I know many people who are ardent sports fans that could easily make some profit out of their knowledge at a sportsbook. However, they shy away from various sports betting sites because the number of rules the sportsbooks require them to follow either puzzle them or intimidate them.
We are going to try and untangle a bunch of rules related to the sports betting dos and don’ts. We are also going to remind you what kind of bets you can place to get your favorite sport to earn you some money.
Use the Info Given on the Website Wisely
As someone who passionately follows sports, you already know that there are some rules players should follow either on the home or the visiting side.
The same thing goes with sports betting, except you are on the latter side at the online sportsbook site, and you should take things with caution.
All the odds sheets that the sports betting sites usually display on their home pages or in a particular sports section have to be taken as information only, not as a 100% prediction of the event’s outcome. This is a well-known fact, and most of the reliable betting sites will emphasize it.
So once you get on the sportsbook site, you will be able to find various info about the upcoming game you would like to bet on. This information may include team lineups or a number of yellow or red cards players may have. You can use this data as useful pointers when making your betting decisions. However, if you take this info too literally and fail to win your bet, the betting site will wash their hands clear of it. Simply put, you bet at your responsibility, and the betting house cannot be liable for the way you bet.
Avoid Making Mistakes
There are some errors you should avoid making when betting on sports events to make sure your bets are valid and accepted. We are going to show you a list of major ones you should avoid making.
Here are some situations that would be considered as errors when betting:
- When you place a bet while the betting site is experiencing some technical difficulties.
- If you place a bet on a game whose outcome is already known and decided.
- When you place a bet on an event containing the wrong participants.
- If the odds are misplaced. For example, if the odds for Denver Nuggets winning are -100 instead of +100.
- When you bet on the event or a game you never wanted to place your money on in the first place.
- When some additional money, like some free bet bonus, lands on your account by mistake.
- When you get winnings from some sports event you haven’t bet on.
If some or any of these errors occur because of a malfunction of the gambling site, the online sportsbooks will do their best to inform the customer about the mistake in due time. However, regardless of whether they manage to do this or not, all such bets will be void.
Now that you know what are considered to be mistakes that the betting house won’t take any responsibility for let’s see under what conditions the betting site is going to accept your sports bet.
When Your Bet Is Accepted
Unless you’ve made some of the mistakes listed above, the bet you’ve placed will be accepted. You will know that your bet is valid because it will show up in your betting history. If this is not the case, you should try to find it in the pending bets section.
Once the sports event finishes and the result becomes official, your bet will be settled. Additionally, there will be no possibility of affecting this bet settlement in case of later corrections of the result.
However, there is one special occasion in betting worth noting. “Dead heat” is a situation where two participants in a race or some other individual sports event end an in a tie position. If that happens, the sports betting site applies a dead heat reduction. In this kind of outcome, the bets are usually settled proportionally among the winners.
When Can You Cash out Your Bet?
Numerous sportsbooks now offer bettors to cash out their bets, i.e., to secure some profit out of them. If you happen to change your mind about some game you’ve bet on, you can go for a cash out on this particular game and win some money with reduced odds.
Let’s take a soccer game as an example. You’ve chosen to place $10 on Everton against, Liverpool in EPL, and the odds are 6:1, meaning you will get $60 on top of your original bet if Everton wins. However, as the game is coming to an end, Everton is leading 1:0, but Liverpool seems determined to change their fate and is constantly attacking. This is the moment when you would like to reach for the “cash out” button and draw some money out of this game at reduced odds. If you do so, the sportsbook may offer you 4:1 odds at cash out, meaning that you would end up with $40 in your pocket regardless of the outcome of the game.
However, your request for a cashout may not be accepted if odds change before you decide to make your request.
Also, the sportsbook reserves the right to suspend the cashout option or disable it at any time. But, once you get the opportunity to cash out, you can not receive any additional money like free bet money or bonuses to bet with.
Don’t Try to Cheat
Please note that the betting site reserves the right to cancel all the bets that are evidently rigged or with which an error has occurred. In pre-game betting, apparent cases of fixing would be:
- When someone places a bet after the event has started.
- When someone places a bet after the circumstances have changed into the bettor’s favor.
- Similar situations in live betting may lead to the cancellation of a bet.
If there happens to be a blatant attempt at fixing a game, a race, or a price, all payouts will be delayed until the governing bodies conduct a thorough investigation.
Rigging is not uncommon in the world of sports betting, and now we will see what sports betting sites consider cheating:
When one person, or a syndicate, place a large number of bets with the same selection, this may be a clear sign of rigging, and the sportsbook reserves the right to withhold the payout of such bets.
The sportsbook will apply the all-bet stand on all the games. This rule means that all the sports events that you’ve bet on that still didn’t take place will count as lost bets.
However, the betting sites will make an exception and cancel the bet in the following cases.
- The entire event has been canceled.
- There was a change in the event’s venue.
- The entire event was delayed and took place more than 72 hours after the original starting time.
A Variety of Betting Options Offered
Now that you got familiar with some of the most common betting rules most online sportsbooks apply, let us remind you what betting options you can choose from once you decide to bet on sports.
- When you bet on the outcome, you place your money on the result of the event. This bet is also known as the “win-lose” bet.
- The point spread bet is quite the opposite from the outcome bet because here, you try to guess the exact result, i.e., by how many points will the favorite beat the underdog. This bet also goes by the term “handicap bet.”
- When you make a parlay bet, you choose several different matches to bet on.
- You can place a half-time bet, where you try to predict the result at the halftime of the game.
- In-game betting or live betting is the opportunity offered by a betting site to place a bet during a sports event.
- A futures bet is a kind of a long run bet where you place your money on a single team’s performance in a League or a Tournament.
This is a short list of the most common bet types you will encounter at a sports betting site. Now that you know the basic betting rules numerous betting sites operate under, you only have to choose a team you think will win and place your money on them.
