Futures: Getting an Early Start on Sports Betting
Sports Betting futures are becoming more and more popular with sports wagering fans, and online sportsbooks are responding by offering more future wagers even earlier.
Take, for example, the most popular sports betting sport there is: The National Football League.
Since the NFL Football season is among the shortest of all pro sports, football betting fans often find themselves in need of a wagering fix sometime between the Super Bowl and the start of a new season in September.
NFL Football betting fans get particularly desperate for a pro pigskin wager in the spring and early summer, when the season is close enough to talk about but not close enough to bet on.
Many online sportsbooks offer Super Bowl odds year-round, as well conference and division winner betting odds.
Another popular football future is an over/under wager on a team’s win-loss record for the season.
And some sportsbooks even have NFL Week 1 Betting Odds available now, allowing, for example, football bettors to place bets on the 2009 NFL regular-season opener between the Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers and the Tennessee Titans on Thursday, Sept. 10.
But besides satisfying an urge, do NFL future wagers work for bettors. Is there an advantage betting futures over game-day odds?
For the most part, the answer is yes.
In almost all cases, bettors can get better odds, even on top teams, months before the season starts. For example, imagine the profits made by those who bet on the St. Louis Rams to win Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000?
And future wagers also give bettors a chance to be “in on the action” all season long – or even all year long if a bet’s placed early enough.
But one drawback of futures bets is that your money is tied up for six months or longer, during which time you could (in theory) be turning that same money into profits over and over. And at the same time, the sportsbook can make money off your money by collecting interest on it.
But most bettors don’t care about that. It’s simply about scratching an itch and that’s why futures bets will continue to gain popularity.
