Sports Betting - Guide To Bet Types

Have you ever wanted to place a bet on an event but you’re just not sure how it all works? Maybe you have walked into a bricks and mortar high street bookmaker and wondered what all the different betting slips were for? Or more commonly, there are so many betting markets now available especially on football, that your brain goes into meltdown?

Well, we are here to help you! The aim of this guide is to explain in more detail what bets are available to you within the sports section of your go-to online casino or bingo site. It also explains a little bit about different terminology used within the sports betting industry.

Firstly here is a tip:

• Fractional odds (e.g. 9/4, 10/1) are how sporting bet odds are normally presented in the UK and Ireland.
• Decimal odds are how they are normally presented in continental Europe and in other countries such as Canada.

Most sportsbooks have the option of changing the odds settings between decimal, fractional and American, but this can be hard to find at times.   If you get confused with decimal and fractional odds there is a simple equation you can do which could be useful:

• If you add the top and bottom together of the fractional odds and divide it by the bottom you get the decimal odds. For example, 5/2 is 5+2 = 7 divided by 2 = 3.50. 13/8 is 13+8 = 21 divided by 8 = 2.62.

Types of Horse Racing/Sports and Event Bets

There are so many different bets you can place on sport with a large number of events running every day of the week in the UK/ Ireland and around the world especially within the horse racing sphere. Although these bets are well-known in the horse racing world they can be pretty much used on any sport or event that has a betting market.

To win/single

This is a single bet consisting of one selection and is pretty straightforward.

Each Way

This is 2 bets consisting of one selection you are betting to win and a separate bet to place. So £1 each way will cost £2 for example.

When it comes to horse racing places are determined on the number of runners in a race.

• • 1-4 runners – you can’t bet each way
  • 5-7 runners – each way goes to 2 places
  • 8-15 runners  – each way goes to 3 places
  • 16+ runners – each way generally goes to 4 places.

This can vary slightly depending if the race is a handicap or not.

Place money is either one quarter or one fifth of the odds, depending who you bet with and what type of race you are betting on. So if you back a horse at 5/1 and it comes 3rd in a race with 8 or more runners you will get evens for the place and get your money back. If it wins you get both the win money and the place money. Some bookmakers pay extra places, but I’ll explain that a little further a bit later.

You can also bet each way on football, with this being most common at the beginning of the season or in major tournaments. Golf betting is also extremely popular when betting each way, with sportsbooks paying up to 10 places.

Accumulators

Any bet with more than one selection is called a multiple or an accumulator, acca for short. These bets are very popular and the returns can be more rewarding if you get lucky.

• A double is a single bet with 2 selections. Both have to win for you to get a return.
• A treble is a single bet with 3 selections. All 3 selections have to win for you to get a return.
• A fourfold or more……. you see where I’m going here.

Now here is where it gets more than a little confusing! What if you could put all these bets together and have various multiples running all at the same time? Well you can, and these bets have their own specific names.

• A Trixie is 4 bets with 3 selections. It consists of 3 doubles and 1 treble. You need 2 selections or more to win to get a return.
• A Patent is 7 bets with 3 selections. It consists of 3 singles, 3 doubles and 1 treble. You only need 1 winner to get a return.
• A Yankee is 11 bets with 4 selections. It consists of 6 doubles, 4 trebles and 1 fourfold. You need 2 or more selections to win to get a return.
• A Lucky 15 is 15 bets with 4 selections. It consists of 4 singles, 6 doubles, 4 trebles and 1 fourfold. You need 1 or more selections to win to get a return. Some bookmakers including Betfred, Coral and William Hill to name a few give you bonuses if you hit only 1 winner or if you are lucky enough to hit all 4 winners. This is the most popular horse racing bet.
• A Super Yankee is 26 bets with 5 selections. It consists of 10 doubles, 10 trebles and 5 fourfold and 1 fivefold. You need 2 or more selections to win to get a return.
• A Lucky 31 is 31 bets with 5 selections. It consists of 5 singles, 10 doubles, 10 trebles and 5 fourfold and 1 fivefold. You need 1 or more selections to win to get a return and again some bookmakers offer bonuses.
• A Heinz is 57 bets (just like the famous brand) with 6 selections. 15 doubles, 20 trebles and 15 fourfold, 6 fivefold and 1 sixfold.

