Category: Betting Guides – Beginner and advanced guides to sports betting

In May each year thousands of US players are searching for the best sportsbook for horse racing wagers and are asking which is the best website to bet on the Kentucky Derby. The horse racing betting, especially the Kentucky Derby (or the whole Triple Crown for that matter), is a completely different animal as opposed to sports betting. A large number of people are betting on the Kentucky Derby simply because they got caught up in the hype and excitement of this famous event and in most cases – it’s the only time they would bet on a horse race.

And while there is a sizable wagering industry built around the track betting in the USA, the overall level is far from, let’s say, the one we see in the UK. That’s why we have approached the recommendations for where to bet on the Kentucky Derby a bit different than the US sportsbook list you can see on our home page. The main ranking features here are based on the ranking factors of frequency of horse racing betting, size of wagers and best odds on the Kentucky Derby. Keep in mind that just because a sportsbook is great for general sports betting, it doesn’t make it the top option for betting on the Kentucky Derby or the other races in the Triple Crown chase. With that in mind, here are the best sites to bet on the Kentucky Derby online in the USA:

Bovada Horse Racing – the Bovada horse racing platform is by far the leader in Kentucky Derby betting. Overall, this is the best sportsbook for horse racing, period, not just for the Run for the Roses. Unlike many other sportsbooks, this betting iste has a dedicated horse racing section with daily betting options from tracks around the US and UK, as well. But when it comes to betting on the Kentucky Derby, this website takes the crown. It is one of the first sportsbooks to post the odds on the Kentucky Derby contenders, offers some of the top odds you can find online on the ponies and it also posts quite a sizable number of prop bets and head-to-head wagers on the Kentucky Derby. In addition, customers can take advantage of the many other features Bovada offers on horse racing events, such as analysis, videos, articles, etc. And if you are new to horse racing betting, the site has plenty of guides to teach you the ropes of betting on horses and give you enough knowledge to place your first wager on the Kentucky Derby. As an added bonus, Bovada Horse Racing is very friendly to the occasional bettor, which is indeed the average Kentucky Derby bettor. The sportsbook takes small deposits and offers plenty of processing options, including credit cards. If you are wondering where to be ton the Kentucky Derby, Bovada is your best choice.

Bookmaker – if you need another option to bet online on the Kentucky Derby, Bookmaker is a great “out”. While it doesn’t offer as many side bets on the Triple Crown as Bovada, it holds one advantage – it accepts very large bets. If you are looking for a safe and reputable betting site for the Kentucky Derby to place a wager in the thousands, you will find no better website than Bookmaker, period. Geared more towards the pro bettor, this book offers good odds on the Derby, along with a reputation untainted over the many years it has been in operation. It has the bankroll to pay out big wins on the Triple Crown races and as a bonus, it is ranked as the best sportsbook for US players, as well. The perfect choice for large bets on the Kentucky Derby.

A side note on legal horse racing betting in the United States: The online betting on horse racing is one of the few forms of legal online gambling in the US, although there are still a few states where betting online on horse racing is either restricted or not allowed. As such, there is a number of betting websites focused on horse racing only and they are perfectly legal to use by US citizen. Unfortunately, they have take advantage of the legal status by offering some of the worst odds you can imagine an in no way can they compete with the Kentucky Derby odds offered by the offshore sportsbooks, nor can they match the large bets people can place on the Kentucky Derby at those sportsbooks. If you plan on betting on horse racing, make sure you check your local laws to see if this form of online gambling is legal in your jurisdiction first!

Straight bets are the most common type of wagers at the sportsbooks and the easiest and simplest to place. In essence, the straight bet is a single wager on an outcome in a game. Depending on the sport, there are quite a few choices you can make for placing a straight wager, we will look at the most popular further down, but the main principle of a straight bet is that it is an individual bet, unlike for example, parlay bet, where you bet a number of games at once.

As mentioned, different sports will give you the option to place various straight bets. Let’s look at some of the more popular options. Football bets give you the most options to place a straight wager, including “win outright”, “point spread” and “over-under”. The “win outright” is simply a straight bet on which team will win the game. This is by far the most popular straight bet at the sportsbooks and is not just for football, the same applies to all sports. For example, one can place a straight bet on basketball on which team will win, or baseball, or boxing match on which fighter will win the bout, etc. This is where beginners often start their betting journey, since it’s the easiest bet to place.

The point spread is another popular option for straight bets. You can read more about how the point spread works here. And finally, the over-under or “total” is yet another straight bet many people make. The sportsbook posts a prediction number of the total score (the score of one team plus the score of the other) of a football game, for example, and players make a straight bet on whether the actual total of the game is over or under the one predicted by the sportsbook.

How are the odds payouts of straight bets calculated? Rather simple, really. For every option the sportsbook posts odds on the straight bet. For example, if the odds on the Eagles are +110, it means that you will win $110 for every $100 wagered in a straight bet for the Eagles to win.

