to see the action unfold and then make a wager. Or if your pregame bet on the total points isn't looking good and going to lose, you might want another bet to try and win, maybe making a prop points bet. You also can hedge your bet if it's looking like winning, so sportsbooks with live in-play wagering give you plenty of options when betting on sports. A hedging example is backing the overs on the point spread or totals in basketball and then you can cash out later in the game by backing the unders at a big price for a small bet. -
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Parlays Parlays are multiple bets where you combine two or more teams in one bet at bigger odds for bigger cash outs. The problems with parlays is that you lose when any one leg fails. If you were to place the same amount on the Rangers, Islanders and Devils all to win on the same night in a parlay at odds of -110 each, you would multiply them all together and get a payout of around 6 to 1 if all three teams win. Parlays also can be made in the same game: Rangers to win, Mika Zibanejad to score a goal and Patrick Kane to get 2 assists. -
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Futures A futures bet is essentially a season or a long term bet. If you fancy the New York Red Bulls to make the playoffs, you can back them preseason for decent odds and get paid out should they qualify for the playoffs. Futures bets offer the incentive of nice payouts but many can tie up your money for some time. -
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Prop Bets Many sports bettors find prop bets the most exciting bets for a bit of added interest in the game. Pro bettors and sharps like them because they are the easiest bets to find price discrepancies and therefore supply the most value in winnings. The problem with props is that if you win money regularly you might get stake factored or limited by many sportsbooks if you can read odds well. An example of one prop wager is Kyrie Irving to make three or more 3-pointers in a game.
Most Popular Sports For Betting
The most popular US sports will be covered in the different sportsbooks, sometimes with emphasis on local sides or more prominent sports in the community:
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Pro Football The NFL is the most popular league in US sports, so you will generally see a myriad of betting markets especially for featured games. Patrick Mahomes, Aaron Rodgers and Josh Allen are seen as idols, and there's plenty of strong quarterback prop bets available. -
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Pro Basketball The NBA is very popular for betting as its schedule means there are lots of betting opportunities. The Knicks and Nets are going to be playing imoportant games down the stretch, 2-4 a week. Then the playoffs get started for even more opportunities and drama, -
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Pro Baseball MLB and sports betting go hand in hand as they are both heavy into statistics and analysis. There are more opportunities to bet on baseball than there are on any other sport, with 162 games in a season, games almost every night for six months and then the pitch-by-pitch drama (and betting opportunity) of the playoffs and World Series. -
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Pro Hockey The NHL is the most action-packed of the major sports leagues, and has a similar schedule length and frequency as the NBA. Pay attention to hot goaltenders, as that can be the biggest factor in an outcome. Keep in mind that some teams win more easily in the regular season than they do in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, when the battle for every puck is intense. -
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College Football, College Basketball Passion, passion and passion. And a reminder that athletes who are future professional stars can lose to hard-working and focused athletes who have reached the peak of their sports careers. And college basketball brings March Madness, a sports betting event that trails the Super Bowl ad not much else for betting interest, -
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Golf, Tennis And Soccer There are many other ways to bet on sports in the US, whether it's PGA Tour golf, tennis, or another league. Golf betting is growing fast. The Masters at Augusta is one of the biggest betting events, and you will see all sorts of markets from the outright winner market to golf prop bets such as player score in individual rounds, or even to hit a hole in one. Tennis Grand Slams are very popular but the sport is a betting magnet because there are tournaments somewhere almost every week. And soccer is a big draw as well, with major international and US leagues plus competitions such as the Champions League and World Cup.
Betting Lines And Odds
Sharp bettors and knowledgeable sports fans who can read odds well might hit the early Vegas odds with the intention of hitting back the other side later for a larger stake. This is called the head fake. There are soft books and sharp books and many of the odds you see at different sportsbooks will be copied these days which opens them up to exploitation. Many of the New York betting books will be using odds supplied by Kambi Sports consultancy. You can see betting lines move on the weight of money, sharp money or on air.
Betting Bonuses
With sportsbooks fighting for customer acquisition, a key component of the marketing drive is offering free bets and bonus promotions. Some books offer large first deposit matched bets or risk free bets, others offer ongoing free bets in reward for loyalty and points programs. Odds boosts, enhanced odds, and profit increase are other bonuses to become familiar with.
Sports Betting Apps
Having a betting app is essential for placing a sports bet or learning how to bet on sports. The sportsbook apps are generally quick and easy to navigate and guide you straight to the featured games, promotional offers and live content. Most of the big brands will have a sports or casino app and some, like BetRivers will offer live on the go streaming and betting when available.
Deposits And Withdrawals
The average sportsbook usually has a quick turnaround time on deposits and withdrawals. Many sportsbooks state that a withdrawal request can take up to 48 hours to process but in reality your cash comes quicker than this. Some offshore illegal sites take crypto currency which can quicken up transaction times but the most popular methods at legal sportsbooks are:
- Casino cage for straight instant cash
- Paypal/ eWallet
- Cashier's check
- Online banking / wire transfer
- Check (can take up to 2 weeks)
- Visa Debit and Mastercard
Customer Support
Live customer support and email options are important to have to get issues dealt with efficiently when a sports bettor signs up to new betting sites. We review all regulated brands that will have support options and FAQs to answer any queries you might have.
Advanced Sports Betting Strategies
Profitable betting isn't all about finding value in the odds. In fact that can often be the easy part. Bankroll management, diversification and understanding variance is key, similar to the stock market. Coming up with efficient strategies is important when learning how to bet on sports. There are also some tricks you can use to manipulate the sportsbook.
Fading The Public
It can pay to be contrarian in sports betting. If there is a lot of public money on a certain team or point score, the odds can move. Backing the other side then when the odds drift is often the value play even if it is more likely to lose.
Matched Betting
Matched betting is signing up to multiple sites to take advantage of free bet bonuses and deposit bonuses. Basically, you can use the free wagers to bet one side then bet the other side on a different account to get a guaranteed win. Matched betting sites will have details and calculators to walk you through the methodology.
Arbitrage Betting
Arbitrage follows a similar concept to bet hedging. If you are line shopping sometimes you can pick up on 2 different prices where if you back them proportionally you can guarantee a profit before the game even starts. Arbs occur when the sum of the implied probabilities for all your selections add up to less than 1. This is sometimes called an underground, or over broke book.
How To Bet On Sports In New York FAQ
Author
Bryan Nicholson a world-renowned golf betting expert who gladly expands his expertise into covering other emerging betting markets like moneyline and BetMGM.
