Statistics show that gamblers spend on betting a total of several billion a year. Have you ever wondered how much of this amount goes back to the players’ pockets? Unfortunately it is at most a dozen or so percent. Only really experienced and, above all, knowledgeable bettors are able to play with serious profit. In our article we describe the types of bookmaker bets. This is the first step to understanding what betting is about.
Table of contents
- Types of betting
- Pre-match and long term betting
- Live betting and live scores
- Betting on the winner
- Handicap betting
- Precision Score (DW) betting
- Over/Under
- Partial match betting
- Other types of bookmaker bets
- Single vs accumulator bets
- Which types of bets are the safest?
- Types of betting
In most countries, sports betting definitely dominates the bookmaking market. According to various statistics, about 97 to 99% of bets placed are sports bets.
There are also other types of bets, such as horse racing, but their popularity is limited to a closed circle of people, mainly sports enthusiasts. So let’s present what types of bets there are in our country.
Pre-match and long-term bets
In bookmaker bets we distinguish between pre-match and long-term bets.
Pre-match betting allows you to bet on a match before it has even started. The most common practice for bookmakers is to offer pre-match bets for the next 7 days. You have time to place your bets until the start of the competition.
The most popular sports in Poland are soccer, tennis, ice hockey, volleyball and basketball.
What are long-term bets? These bets don’t concern a specific match. They refer to the entire competition, such as the Olympic Games or league games. Such types of bookmaker bets are usually placed very far in advance.
For example – you can bet on the PKO Ekstraklasa King of Scorers even before the league season starts. Below we have presented some examples of long-term offers:
Who will become the PKO Ekstraklasa scoring king?
Who will become Polish Men’s Volleyball Champion?
Will Kamil Stoch win the World Cup in ski jumping?
Will our volleyball players win a gold medal at the Olympic Games?
Bookmaker bets – types of bets
Live betting and live scores
Live bets are bets placed during an ongoing meeting. Currently all bookmakers on the Polish market offer live betting. It is worth noting that all of them offer almost the entire pre-match offer for live betting.
Why did this happen? Well, because the players have become more demanding. Live betting was and still is simply more exciting for them. There is more risk involved, and this is what gambling is all about.
Live betting means more predictable events – in real time. Often, the live offer is also richer than the pre-match offer. In pre-match betting you won’t logically find the possibility to bet on what will happen next (the player will score a goal, a point etc).
The live betting offer is more and more supported by bookmakers. It used to be possible to follow only partial live results. Nowadays bookmakers provide results from all the matches.
Additionally, most of the matches are enriched with graphic visualizations and live statistics. Some of the bookmakers have also decided to introduce video transmissions.
Betting on the winner
Betting on the winner is the most popular type of betting in Poland. Betting on the popular 1,2 or 1,X,2 is a fundamental part of bookmaking. Both beginners and the most experienced bettors play this way.
Bets on 12
12 is a two-way bet. This means that it can end with only two outcomes – victory of the host or the guest. 12 12 betting is most commonly used in volleyball, tennis and some combat sports in Poland.
1X2 bets
In the case of 1X2 you are dealing with a three-way bet. Apart from a home or away win, a draw is also allowed. It won’t surprise you to learn that this type of bet is most commonly used in soccer.
Double Chance or GNI
In the case of 1X2 bets there is also the so-called insurance, i.e. double chance or GNI, i.e. draw-no-bet (a bet without a draw).
Let’s start with double chance. Betting on matches using this market allows you to choose between two possible outcomes, namely 12 (home win, away win), 1X (home win or draw) or X2 (draw or away win). You win your bet if it ends in either of the two outcomes you have selected.
No-Tie Betting, abbreviated as DNB, is a type of betting where you have the option to bet on a home win or a home win. The bookmaker does not allow you to play for a draw. However, if the meeting resolves this way, then you will receive a refund of the funds placed on this bet.
Any bet insurance (double chance, GNI) guarantees a higher probability of winning of course. At the same time it makes your potential profit lower.
Handicap betting
Handicap betting aims to even out the odds. These types of bets are most often played in matches between rivals of different levels. The most popular handicaps in Poland are European and Asian.
In both cases you can bet on a negative or positive handicap. In the case of a negative handicap the player/team will receive negative goals/points/games/set before the match starts.
A positive handicap, on the other hand, evens out the chances of potentially weaker opponents by adding one of the previously mentioned advantages. How does betting on matches with handicaps work exactly?
European Handicap
With a European Handicap you can bet on a home win, a draw or a home win.
Types of bookmaker bets – Double Chance
Asian Handicap
Asian Handicap is limited to betting on wins only. Asian Handicaps are usually staked not as full numbers, but as halves. This is to eliminate the possibility of a tie.
For example, if in the match between Poland and Peru you bet on Poland winning with an Asian handicap of -1,0, then with the actual result 1:0 for Poland, the bet remains undecided. (Poland wins 1:0, you deduct 1 goal due to negative handicap = 0:0).