We continue our betting guides with a look at one of the most popular betting options, the parlay bet. Here you can get more information about parlay betting and learn how it works.

After the straight bet, the parlay betting is the most popular way of placing wagers at the sportsbooks. In its simplest form, the parlay bet is a multiple-game wager wrapped up into a single bet. Depending on the online sportsbook a parlay can contain anywhere from 2 to 15 games, although keep in mind that all sportsbooks have a maximum payout on their parlays which could be reached with a low number of games in your parlay, depending on the payout odds of the individual games. The basic premise of the parlay is that you can multiply the odds on each of the games in your parlay, and then multiply your wager amount to the final sum, but you also have to win all games in order for your parlay bet to be a winner. If just one of the games in your parlay is a loser – your entire parlay is one, as well.

Let’s look at an example to better explain the working of the parlay betting. Let’s say there are five NFL games you want to wager on and feel strongly about the outcome of those football games. You can go the traditional route and use a straight bet to individually wager on each of the games or you can put all five of them into a single parlay bet. For the simplicity of the example, let’s assume that all five NFL games will pay out on +110 odds. If you bet $100 on each game using a straight wager and you win all – you will get $210 on each for that total of $1050 or $550 profit from a total of $500 risked. Now, if you instead “combine” all the games into a single parlay, the payout will change significantly. In parlay betting, every payout coefficient (the odds on the game) are multiplied together to give you your final payout odds. In our example, if you put the five football games in a parlay the parlay odds will be calculated as follows: +110 x +110 x +110 x +110 x +110= ~40.8 (it’s easier to do it if you convert American odds to decimal odds). And you simply multiply the final payout, in our case 40.8 to your bet. If you bet the whole $500 on the parlay and you win, the payout would be 40.8 x $500 = $20,400, or nearly $20K profit.

As you can see, the payout of the parlay is enormous, compared to the straight bet. But as always – there is no such thing as free lunch. As mentioned earlier, all games in a parlay bet must be winners, in order for the parlay to be a winner. If just one of those five games in the example above was a loser – your entire parlay would be graded as loser, as well. Clearly the more games you put in your parlay bet – the higher the payout, but also the higher the risk you are taking. Clearly parlay betting is very simple, but you should exercise caution when betting parlays, accounting for the increasing risk with every game you add to your wager.

Now, here is a good question many of you may be asking by now – what if one of the games in the parlay is a push? In general, if one of the games in a parlay bet is a push, the parlay reverts to the next lower level. For example, if in our previous instance one of the five football games was a push, the parlay goes from a 5-game parlay to a 4-game parlay, with the game ending in push simply being “removed” from that parlay.

In parlay betting summary:

• Any one game loss constitutes a parlay loss.
• The parlay payout odds of each individual game in the parlay multiply and the total multiplies to your bet for your final parlay odds.
• A push “removes” a game from your parlay
• Parlay betting offers higher payout but in exchange for higher risk
• Each sportsbook will have a limit on a parlay maximum payout, which could be reached well before the maximum number of games in a parlay

Every football fan has heard the terms “point spread”, “spread”, “cover the spread”, etc at least once in their life, likely more. While the point spread is one of the most bet on options, especially when it come to NFL betting, there are many people who hear the term but have no idea what it means. Here we will give you a simple, yet comprehensive, guide to understanding what is point spread, how the point spread works and even cover some terms like “ATS” and “cover the spread”, pun not intended.

Let’s begin with “what is point spread”. The point spread is handicap points given to one of the teams’ final score, respectively taken away from the other team. The point spread is posted by the online sportsbooks and then people bet on whether a team will “cover the spread”. Let’s look at an example, which will make it much easier to understand the spread. At the online sportsbook Bovada Sports we have right now the point spread on the game Pittsburgh Steelers @ New England Patriots. At the sportsbook you will see something like this:

Pittsburgh Steelers: Point spread +7
New England Patriots: Point spread -7

First, let’s note that there are two betting options for the player here, one is to bet on the Steelers and the other on the Patriots. Now, let’s look at how the point spread works. What the spread numbers are telling us is that after the final score of the game the Steelers will get 7 points handicap to their final score or the Patriots will see 7 points take away from them. After this is done – the final score is “recalculated” and if you bet on the Patriots spread at -7 and the Patriots still win the game, after 7 points are taken from their final score – you win the bet. This is also called “covering the spread”, i.e. the Patriots have covered the spread. So if we make up a score, let’s say the final score of the Steelers Patriots game is 10-21, if you bet on the Patriots to cover the spread, your bet will be a winner, since even after we subtract 7 points from the Pats score, they still win the game. Mathematically, it will be like

Steelers: 10
Patriots: (21-7)=14

If, however, you bet the Steelers in our example, you will lose, because even after 7 points handicap are added to the Pittsburgh’s final score, that would bring it to just 17 points, which is less than the Patriots’ 21 points. Remember, you either add points to one team or subtract point from the other, not both.

