1. Place Sports Bet
2. Which Sports Are Best To Bet On
3. Best Time To Place Sports Bets Betting
4. Best Sports Bet Picks
5. Best Time To Place Sports Bets

When is the Best Time to Place a Bet? Bet at the Beginning of a Tournament. If you want to bet on the outright winner of a tournament, the seasons start will grant you the best odds. Bet at the End of. It all depends on what sport you are betting, what your existing knowledge base is, and how quickly you can get through your research. The shorter answer to that question is that you should spend as long as it takes to be a winner. If that’s a few hours a week.

When looking to venture out into sports gambling, you are likely to find hundreds of online sports betting sites out there. When looking for the best sports betting sites, therefore, the most important issues to consider are the perks that come with the websites. This will ensure you enjoy the greatest sports betting online experience. These perks include signing bonuses and easy usability among others. In this article, we are going to review three of the best online betting sites, which are Bovada, BetOnline, and MyBookie.

#1 Bovada

Bovada.lv also known as Bodog.com in Canada is among the best sports gambling websites that has been in existence since 1994. The site’s domain is registered in Latvia. The platform provides access to sport, casino, poker, and racebook wagering.

Bovada has continually offered promotions and offers to its customers. For instance, first-time deposits for sports get bonuses of 50 percent for deposits up to $250, 100 percent for deposits up to $1000 for casino bets, and 100 percent for deposits up to $1000 as poker bonus.

Making a deposit or a withdrawal is easy and only attracts a small fee. For first-time deposits, the processing fee of 4.9 percent is waivered. Payouts are done using rapid transfer, otherwise known as money gram.

Bovada allows sports betting online on their user-friendly mobile interface or in their state of the art poker and casino gaming rooms. The minimum wager online is $1 and $50 for mobile bets. The only limitation to using Bovada is that the odds are posted late and that they have very low wager limits.

#2 BetOnline

Licensed and regulated in Panama, BetOnline offers sports, live, poker, casino, and live dealer types of betting. It offers a wide range of payment options and several accepted currencies, thus making it one of the most convenient sites for customers across the world.

You get a welcome bonus of 50 percent on deposits up to $2500. However, bonus levels are tiered for different types of wagering. The online game library is categorized into 3D slots, table games, slots, and video poker. Most of the bets are placed online since their mobile platform only allows sports betting.

Maximum and minimum deposits and withdrawals are different for different payment options that are offered on BetOnline. Its major shortcoming is that it has high rollover requirements that customers might find difficult to understand.

#3 MyBookie

MyBookie is one of the newest top online sports betting sites in the market. It was established in 2014 in Costa Rica and is fast growing to compete with other older bet staking sites. The minimum online wager on MyBookie is $10 and the maximum is $1000. For mobile wagers, however, there are no limits.

Wagering options for MyBookie include straights, totals, open wagers, action points, teasers, reverses, if bets, futures, and money lines among others. You can bet on games such as NFL Football, college basketball, NBA basketball, NHL hockey, soccer, golf, and horse racing among others.

With one of the highest bet bonuses in the industry, MyBookie gives you a welcome bonus of up to 50 percent for up to $1000 if you are a first time depositor. For reloads, they offer a 20 percent cash bonus. This makes it one of the best sports betting sites.

Its mobile platform has a user-friendly interface that makes it very easy to use. Their customer service is also highly efficient and offers top-notch customer service. This puts them among the best online betting sites today. MyBookie, however, only caters to recreational gamblers as opposed to other top sites that allow professional gambling. The site has also been said to lean more on the US sports market as compared to international sports.

If you have a friend who’s willing to bet on a sporting event with you, a quick conversation and a handshake is all you need to place a sports bet.

But people reading this post are interested in betting on sports with a bookmaker.

Luckily, once you know how to do it, placing a sports bet with a bookmaker isn’t hard.

This post tries to explain in detail, step by step, how to do just that.

Place Sports Bet

Since this post is for beginners, I cover the following in detail:

• Choosing a bookmaker
• Choosing a sport
• Actually placing a bet
• Cashing in when you win
• Avoiding getting banned from a book

Let’s get started:

1- Decide Where to Place Your Bets

I’m writing for an audience in the United States. Some of the details about deciding where to place your bets might differ if you’re in another country.

