Thanks to technology, the days when sports betting was done through “that guy” who collects bets every time there is a game is over. Now, people can easily wager on their favorite sports through their chosen site or app.
In a country as big as the United States of America, you can expect sports betting to be a lucrative industry here. Different people are into different sports–from football, baseball, basketball, to tennis betting and odds, you can never run out of options. But just how big this industry is in the country, and what are some interesting facts about sports betting and bookies in the US.
How big is it?
Sports betting, especially online, is getting bigger in the US. Part of this is because more people are jumping into it, as more states open their doors in making online gambling legal. Revenue earned in this industry is no small money, too. For example, Nevada reported $4.9 billion of revenue from its sports betting industry alone in 2017.
What is the most popular game?
There is no denying that football is the biggest post in the United States. A total of 36% of all bets wagered were for this sport, and there are also millions of viewership for every major game played between August.
When is the peak season?
Since football is the biggest sports that American bets on, it is almost already a given that September is the busiest months for bettors and bookies, as most leagues and games start their season around this month. However, football is not the only sport that makes this month the strongest in sports betting. There is also baseball, which should be approaching its offseason by that time.
With how big football is plus the growing interest in betting on baseball, bookies take and make money by this month more than what they do from November and December combined.
Live betting is getting bigger
The most common form of sports betting that a casual abettor may know works like this: you check the odds and then place a bet according to your liking. Then you sit back and wait for the results and then check back to see if you have won or not. That sounds about right, doesn’t it? However, there is another way you can do sports betting, and it is one of the biggest forms of sports betting in the US. This is called live betting.
Live betting makes up at least 25% of all bets placed on all sports. Here, players watch the game as it gets played, and then place their bets in the middle of the game. Odds and lines can change, and a winning bet before the game starts may not be the same by half-time. Players can adjust their bets or cancel them entirely.
People love future bets
Aside from living betting, another form of wagering that is big in the United States is what is called future betting. What is future betting? As its name suggests, it is where people wager on the outcome of a certain event. In sports, this is usually the overall champion or the MVP of the season. In a way, this is similar to the usual Moneyline betting, only that this is on a wider scale and is placed several months ahead of the final game.
Overall, future bets may not be as popular as live bets, but it still makes up at least 10% of all wagers played in the entire country. Though this may not be a huge part of the overall revenue, 10% is still equivalent to millions of dollars–and hundreds of thousands of people betting on it.
