Understanding Sports Betting Terms
Sports betting is considered by many to be the easiest form of gambling to get started with. When betting on sports, your goal is essentially to predict the outcome of a sports event and wager money according to what you think is going to happen. When you’re right, you win money. And when you’re wrong, you lose money.
Sports Betting Terms Explained
If you’re new to sports betting, you’ll probably need a heads up on some of the sports betting terms. Shoot, even if you’ve been doing some basic sports betting, you probably have a few questions but just don’t want to admit to not knowing what a “teaser” is. We read multiple sportsbook reviews to find safe and trustworthy betting sites. Well we’re here to help, so here’s a run down of some common sports betting terms and definitions; as well as some that you may not know (in alphabetical order):
- Sports betting is gaining mainstream acceptance throughout the country as more states opt to legalize and regulate the industry. As of June, legal sports betting is active in 18 states.
- These common terms might be able to shed some light on the confusing gambling world of sports betting, especially if you are a newbie. Action – This means any money bet on a race or contest.
- Sports betting lines on FanDuel Sportsbook are presented in what is called the 'American.
- Action – A sports betting wager, or bet, of any type.
- Angles – Using key factors of stats from previous events in order to predict the outcome of a future game.
- ATS – “Against the spread”, taking points instead of betting the spread and laying points.
- Bet – To risk money or have “action” on a sport
- Book – Somewhere to place bets, that accepts action
- Bookie – Someone who accepts sports bets
- Buying Points – To pay an additional price in order to receive a half point or more in favor of your bet
- Chalk – The favorite
- Chalk Player – Someone who typically bets on the favorite
- Cover – A pointspread win, “They covered the spread”.
- Dog – The team in sports betting, who is perceived to be most likely to lose, “The Pacers were Dogs against the Bulls”
- Even Money – When the odds are 1/1, no juice is laid
- Favorite – The team who’s expected to win the game.
- Half Time Bet – To wager on a game’s halftime line
- Laying the points -To bet the team who’s favored, and give points, “I bet the Lakers laying 10 to the Hornets”
- Line – The current odds or spread on a game
- Odds – The likelihood of the projected outcome happening, in numbers form
- Parlay – To bet more than 1 team, you’d get higher odds but all teams most win (or cover) for you to win your bet
- Prop Bet – To bet on something special, other than what you could normally bet. Example: Who will win American Idol?
- Push– When the game ends with no winner or loser in a bet.
- Round Robin – In sports betting this a group of three or more teams in 2-team parlays.
- Straight-up – Betting on a team to just win the game, the odds will not be as good.
- Teaser – A teaser is a special type of parlay in sports betting when you adjust the point spread or total of each game. The price of moving the point spread is lowering pay out odds winning wagers.
- Total – Betting on the total points, or goals etc. in a game.
Now to be honest, there’s even more sports betting terms than just these listed above. But if you’re online doing some sports betting, these terms will cover everything you need to know. More importantly though, next time your buddy is trying to get some action from you on a game; just tell him you want to do a round robin with him or her, with a few of the teams ATS and you want to buy some points…that’ll throw your friend a nice curve ball! (Although it may confuse you and me just as much) Now remember though, if you do the bulk of your sports betting online- you won’t have to stress too much about not knowing what some of these sports betting terms mean right away, because you can always come back here and check to be sure. Best of luck with all your sports betting – online or in Las Vegas!
Understanding Sports Betting Terms
Interested in online gambling, but don’t want to do something too complicated? Try sports betting! Sports betting is considered by many to be the easiest form of gambling to get started with. When betting on sports, your goal is essentially to predict the outcome of a sports event and wager money according to what you think is going to happen. When you’re right, you win money. And when you’re wrong, you lose money.
Even those who have no real interest in betting on sports have at least a basic understanding of what’s involved. Actually, the main reason why it’s so easy to get started with sports betting is that you don’t actually NEED to know anything other than the basics.
Now, we’re not telling you this to suggest that you shouldn’t try to learn more. You are going to be putting your hard-earned money at risk, so the more you know, the better. A proper understanding of how everything works is very useful, even if you only plan to bet every now and then for fun. It’s pretty much vital if you want to take things seriously and have a chance of making long-term profits.
We’re not suggesting that you should learn everything there is to know about sports betting before even getting started. While that’s not necessary, there are definitely a few things you need to be aware of. That’s why we wrote this article. It’s essentially a summary of everything we think you should know before putting your money at risk. A lot of what we cover here is explained in more detail elsewhere in our sports betting guide. That’s because this article was created for complete beginners, and we left some of the more complicated details out.
Understanding Sports Betting Terminology
We start by explaining what fixed odds betting is, as this is the most common form of sports betting. We look at the five main components of a sports wager and provide some examples. Then we explain how there are different types of wagers and some alternative forms of sports betting, too. We briefly cover how to actually place wagers with bookmakers, and look at the various types of bookmakers. We also explain how and why they make money. We finish by discussing the importance of defining your sports betting objectives.