What is the most profitable sport to bet on?
Find out which sports betting markets will get you the most.
This is an excellent question, but it is also one that doesn’t have a straightforward answer. Different sports bettors will give you varying answers as everyone has their own opinions on what the best sport to bet on to make money is.
There are certain factors that make each major sport a potential money maker, which we’ll discuss.
At the end of the day, the more you know about any given sport, match, or game, the greater your chances are to make a profit on betting sites. The more research you do, the more informed a bet you can make, giving you a better chance of beating the book. However, here is our subjective list of the best sports to bet on:
- Football
- Soccer
- Boxing
- Tennis
- Basketball
- Baseball
1. Football
Many sports bettors consider football to be the best sport to bet on, and it is without a doubt the most popular. Betting on NFL betting sites and college football brings in the most sports betting handle each year.
In 2015, the American Gaming Association estimated that $93 billion was going to be wagered on college and professional football just that year. With sports betting having become legalized since then, that estimate could be even larger.
The reason for football being more profitable than other sports is that favorites don’t lose as often as other sports.
In college football, you can pencil in three different schools to make the playoffs each year and get long odds before every season. During the season, the stronger schools usually dominate, which causes mobile sportsbooks to give them a crazy high spread making underdog betting more profitable.
For the 2020 season, CFB underdogs edged out favorites, winning 50.3% of the time.
As for NFL betting, one of the main reasons that it is profitable to bet on is because it is so popular. There is a ton of betting information available, and free betting tips and picks can be easily found.
The only real negative is that football is only played at certain times of the year, and that can limit your betting opportunities. NFL football has a total of 256 total games per season which is far less than the 1230 games that the NBA or NHL offers. This means there is less room for error.
2. Soccer
Soccer is the most popular sport worldwide, and it is another profitable sport to bet on. International online sportsbooks focus a lot of their attention on soccer, and that can lead to some great betting opportunities for you.
One example of that is the fact that unlike in American football, you can bet on ties.
As you can see, odds for a tie can sometimes be more profitable than the odds for either team to win. They’re not guaranteed to hit every time, but just having the option can make soccer betting more profitable.
Another reason that soccer is profitable to bet on is that several popular clubs play around the world. Those same clubs also play at different points of the year, so fans of a certain team can follow them and bet on them all year round.
When it comes to international soccer betting, there are only a few powers such as Brazil, Germany, Argentina, France, and other European and South American counties. This makes betting on the World Cup easier.
3. Boxing
Boxing used to be one of the most popular sports to bet on in the United States, but that has changed in recent years. What hasn’t changed is that the sport is still very profitable to bet on, and it offers some unique opportunities.
One of the biggest reasons that boxing is profitable is that there aren’t many different outcomes in a boxing match. This limits the number of decisions that need to be made and gives you a better chance to cash in.
For example, on a typical weekend slate, you’ll only find a handful of betting lines for each fight.
Similar to soccer, boxing is pretty much year-round giving you more opportunities to bet on it and more chances to become profitable. You can check out our UFC betting guide, if you want to find out more details about different types of boxing betting.
4. Tennis
Tennis is not very popular in the United States, and it doesn’t bring in a ton of bets. That doesn’t mean that it’s not profitable, as betting on tennis could lead to some big money.
In the example above, you can see you can get plus odds on arguably one of the best tennis players of all time when you bet early. Djokovic has won the Australian Open a record eight times, making him a fairly safe and profitable bet.
The same could be said for Rafael Nadal when it comes to the French Open. He holds a record 13 victories there, almost guaranteeing that bettors can cash out on profitable odds more often than not.
Tennis takes place year-round, which means there are always ways to bet. Tennis tournaments also take weeks to complete, and there can be some good money made in the earlier rounds.
One benefit those early rounds of the tournament provide is parlay betting on tennis. More often than not, the same names reach the final stages of each major tournament, meaning you can construct highly profitable parlay bets early on.
If you are looking for a new sport to get into during the off-season for your favorite sport, betting on tennis is the way to go.
5. Basketball
Basketball is one of the most popular sports around the world, and betting on basketball can be one of the most profitable sports to bet on, but only if you’re betting at the right time.
During the NBA regular season, even the best teams are subject to fluke losses at any point. The Milwaukee Bucks won the most games in the league last season with a record of 56-17. These fluke losses usually occur during the beginning of the NBA season.
It could be profitable for bettors to use NBA betting promos and bet on underdogs at the beginning of the season and then switch to betting on favorites during the postseason. There are a total of 1230 total games each season, which means you have time to bounce back if you took a loss earlier in the season.
When it comes to college basketball betting, it’s more or less the same. The most money for betting on college basketball comes during the March Madness tournament, which is why so many people bet on the event.
In 2019, the American Gaming Association predicted Americans would spend $8.5 billion on March Madness betting alone.
There is a lot of money to be made here as upsets are guaranteed to happen every year. According to the NCAA, in 28 of the last 35 seasons, there have been between ten and sixteen upsets in the tournament. This averages out to 12.2 upsets per year.
6. Baseball
Baseball is one of the trickiest sports to bet on, but it does have certain elements that can make it profitable. The first benefit is the fact that it is very much a data-driven league. This means you can make very informed bets on MLB betting sites
For example, baseball bettors can utilize stats such as a pitcher’s walks and hits per inning pitched (WHIP) to know how well they keep runners off of the bases. They can even use stats such as wins above replacement (WAR) to know how much overall winning value each player has on a roster.
All of these stats can be used to get an edge over sportsbooks and become profitable. With each baseball team playing 162 games each regular season, it gives bettors a greater margin for error as well.
So what’s the best sport to bet on?
Ultimately, the most profitable sport to bet on is the sport bettors know most about.
Since most bettors in the US follow football passionately, it is often referred to as the most profitable sport. The more you follow a specific sport, the more you know about their teams, and the better chance you can have at predicting outcomes.
However, other sports such as tennis and basketball offer tremendous value when you place your bets at the right time.
The more you research a betting line before you bet, the better chance you have at making money.
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