As you can see, the point spread is very easy to work with, once you get the general idea. When betting the spread one simply decided if a team will be able to beat the other team by the number of points indicated by the point spread and then make your bet accordingly. In our example, if you think the Pats will beat the Steelers by more than 7 points – you bet the pats to “cover the spread”, if you think New England will beat the Steelers by less than 7 points or that Pittsburgh will win the game – bet the Steelers’ spread instead.

And finally, let’s close this guide with an acronym you would hear often, namely “ATS”. In our previous example, you may hear that the Patriots are 7 points ATS. What this means? ATS stands for “against the spread”, so the Pats are said to be 7 points against the spread, i.e. ATS.

In our Sports Betting 101 guide we will focus, unlike other websites, on the “meat and potatoes” side of betting on sports, particularly at the online sportsbooks. We have created the guide with one goal in mind – to help you understand the very foundation of spots betting and the things you must know before you even begin your journey into the world of betting on sports. Below you will see what knowledge you must posses in order to even begin betting on sports at the online sportsbooks or any bookmaker for that matter. We have briefly summarized the more important points, but you can (and we highly encourage you to) read more aout that particular subject by following the link to that guide. Here is the sports betting 101:

Know your sport

As all of you already know, sports betting is placing a wager on the outcome of a sporting event. While it’s not mandatory, it’s detrimental to your success as a bettor to have good knowledge of the particular sport(s) you will place wagers on.

If you are the type of bettor that simply wants to place a Super Bowl bet, just because everyone at the office is doing it – you don’t need to know anything at all about sports betting! Simply head to our home page to see which are the best sportsbooks, pick one, call them and tell them you want to bet x amount on one of the teams to win and they will walk you through your bet. If you can dial a phone or use your computer keyboard – you can be that bettor without any knowledge whatsoever.

But if you plan on wagering for a while with the main goal of winning money, then you must know your sport in and out. And we are not talking about being a fan of a team. Billions of people all over the world are fans of a team and know that team in-and-out, but have very little knowledge about the particular league in general, which is not a good thing, unless you plan on betting your team only. If you plan on betting the NFL, for example, you must know enough about all divisions or at least focus on a few of them and keep your wagers within that circle of divisions. So in order to be a good bettor, you must have plenty of knowledge about your sport. Keep that in mind and avoid going blind into sports betting or it will spell doom for your bankroll very soon.

Choose a good sportsbook

Once you have decided which sport you are confident betting on, it’s time to pick a sportsbook. We have reviewed the very best sportsbooks for US players right on our home page and the easiest way is to select one of them. Whether your decision will be based on the signup bonus they offer or the speed of withdrawals, it’s up to you and does not relate to sports betting. The main point here is to not go into it alone, trying to do your own research, etc., because there are tons of rogue online sportsbooks praying on people like that. Leave the reviews to the professionals – our reputation over the years has proved times over that we do not recommend shady sportsbooks.

Learn how the online sportsbooks work

Once you have chosen a sportsbook or before you do that, it’s recommended that you have understanding about how the online sportsbooks work and how they differ from the traditional sportsbooks. There is a procedure for everything with the sportsbooks operating on the internet and we have written about it all in our how the online sportsbooks work guide. Simply follow the link to read all about how things work with the online sportsbooks. This is, in our opinion, an indispensable guide and one that is hard to find on the Internet. For some reason all websites assume that you know how an online sportsbook should work.

Understand the basic sports betting terms and workings

Considering you are new to sports betting, learning the basic terms and working of it will be a must. Here is a list of some of the main terms you will face when you start betting on sports. We are constantly adding new betting guides, so make sure you visit the main section to see if anything new has been added to the list.

Odds – we recommend you follow the link to really understand the betting odds. There are a lot of assumptions made by beginner bettors, since the term “odds” is used in quite the different fashion and caries a bit different meaning at the sportsbooks that what you may be used to. And speaking of odds, make sure you dig deeper to:

Money Line – which is basically the odds the sportsbooks gives you for each team to win outright

Point Spread – we talk about this famous betting option in depth in our point spread guide, you must read it.

Other important parts of sports betting include parlays and straight bets. If you don’t feel like becoming a professional bettor, the above 5 terms are the minimum needed for most people to begin betting and do so with confidence. If, on the other side, you have greater aspirations, head over to our betting guide section to see what else is available for the advanced bettor.

Be disciplined

The final point in our Sports Betting 101 guide has to do with your discipline as a bettor and practicing money management to the fullest. Always follow the golden rule of gambling – don’t bet more than you can lose. Set a budget and always stick to it, avoid chasing the losses as this is the main reason why so many bettors end up in hot water. Be patient and cool-headed when you select your bets and you’d be so much closer to being a winner.