Other multiple bets include an Alphabet, so named because it consists of 26 bets. It has 2 patents, a yankee in the middle and a sixfold. Also a Goliath and a Super Goliath are mega multiple bets.

I can hear you all now saying “these bets must be very expensive,” but they really don’t have to be. You can wager on multiples for as little or as much as you like. So for example, a 10p Lucky 15 will cost £1.50 or a 10p Lucky 31 will cost £3.10. It all depends on your stake per number of bets in the multiple.

So you have now maybe got your head around the above complex bets. But before you put theory to practice –  be aware that you can also carry out all these bets backing selections each way and not just to win. So a 10p Lucky 15 bet will now cost £3.00 or a 10p Lucky 31 will cost £6.20. Backing these bets each way now covers the places as well as the win.

Forecast Betting

There are other ways to wager on horse racing. Forecast betting is also very popular, and in fact this type of bet is more common when placing bets on Greyhound Racing.

• A Straight Forecast is a single bet with 2 selections from the same event, predicting the winner and second place to get a return.
• A Reverse Forecast is 2 bets with 2 selections from the same event. Again you are predicting the winner and second place, but this time in any order.
• A Combination Forecast is 6 bets with 3 selections from the same event. This is basically a reverse forecast with 3 selections instead of 2.
• A Tricast is the same as all the above with 3 selections instead of 2. You are also able to place a reverse Tricast and combination Tricast.

Advanced betting methods include forecast betting within multiples. So you could place a straight forecast double or a reverse forecast double. You could even do a forecast lucky 15, if you so wished.

Some recommended casino betting sites where you can explore placing these bets are Ladbrokes, Paddy Power, Bet TOM, Mr Luck, Betnero, Quickbet and BetVictor.

Possible Complications

Certain things and outcomes can happen in horse racing which can affect not only your bets but your returns. Here are a few to look out for.

Non-Runner – when a selection is not running for whatever reason. If you have a non-runner on a single or each way single bet, your stake is refunded to you. Within multiples the wager will still stand but that part of your stake is added to the other selections. So a double will effectively become a single. If you wager each way on a horse race which due to non-runners now has 4 or less runners, your bet will become a win single.

Rule 4 – when a non-runner affects the betting market. Sportsbooks will make an adjustment to the odds of a horse that has been taken before the non-runner was withdrawn. The adjustment depends on the odds the withdrawn horse was at before becoming a non-runner. If the withdrawn horse was the favourite at evens, for example, the deduction is 45p to £1 won.

Dead Heat – this happens a lot more often than you might think. If your selection is involved in a dead heat, the stake on the outcome is halved. With half the bet winning and the other half losing. So a £1 win bet will become a 50p win bet.

Stewards Enquiry – this can be called for a variety of reasons and the stewards can change the placing and outcome of the race if they deem interference has lost another horse their place in the race. A majority but not all sportsbooks pay first past the post. So effectively there can be 2 winners in one race if this happens.

Best Odds Guaranteed or BOG for short – when you place a bet on a horse you click or tap on the odds provided, that being the “price” of the horse when placing the bet. The odds fluctuate until the race begins. When a race has begun the horse/selection has a Starting Price or SP for short. If the SP is bigger than the odds taken at the time of placing the bet, some but certainly not all sportsbooks will pay out at the higher odds if your selection is successful. This offers great value so look out for sportsbooks with BOG.

Extra Places – these are offered as a promotion by numerous sportsbooks on selected races pretty much every day. So when placing bets each-way you could be offered 4 places instead of the standard 3, or even 5, 6 or 7 places instead of the standard 4 on more high profile races with 16+ runners. It offers fantastic value and is worth looking out for.  Coral, Talksport Bet, bet365, BetGoodwin, vbet, William Hill, Sky Bet and Unibet are some sportsbooks which offer BOG and Extra Places.

