Intro to Betting
Whether you’re just getting into betting or you’ve been on the tips since way back when, Betwithus is the place for you. With the latest and greatest expert advice on tips, predictions and odds, you’ll be in safe hands with our trusted analysts.
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This article will contain some general information about stuff you’ve just got to know when starting out in the world of betting. We’ll cover when the season fixtures and ladders, the basics of betting, how to place bets, and why our trusted experts at Betwithus are of such great value.Â
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Season Fixtures and Ladders
In any sport, individuals or teams will play off during a season or tournament to accumulate points with a hope to win as much as possible. Fixtures are the details of match, contest or race which will take place throughout a season or tournament. A fixture is set before the first sporting event takes place, and includes information about dates, times, and location of the.
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A fixture might read like this:
- ROUND 14
- Round begins Thursday June 17
- Geelong Cats vs. Western Bulldogs (GMHBA)
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This means that on Thursday 17 June 2021, Round 14 of the AFL will begin, seeing the Geelong Cats play off against the Western Bulldogs at Kardinia Park Stadium (GMHBA) in Geelong.
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The points for each team are updated on the ladder after each round is played. The ladder records the number of games played (P), as well as specific details of each game, including the number of wins (W), draws (D) and losses (L). Ladders generally record percentages (%/PD), too, which are aggregates of the margin of points scored by or against a team. If you see the letter B, it means the team has had a bye – in other words, they didn’t compete during that round.
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After the fixed games have been played, the teams with the best points from the season qualify for finals rounds. Depending on the sport, there will typically be playoffs, or a set of Qualifying and Elimination Finals, Semi-Finals, Preliminary Finals, followed by the Grand Final. The structure of tournaments and ranking is slightly different in sports such as golf, cricket, tennis and racing, which compete with different parameters, but this serves as a general rule of thumb. For more information on exceptions to the rule, check out the details on the individual pages for each sport.
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Now we’ve covered the structure of the season, fixtures, ladders, and the basics of each game, let’s get into the exciting stuff – how to make good dosh through betting!
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Betting Basics
A bet, or wager, is an amount of money you risk on the outcome of an unpredictable event. The likelihood of any event taking place or not taking place is represented as odds for or odds against, respectively. The return you will get from any bet is represented as your money, or stake, multiplied by the odds. If that sounds confusing, think of it this way: if you put $100 on Melbourne Storm to beat the Canberra Raiders, at hypothetical odds of 1.30, just multiply those two numbers together to calculate your potential return. This is represented mathematically below.
- Stake x odds = return
- $100 x 1.30 = $130
Your profit is your return minus the money you initially sacrificed when placing the bet. So, using the example above, your profit would be $30.
- Return – stake = profit
- $130 – $100 = $30
Bookmakers set odds based on the likelihood of an event taking place. The lower the odds, the more likely the event will take place. Odds of 1.30 are quite low, meaning that bookmakers probably expect Melbourne Storm to win, especially if the odds for the Canberra Raiders winning are high (for instance, 3.60). Higher odds mean you risk more, but you have the potential to return more, too. For instance, if you were to bet $100 on Canberra Raiders and they were to win, you would return $360, i.e., $260 profit.
Placing Bets
You can bet on all sorts of events to happen or not happen in sport. Bets can be pre-live (before the match starts) or live (during the match). The three main types of betting for sporting matches are head-to-head markets, line markets, or margins. You can also make value bets, exotic bets, or parlay bets, which are potentially far more lucrative than regular bets. We’ll go through all of these terms now.
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A head-to-head or moneyline market is a bet on who will win the match, regardless of the score. The hypothetical Melbourne Storm versus Canberra Raiders game above is an example of that.
Before you bet, make sure you read our tips per sport @ –
If you bet on a line market, otherwise known as betting against the spread, you’re betting on who will win the match, but this time, the points matter. Point margins are recorded as handicaps. For instance, if West Coast Eagles have a handicap of -17.5 in a game against Collingwood, they would need to win by 18 points to be a winning bet. This probably means they are likely to win, because bookmakers are requiring the Eagles to win by more points to even out the odds. Meanwhile, Collingwood have a handicap of +17.5, which means they would need to either win the match outright or not lose by more than 18 points for your bet to have a return. Both play at odds of 1.90. So, if you bet $100 on West Coast Eagles and they won by 18 points or more, you would return $190, making a profit of $90.
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If you bet on a margin or make an over under bet, you’re betting on whether the team will win by more or less than a certain amount, or draw. For instance, if Eagles win by between 1-39 points, the odds are 2.10, whereas the odds of Eagles drawing with Collingwood are 61.00. Using the same logic as above, if you bet $100 on a draw, you would return $6100, a healthy profit of $6000.
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Value bets are bets where the likelihood of an event is greater than the odds assessed by bookmakers. For instance, let’s say you’ve spent enough time watching the Eagles to know that an injury to a key player will severely hamper their ability to win against Collingwood. However, the odds don’t reflect that – bookmakers still think Eagles are likely to win. If you bet against the odds for Collingwood, and they win, you are likely to return much more than you would by simply taking bookmakers’ advice. Exotic markets often allow specialised knowledge to come to the fore, because they focus on niche outcomes in a match: best left-hander in golf, first goal scorer in soccer, and so on.
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You can only really be a good value if you have specialised knowledge of the sport you are betting on, which is why our analysts at Betwithus are worth listening to – they know their stuff, and they know when betting odds are too good to pass up!
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Finally, you can make parlay picks which are combinations of all of the above in a bundle of bets. Risker, but again, the payoffs have the potential to be much, much greater.
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We hope you find this information about betting useful. If you’ve got any more questions, head to our FAQs section, where you’ll find a whole lot more information about the ins and outs of betting. Good luck!