You basically have 3 places to choose from when placing a sports bet:

1. A local bookmaker (a “bookie”)
2. A professional sports book in a jurisdiction where sports betting is legal (like Las Vegas)
3. An internet sports book

There’s overlap among these categories, of course.

Until recently, sports betting and bookmaking have been more or less illegal in almost every jurisdiction in the United States.

But this hasn’t stopped local bookies from taking action.

Many local bookmakers have apps that allow you to place bets with them over your smartphone.

But often, they’ll just get your bets over the phone.

If you’re looking for a local bookie, they’ll probably want a referral—someone who’ll vouch for you. This should be okay, because you want someone who’ll vouch for them, too.

Finding a local bookie isn’t hard:

Just start talking about betting on sports at your local bar. Someone there will eventually put you in touch with their bookie. It helps to be a regular.

Of course, if you live near Las Vegas, you can place a bet at any of the legal, regulated sports books in the casinos there. You must place these bets in person—not over the phone, and not on the internet.

It won’t be long before legalized, regulated sports betting becomes a thing in various jurisdictions throughout the United States. When that happens, you’ll have more options to choose from than just Las Vegas.

This is lousy news for a lot of small bookies, but it’s a double-edged sword for the sports bettor.

On one hand, you’ll be dealing with a reputable business. You’ll probably even be able to place larger bets than your local bookmaker is willing to accept.

On the other hand, in a situation like this, you’ll eventually start to see consolidation in the industry. This means less competition.

And less competition means higher prices.

Bookmakers make their money from the difference between what you risk and what they pay out when they win. Most straight bets at most books require you to risk $110 to win $100. (You can risk any amount, but that ratio remains the same. A $55 bettor stands to win $50, for example.)

Some books only ask you to risk $105 to win $100, while others ask you to risk $120 to win $100.

That extra $5, $10, or $20 represents the book’s profit margin. It’s called “vigorish” or “vig.”

As the industry starts to consolidate after legalization, you’ll see less competition and higher vigs. That’s my prediction, anyway.

Finally, you have the option of betting at an internet sports book. Most of these are offshore. Many of them don’t accept real money wagers from bettors in the United States.

But many of them do.

When you’re choosing an offshore book to do business with, pay a lot of attention to reputation.

Do some research.

Not all offshore books are honest.

Many of them pay out slow.

Some don’t pay out at all.

And since they’re unregulated by United States authorities, you have little recourse if they behave dishonestly.

2- Decide Which Sport to Bet On

Which Sports Are Best To Bet On

You can bet on almost any sport you can imagine, but the most popular sports to bet on from the United States are the following:

• Football
• Basketball
• Baseball
• Hockey

Football, especially professional football (the NFL), is far and away the most popular of the sports you can bet on. College football is popular, too, but NFL betting dwarfs that.

Basketball is also popular.

Hockey, too.

Baseball is popular because for a good portion of the year, there’s nothing else to bet on.

You’re not limited to these sports, though, unless you’re dealing with a small bookie that only accepts action on these sports.

In fact, it’s possible to find bookies that only accept action for specific sports during specific seasons. I know at least one bookie who only accepts action on professional football games. He has another bookie to refer people who are interested in other sports, too.

With a Las Vegas sports book—or an offshore sportsbook—you can bet on almost any sport you can imagine. Some of these sports include:

• Automobile racing
• Boxing
• Entertainment
• Golf
• Horse racing
• Politics
• Soccer

The most common type of football bet or basketball bet is a “straight bet.”

To place such a bet, you risk that $110 to win $100 that we talked about earlier. You front the $110, and if you win, you get it back—along with $100 in winnings. If you won such a bet, you’d cash out for $210.

To win a straight bet, you must “cover the spread.”

This is how the book takes into account the differences between teams. They give the underdog additional points for determining who wins the bet.

The favorite is the team expected to win.

The underdog is the team expected to lose.

The point spread is supposed to make the bet a 50/50 proposition.

And if a bookmaker wins 50% of these bets, it makes a clear profit. That’s because when the book wins, it gets $110. When it loses, it only pays out $100.

You can also place “money line” bets on hockey and football. These bets don’t have a point spread. Instead, a bet on the underdog pays off more than the size of the bet, while a bet on the favorite pays off less than the size of the bet.