The Tote

The Tote is nearly 100 years old and was government owned until 2011 when it was sold to Betfred. In 2019 Betfred sold it on to a consortium of investors. In brief, the Tote is pool betting with returns divided amongst the winners. Bets you can place on the Tote include :-

• To Win
• To Place
• An Exacta which is a forecast bet picking 1st and 2nd in the race.
• A Trifecta which is a tricast bet picking 1st, 2nd and 3rd in the race. You can do combined bets also which means they can finish in any order as above.
• A Placepot is the most popular bet on the Tote which you do on any UK or Irish meeting. The placepot is run from race/leg 1 to race/leg 6 of each meeting to make it easier. You can pick multiple horses per leg and adjust your unit stake per line. You win a share of the pool if you pick 6 out of 6 win/place horses. The prize pools vary, with the big meetings like Cheltenham and Ascot having £250,000 prize pools.
• A Quadpot is popular too, and is a back up bet to the Placepot. It covers race/leg 3 to race/leg 6, four races hence the name quadpot. People will tend to do both these bets as it is frustrating when only 1 horse lets you down in the 1st or 2nd legs and the rest stroll in. It’s also a fun bet which keeps you interested if you’re on a budget.
• The Jackpot bet works the same as the Placepot but it covers just 1 meeting per day and you have to get 6 winners which is extremely hard. The jackpot tends to roll over for a number of days, growing until it is won, and the minimum payout is £10,000 unless it’s shared.
• Scoop 6 is an extremely popular bet that runs just on Saturdays where you could win £1 million. 6 races are picked which are normally televised racing, and to win the jackpot you need to pick all 6 winners. There are other prizes including the bonus fund and the place fund. This pool tends to be won by betting syndicates buying thousands of tickets, as it’s quite expensive at £2 per line.

You can place all of these types of bet at the Tote’s own website and you can also place Tote bets at Betfred, bet365, Paddy Power, William Hill, Betway and Coral.

Types of Football Bets

There are literally 100’s of football betting markets to choose from and we couldn’t possibly list them all, so we have focused on the more popular ones. Please be mindful that when betting on football all bets are for normal time only which includes stoppage time, but not extra time or penalties in cup competitions.

