Betting on sporting events is a huge market. Every weekend millions of people spend their free time developing the perfect accumulator in the hope of winning themselves a small fortune. Although the outcome rarely benefits the punter mass amounts of people still persist to bet on sports.
So what’s the allure? Is it purely down to financial gain, or do we enjoy the thrill of potentially winning/losing money?
Why people bet
Research by Gallup states that more than 22% of men and 13% of women in the United States are interested in, or are already gambling on sports such as horse racing, soccer and hockey. The research also showed that 17% of all Americans had placed a bet in the last year. There are a large number of bonus codes and free bets to encourage new players to sign up, but just what is the lure?
There are a number of people who like to attend a sporting event and place a bet on their team (or favourite competitor). For these people placing a bet on something they already have a vested interest in means that they can essentially add a financial gain to their emotional gain if the result goes the way they want. Similarly, some people like to hedge their emotional feelings against the possibility of financial gain by placing a bet on the opposition; if your team lose you may be upset, but at least you have some money to soften the blow.
Other people who don’t attend live sporting events find it hard just to sit at home and take no action; by placing a bet on the event they can feel more invested and involved in it.
Most popular sports to bet on
The sport which is most popular when it comes to betting is soccer. It has been estimated that roughly half of the world’s population would call themselves soccer fans; taking this into account it’s hardly surprisingly that it ranks as the most popular sport to bet on.
The second most popular betting sport across the world is cricket. This is mainly due to the huge interest in cricket in Asia and Australia. Coming in third is basketball, fourth hockey and fifth is Tennis.
As you will notice the NFL is not among the top five most popular sports to bet on. The reason behind this is largely because the sport isn’t widely played in any other country apart from the U.S. Due to this there aren’t actually as many games for people to bet on. If you take soccer for example, the amount of games played each season dwarfs the amount of football games played.
Betting on NFL
Despite the numbers, NFL betting is a great market. Even people who know little about the sport have the opportunity to get involved and bet within their office pools or their fantasy teams. People who only really bet in these ways are known as fair weather bettors.
The more enthusiastic gamblers look for niche opportunities to beat the bookies. One way in which they often do this is by betting against the consensus; this is known as ‘fading the public’. This strategy can often be very profitable as the bookies usually tend to beat ‘the public’.