I’ll go into more detail about both straight bets and moneyline bets in the next section.

In baseball and hockey betting, moneyline bets are more common than straight bets.

For sports like auto racing or golf, you bet on who’s going to be the winner. The payoff is based on the likelihood that the driver or golfer will win.

Since there’s usually a large field, the payout odds for such bets are usually larger.

It wouldn’t be unusual for a bet on a car race or golf tournament to pay off at 20 to 1.

You can also usually bet on entertainment and politics. For example, most books accept bets on the Oscars or on who’s going to win the Presidential election.

You can find a huge variety of betting types for any sport.

But next, I want to talk about how to place specific bets in the real world.

3- How to Actually Place Your Bet

To place a bet on football, you’re usually going to place a straight bet. This means you’ll need to understand how to read the point spread.

The book lists the bets available on a table or chart. The favorite will have a negative number listed next to the team name.

When determining the winner of the bet, the book subtracts that number from the favorite’s score. If the favorite still wins after that, your bet pays off.

On the other hand, if you bet on the underdog, you win the bet if the favorite doesn’t cover the spread.

Each event will be listed with a number. When you place the bet, you just tell the employee at the book the number of the event and who you’re betting on.

Moneyline bets work differently.

When you see the listing for a moneyline bet, one team will have a negative number next to it. That’s the favorite.

The other team will have a positive number next to it. That’s the underdog.

When you’re betting on the favorite, the negative number is the amount you must risk to win $100.

For example, if the team is listed with a -160 next to it, you must risk $160 to win $100.

When you’re betting on the underdog, the positive number is the amount you win when you risk $100.

For example, if the team is listed with a +140 next to it, you win $140 if you risk $100.

Another common bet you can place is called an “over/under”, or a “total”, bet. This is listed as “total” on the list of available bets.

This represents a prediction for the total score for both teams added together at the end of the game.

If you bet on the over, you win if the total score is higher than the over/under.

If you bet on the under, you win if the total score is lower than the over/under.

Most baseball and hockey bets are moneyline wagers, so they work just like the moneyline wagers I explained above.

They occasionally include a run line or a puck line.

This works just like the point spread in football or basketball, but the number is almost always 1.5. You still have a moneyline in these situations, but the team also has to cover the spread to win.

You’re not limited to just those kinds of bets.

You can also place bets called “futures.” These are bets on outcomes with a longer time frame than a single game.

An example of a futures bet would be a bet on who’s going to win the World Series or the Superbowl. You could make such a bet at the beginning of the season.

You can also place bets called “parlays.” These are just bets on multiple games at the same time. You stand to win more money if all your picks are right.

But you only win a parlay if you get ALL the bets in a parlay correct.

“Proposition bets” are bets on various events that could relate to almost anything. For example, you might be able to place a bet on who’s going to be the 1st player to score during a specific game.

Placing any of these bets is as simple as communicating your preference to the appropriate person at the bookmaker.

If you’re placing the bet online, you just make your choice electronically.

One thing to keep in mind when placing sports bets, though, is this:

The point spreads and moneylines change all the time. When you place a bet, you’re placing that bet on the spread or moneyline as it stands at the time of the bet.

4- How to Cash Out Your Winnings

When you’re dealing with a neighborhood bookie, they usually pay out winnings on a specific day of the week. This is most commonly done on Tuesday of each week. Most bookies will let you keep the credit on your account, too, if you don’t want to cash out.

When you’re dealing with a physical sports book in Las Vegas or some other jurisdiction, you’ll be given a paper ticket with the details of your bet on it. You cash this in by presenting the ticket at the appropriate cashier window at the book.

If you’re not in town to collect on the bet, you can mail the ticket in. The address and instructions are printed on the back of the ticket. Winning tickets are usually valid for 4 months.

If you’ve lost your ticket, you still have options. If you’re a member of the player’s club at the casino, the book should have a record of your bet.

Each ticket also has numbers printed across the bottom of it. You should write those numbers down or take a photograph of the ticket. If you lose your ticket, you can use that as a record of the transaction and collect your winnings that way.

When you’re dealing with an online bookmaker, they’ll just credit your account with your winnings. To cash out, you must go through the cashier and request your money. They’ll most often want to pay your winnings out as a credit toward the credit card you used for deposit purposes.

