Sports Gambling: Five Kinds of Sports Bets
When family and friends bet among themselves, it is usually a simple one-to-one bet that is used, with both parties risking the same amount of cash. But that is not the case when you go to a sportsbook. Sportsbooks offer various ways of betting for all types of gamblers. Let us look at these methods of sports betting.
FIVE KINDS OF SPORTS BETS:
STRAIGHT BET. A straight bet is the most common way to wager. It is a single bet on a single aspect of a match, game or contest. You may be wagering on your pick to win "straight-up" (that is, regardless of the score), by covering a point spread, by going over or under the total score, by winning the racquet toss, etc. You may be using moneyline odds or decimal odds. It doesn't matter. If yours is a stand-alone bet, it is a straight bet.
PARLAY BET. A parlay is a group of picks that must all win for you to win the bet. For example, if you make a parlay bet on Venus and Serena Williams to make it to the Australian Open Quarter-Finals, both sisters must make it that far for you to win. If one pick in a parlay fails, the whole parlay is lost. Since the odds of all your picks succeeding are lower, the return is higher (if you win). Note that in some online sportsbooks, you can combine different sports to make parlays.
ROUND-ROBIN BET. This is an expansion of the parlay bet. In addition to betting on your parlay picks in one bet, you also make other possible combination bets with those picks. For example, if you pick teams Red, Blue and Green for your main parlay, you also bet on Red and Blue, Blue and Green, and Red and Green.
TEASER BET. A teaser bet is a group of bets contingent upon one another, just like a parlay. However with a teaser, you get to adjust the "point spread." For example, if a basketball game point spread is 12, and you want to bet on the favorite to win, but aren't sure they will cover the spread, you can buy a teaser - say, 4 points - so they will have to cover only 8 points for your bet to win. When you adjust the point spread in your favor, your chances of winning increase. The downside is that the money you stand to win is decreased.
PLEASER BET. A pleaser bet is the opposite of a teaser. You adjust the point spread against your favor so as to increase the return (money you will win if you win the bet).
As you can see, the straight bet is the most simple of all. We advise you to start with the straight bet. Play with the other bet types only if you are really familiar with the sport(s) you intend to wager on.