The amount of handicaps (whether Asian or European) depends on the sport
in soccer it can be for example:
-0.5 goals, -1.5 goals, -2.5 goals / + 0.5 goals, +1.5 goals, +2.5 goals
tennis prefers Asian handicap for gems or sets:
+3.5 games, +1.5 sets, -2.5 games, -0.5 sets
while in basketball you can find point handicaps:
+5.5 points, +11.5 points, -9.5 points, -13.5 points
European and Asian handicaps are also available in volleyball, speedway and many other individual and team sports.
Exact Score Betting
Another very popular type of betting in Poland is Exact Score. In this case the bookmaker bets on the exact results of the matches.
It must be admitted that this option is quite risky – predicting the exact result of a match, be it a football match or even a tennis match, has a very low probability of success. However, the players like to risk this way, because the odds are extremely attractive for them.
For example, betting on abstract soccer results you can earn as much as 30 or 50 $ for every $ you bet. You can also get quite rich by betting on predictable results. The odds then fluctuate on average between 5.00 and 7.00.
Over/Under
Over/Under is another type of bet which varies depending on the sport.
The most popular over/under bets by sport:
Soccer: Goals, yellow cards, corners, possession
e.g. over 2.5 goals in a match, under 1.5 goals for a team, over 55% ball possession for a team
Tennis: games, sets, service aces
e.g. more than 2.5 sets in a match, more than 5 aces of a player
Basketball: team points, player points
E.g. Home team over 88.5 points, Player over 12.5 points
Fame MMA betting on number of rounds
E.g. in Popek fight under 1.5 rounds.
Partial match betting
Bookmakers not only allow you to bet on matches in full time. You can also confidently bet on the outcome of the first or second half. There are many combinations of such bets – depending on the sport.
The most popular bets on parts of a match
Soccer: score first half, second half
Basketball, Ice Hockey: 1st quarter score, 2nd quarter score etc.
Tennis: score of first set, first game, etc.
Volleyball: score of first set, second set, etc.
You can also mess around a bit with betting on parts of the match. The easiest way to explain this is to use the example of soccer. In this case, you can bet on the score before the break and the final score. This is a combined bet – meaning that you have to get both results.
Other types of bookmaker bets
Among other types of bookmaker bets we can distinguish e.g:
Duels, i.e. which player will score more points
Goal scorer, e.g. will the player score a goal?
BTS, both-to-score, you bet YES or NO if both teams score a goal
Range of goals/points per game, e.g. 2-3 goals (soccer), 175-180 points (basketball)
Total number of goals, odd or even
Single vs. Multiple Bets
Single bets and multiple bets, what exactly are they? Did you know that multiple bets also include system bets?
Single bets
When you bet on just one match on your betting slip, you’re called a single bet, also known as a SOLO. Single bets are the safest bets for beginners.
Multiple bets, or accumulators
In case there is more than one event on your coupon – then you are playing an AKO bet. In the bookmaking environment it is also called accumulator or multiple bet.
These bets do not differ from single bets only in the number of events on the coupon. Two other very important differences are:
the amount of the winnings
probability of winning
In case of a single bet the probability of winning is higher than on an AKO coupon. It is logical that having to bet on one match is easier than betting on 2, 3, 4 or even more matches.
Types of bookmaker bets – accumulated – are in turn bigger winnings. Betting on just one match you can calculate your winnings with a simple formula: stake x odds.
Therefore betting 10 PLN on 2.0 odds you will win about 20 PLN (tax has to be subtracted). In the case of AKO you first multiply all the odds and then multiply the result by the stake.
In the case of a coupon with three events, it will be the following formula: (odds 1 x odds 2 x odds 3) x stake. Taking into consideration that you bet similarly for 20 $ and all three events have odds of 1,50, you will win 90 $ (minus tax).
System bets
AKO bets also include system bets. These are specific bets. The simplest system consists in the fact that you must win only a certain number of events from your coupon.
For example, 2 out of 3 or 3 out of 4. In this case the first number tells you how many events you have to hit from the second number, which is the total number of events on the coupon.
With system bets the winnings are lower than with typical AKO bets. System bets reduce your risk and therefore also reduce your winnings (even if you hit a set of matches).
Tapes – what are they and is it worth playing?
Tapes are types of bookmaker bets, namely AKO tickets which have several events. Betting on matches in you
Which types of bets are the safest?
You have already learned what are the types of betting. We hope that this has made it easier for you to bet on matches. You are probably wondering which bets are the safest?
Well, betting is gambling and it is connected with risk. There are no 100% sure bets. At the beginning of your bookmaking adventure we recommend using the simplest bets such as betting on the winner. We know from experience that combining bet types by force often brings the opposite effect. You simply end up losing.
An interesting option for the beginning player are also bookmaker types. On the Internet, and especially on discussion forums you will easily find offers from more experienced bettors.
You should first of all look for free bets. In our opinion, paid bookmaker forecasts are not a good solution at the beginning of the betting adventure. Remember that there are no betting odds or match fixing. This is usually a scam intended to defraud.