• Full Time Result (Win/Draw)  – you can bet on a team to win or draw the game.
• Accumulator – you can pick numerous teams to win or draw a game. You only get a return if all your selections win. The more teams you pick the bigger the return, but the more likelihood that one of them will let you down. This bet in the win/draw format is the most popular football bet. However, you can do accumulators using other bet types and sports, or even mix and match different bet types into an accumulator.
• Both Teams to Score (BTTS) – you get to pick either Yes or No and this is the most popular format. You can also bet on if this will happen in the first half, the second half or even in both halves. You can also wager on a team to Win and BTTS.
• Total Goals (Over/Under) – the most common and popular format for this bet is Over/Under 2.5 total goals. You can also bet on Over/Under 0.5, 1.5, 3.5 total goals and so on. The reason sportsbooks add half a goal to this market is to rule out any ambiguous betting, avoiding confusion in this market. So to get a return when betting on over 2.5 goals there has to be 3 or more goals in the game. You can also bet on Over/Under goals per team
• Correct Score – although popular, this is quite hard to predict, so the returns are a lot greater. A common way of betting on the correct score market is in multiples. For example you could choose 4 games/selections and place a correct score Lucky 15 bet as explained earlier. In fact all horse racing bet types apart from forecasting and the Tote can be used on football also.
• First or Anytime Goalscorer – you can bet on your favourite player to score first in the game or even anytime. If the first goal is an own goal, a first goalscorer bet runs on to the next goal with the own goal ignored. Some sportsbooks do promotions where if a player is replaced for whatever reason your bet will run on to the substitute. You can also bet on no goalscorer if you wish, and if the game ends 1-0 with just an own goal you get a return. It’s well worth knowing who the penalty takers are if this market takes your fancy.
• Bookings/Cards  – some sportsbooks use the over/under format with some using a points system. So you can bet on how many cards are shown or if you want to be more specific you could pick a named player to be carded or even sent off.
• Handicap Betting (European) – there are also Asian Handicap betting markets but for the sake of this guide I will keep it simple and explain European Handicap betting. You can bet on a team to win, giving the other team an advantage as such. For example: if you select Arsenal to win -1 they have to win by 2 clear goals (2-0, 3-1) for you to get a return. You can also give an unfancied team an advantage by selecting +1 so if the game ended in a draw you would also get a return. There are numerous markets on this bet type.
• Half Time/Full Time or Double Result is where you are trying to predict which team will be winning at half time and then at full time. There are 9 possible outcomes with sportsbooks tending to abbreviate them. H= Home team D= Draw A= Away team. So you could bet on H/H which means the home team will be winning at half time and then at full time. Or you could bet on H/D which means the home team will be winning at half time and it will be a draw at full time. Other bets are H/A, D/H, D/D, D/A, A/H, A/D, A/A. This is also another good multiple bet.
• Corner betting  – sportsbooks again tend to use the over/under format so you can bet on over 7.5 corners or under 10.5 corners in the game for example. Other corner markets include corners at half time, each half or which team will get the most corners. You can even find markets over/under on corners per team or handicap corner betting.
• Early Payout –  some but certainly not all operators offer early payout on win bets when your selected team goes 2-0 up in the game. This can be integrated within their odds offered or be provided within its own separate betting market depending on what sportsbook you use. This is a great promotion/market as if your selected team goes 2-0 up but draws or even loses the game you get paid out as winner.

These markets are the most popular in football betting but there are plenty of others. You can place bets on if there is a penalty, a draw no bet, a goal in both halves, shots on target by match or by player and double chance which is backing a team to win or draw, just to name a few more.

Bet Builders

Back in yesteryear, highstreet bookmakers would not let customers do related bets in football or any other sports and to a degree this still stands. For example you can’t place a Lucky 15 bet with 2 horses in the same race. This stood for football too, so you couldn’t place a bet on a team to win the game and the correct score too as a multiple double. This changed in recent years when bookmakers brought out a bet called a scorecast, which you could see in every highstreet betting shop window. This bet allowed you to predict both the first goalscorer and the correct score within the same game. These bets were/are very popular, and bookmakers loved them too as they are quite hard for the customer to make a return on. Fast forward to the present day and like everything, things have evolved and now you can place related bets on Football, Tennis, Basketball, American Football and Formula 1 in the form of a bet builder if you so wish.

Now allowing customers to combine selections from the same football game or sporting event, this quite new betting opportunity is growing in popularity. This bet differs from the popular accumulator and we can see it becoming just as common. You can for example, pick a team to win, over 2.5 goals, over 7.5 corners and under 4.5 cards all within the same game, getting a return if you predict it all right (almost like bingo!). This makes for great entertainment when watching the big televised games.

Sportsbooks also aim some of their promotions at this bet type, boosting odds on a number of selections, offering free bets for placing bet builders or second chances if they lose. With sportsbooks promoting premade bet builders and now providing excellent tools these days including some with AI’s which calculate stats from previous games and the chance of this outcome happening again, this bet type is well and truly on the map and here to stay.

Some of the casino and betting sites where you can receive early payout on football and place bet builders are bet365, 10bet, 7bet, VirginBet, Paddy Power, Fun Casino, Pokerstars and LiveScoreBet.

We hope you enjoyed our insight into some of the bet types currently on offer and next time you may fancy a wager on your favourite sport you are more well informed on what is available within the gaming platform you have chosen to use. Always remember that betting is meant to be fun so, please gamble responsibly and never spend more than you can afford.