If you’ve won more money than you initially deposited, they’ll have another solution for that—usually a cashier’s check delivered by courier.

Most online bookmakers offer multiple deposit and withdrawal options for you to choose from. These can be as straightforward as online wallet services modeled after Paypal.

Or they can be more involved, like getting a wire transfer or being sent a check via courier.

If you took advantage of a signup bonus at an online sportsbook, be aware that they usually have wagering requirements for you to fulfill before allowing you to cash out.

This is usually a multiple of the amount of your deposit plus the bonus.

Here’s an example:

You sign up at an online sportsbook offering a 50% signup bonus of up to $250. You deposit $500, and you claim your bonus. You now have $750 in your account to bet with.

The “rollover” requirement, or “wagering requirements,” are 5X that amount.

So before you can cash out, you must place $3750 in wagers.

Some beginners get confused about this because they can’t understand how they could possibly place that much money into action with only $750 in their account.

All your bets count toward this rollover requirement, not just the losing bets. When you win, you can place more bets with your winnings to achieve your wagering requirements.

5- How to Avoid Getting Banned or Blackballed

Most people know that casinos hate blackjack players who count cards, and the casinos are willing—even eager—to ban players using this advantage technique.

Sportsbooks are also wary of skilled bettors.

After all, their business model relies on their winning 50% or more of the time.

“Sharp” sports bettors are committed to winning often enough that they make a profit.

A sports bettor who wins 55% of his bets can have a huge return on investment, which represents a loss for the book.

Online sportsbooks are especially likely to ban you from betting with them.

But there are ways to avoid this fate:

The easiest way is to be a net loser. If you’re just betting on sports for entertainment—and most people are—you should have no problem ever being banned or blackballed from any kind of sports book.

If you’re an advantage sports bettor, you have behaviors which can increase the probability that the books will continue to welcome your action.

The 1st of these is an easy one to avoid—don’t be obvious about taking advantage of a bonus offer to give you a positive expectation. Some bettors only make bets when they’re taking advantage of a promotion of some kind. They NEVER bet on anything else.

Those bettors get banned quick.

Here’s something else to avoid:

Cashing out all your funds.

If you always leave a certain amount of money in your account, the book will feel confident that you’re going to continue to bet with them in the future.

Bettors who cash out all their funds, then later make big deposits, then win and cash out all their funds again, raise red flags in the bookmakers’ eyes.

Spread your action around, too. If you’re a winning sports bettor, you should be winning against multiple books—if you beat up on a single book all the time, they’ll notice how much of a sharp you are that much sooner.

Then they’ll lower the ban hammer on you.

This also enables you to put less money into action with a specific book.

It’s one thing to accept occasional $100 bets from sharps, but it’s something else to accept frequent $1000 or $5000 bets from a winning bettor.

Spreading your bets around to multiple books and keeping your bet sizes reasonable will help keep you from getting banned.

Placing unusual bets on sports that most people don’t follow is a great way to get an edge. It’s also a great way to get banned.

If those are the only kinds of bets you’re placing, you won’t last long.

Even if the book continues to accept your action, they’ll probably lower the maximum bet sizes. They’ll also stop offering you the ongoing promotions they offer other bettors.

That’s not as bad as getting banned, but it’s bad.

One trick you can borrow from blackjack is the following form of camouflage:

Occasionally make bad bets, but not so many that they cut into your profits.

The easiest way to convince a book that you’re a recreational bettor is to always bet on your favorite team, week after week. You’ll win some of these bets, and you’ll lose some of these bets.

But if you size these bets appropriately, you’ll give the book the impression that you’re a real sports fan.

And you’ll simultaneously profit.

Conclusion

Learning how to place sports bets isn’t hard.

Anyone can do it.

Best Time To Place Sports Bets Betting

Learning how to win consistently is another matter, but that’s beyond the scope of this post. Most people are happy enough being recreational gamblers anyway.

Best Sports Bet Picks

If you run into any trouble following the steps above, remember that any bookmaker—even a small neighborhood bookie—is in business.

It’s in their best interest to help the customer.

Best Time To Place Sports Bets

In this case, you’re the customer, and most books are happy to help you figure out how to do business with them.