Sports Gambling 101
Sports gambling has become a major part of professional sports and college athletics, but it’s not without risk. Professional and collegiate sports leagues have spent decades trying to ban betting on their events, but in 2018, they lost the case before the Supreme Court. So now that betting is legal in most of the country, the NFL, MLB and NBA need to decide how much control they want over this new revenue source.
While there are a number of ways to bet on sports, the most popular is to place wagers against the spread, or line. These numbers are based on the expected win-loss record of each team and are adjusted for the moneylines (a $1 bet on a 2-to-1 underdog yields a $2 payoff, for example).
A bettor’s skill is to identify teams that are likely to be winners and then take action accordingly. This is called handicapping and requires an understanding of the game and its history, but it’s also about removing personal bias from one’s bets. For example, it may be a good idea to avoid betting on your own team in a game that you support because of the tendency to overreact to negative results.
Another important tip is to treat betting on sports as an investment and set a bankroll and unit size that you will stick to. A recommended rule is to risk 1% to 5% of your bankroll on each play, so that you can absorb losses without going broke.Betting lines