Among the regulated operators, and if you're living in a state with regulated online gambling, you'll likely already be aware of names like DraftKings, FanDuel, FOX Bet, BetMGM, PointsBet, Caesars, Bet365, and Betway.

How we rate a sportsbetting site or app

It's OK to rely on the views of industry experts to give a list of valuable operators and choose from those laid out based on someone else's betting experience, but it'll pay to understand how those lists are derived.

In our own betting activities, we'll look for strong signals of trust as one of the main criteria, closely followed by site or app features, a range of markets, and a suitably broad range of deposit and withdrawal options. Customer support is essential, too. As well as features such as in-play betting.

Finding all of these aspects covered perfectly in one sportsbook can considerably enhance your betting experience. Aside from these elements, there are three critical features of any betting app or website that you'll want to watch for:

Interface and Navigation

A website's competitiveness may be primarily gauged by how effectively its user interface and navigation are built. Whether you're a first-time visitor still getting acclimated to the site or a seasoned pro who has been many times before, you'll find that almost every site has a sleek user interface and a straightforward structure that's simple to use.

Operators strive to make their websites as user-friendly as possible so that clients can quickly find the data and wagering alternatives they need.

Bet Slip

Bet slips are like virtual tickets; they detail every aspect of your wagering history and the bets you have open. You may find details on the odds, markets, and stakes for your wager on the slips. You should be able to use them intuitively and with little instruction.

Bookies often also have more high-tech bet slips that depict estimated payments on the off chance that a wager wins. You'll always be able to examine the bet's specifics on a bet slip before committing to the wager.

Cash Out

Now more than ever, cash-out options are standard fare at the best online bookies. The ability to "cash out" means that you may withdraw or cancel your wager at any moment after the bet is placed or throughout the event, perhaps turning a profit before the end of the betting event or events.

If you want to guarantee that you get anything out of a bet, cashing out before it's over is a great strategy. Taking the cash-out option carries the potential danger of losing money and missing out on a larger payoff if your pick wins.

It's likely that each of these aspects will be determining factors for you, too. Once you've made the high-level choice of aiming for an offshore sportsbook or a regulated one that's available within your state lines (assuming that option is available), much will depend on your personal needs and drivers.

Is it legal, and what are the sports betting laws?

There's a pretty noticeable divide nowadays between those states where various forms of online gambling have been regulated and those where regulatory laws are yet to be passed.

This disparity might seem like a problem to some, but it's not. It's created a situation where bettors in regulated states can choose between operators that have navigated the licensing process and offshore betting sites. Bettors without access to licensed operators can still go offshore to get their bets on.

But isn't betting with unregulated sportsbooks illegal?

No, it's not. Any US bettors aware of the Federal Wire Act might think its contents make it against the law to bet on sports for real money online. However, the Wire Act targets the providers of sports betting services, not those USA residents who might use them. We're punters and can assure you there's no way you could get in legal trouble by using any offshore operators we've highlighted.

The providers of those services do run a risk, however. But it's a calculated risk. The law seems straightforward, but trade agreements already in place that the U.S. authorities signed invalidate these statutes. Hence, offshore sportsbooks believe they are acting within the framework of the law. To all intents and purposes, they are.

From a regulatory perspective, progress continues across various states to bring sports betting into a licensed and regulated framework. Some state residents or visitors have already had two or three years of being allowed to gamble with licensed sportsbooks, some have only recently taken the step, some are considering it, and there are a few where it may never happen. At the time of writing in late 2022, there are 30 states which have 'legalized' sports betting, of which 21 extend to betting activities online.

It's worth noting that some regulations can be standard across different states, and some differ. In general, you need to be a registered resident of any specific state or at least be within state lines to place any wagers. Plus, you'll need to be of legal age to partake in any form of gambling. For a subject that's essentially relatively straightforward - have a betting account, identify bets, place your wagers, and hopefully collect the winnings - betting on sports in the USA has its complexities.

Current status of regulated sports betting in U.S.states

As of November 2022, the states offering regulated sports betting include:

• Arizona
• Arkansas
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• Florida
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Kansas
• Louisiana
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• New York
• Michigan
• Mississippi
• Montana
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• South Dakota
• Tennessee
• Virginia
• Washington DC
• Washington
• West Virginia
• Wyoming sports

Legal vs offshore betting operators

You may often see attacks from within the regulatory bodies suggesting that your risks are increased by betting with sites that are not licensed on U.S. soil. The reality is that many of these operators based outside the USA have been running gambling operations for many years. Indeed, far longer than some of the sites you may encounter within a regulated state.

Age and a lengthy operational history don't mean everything, of course. But it's a fact that trust plays a huge part in the online betting industry in the experience you're likely to get. And there's no better way for an operator to build trust than to repeatedly and consistently show that they can provide high-quality betting services while, at the same time, ensuring your cash is safe and secure.

What sports can I bet on?

The level of interest in any specific sport varies from country to country.

In the U.S. some of the most popular kinds of online sports betting are on NFL football, college football, soccer, tennis, horse racing, baseball, and basketball. In the UK you might be more interested in football or rugby betting. Australian betting fans will be keen on cricket, horse racing, rugby, and Australian football. Canadians are often drawn to wagers on ice hockey contests.

But really, any sport in every country around the world has the potential for betting in one way or another. That brings sports like archery, badminton, hockey, swimming, tennis, and volleyball into the equation. Some might even consider playing poker games a sport, and the explosion of interest in eSports and eSports betting is a good indicator of how that area will grow.

Esports Betting

One area of sporting events experiencing tremendous growth is Esports, or sporting contests based on various forms of video gaming. So it won't be surprising to learn that there is a rapidly growing market in esports betting, with the operator Fans Unite perhaps being the most well-known name in this sphere.

Video game tournaments and contests, known as "eSports," include a wide variety of titles, from first-person shooters to strategy games. Most eSports have teams of players competing against one another for a reward in multiplayer online games.

Some events use a leaderboard/score-based system, while other tournaments use an elimination-based system, making eSports betting quite comparable to many other conventional sports. Betting in eSports used to be highly specialised, with just a select few bookies offering odds on events. Even so, many sportsbooks include a wide range of wagering options.

Fantasy sports

Fantasy sports are contests in which players assemble a team of real-life athletes or figures from other fields of endeavour and compete against other teams in a sport, with the cumulative points of the athletes based on their statistical data in a given game determining the winner.

They can be either season-long, daily competitions, or throughout a specific series of games or a tournament.

While a season-long contest centres around pre-season drafting and monitoring of performances, daily fantasy sports (DFS) give a player a chance to create and manage teams in competition against others in that same day. There can be some great real money prizes for winners.

Of course, these forms of betting are all carried out on professional-level sports, teams, and players. But there are also ways to bet on college sports, particularly football.

Betting on major sports events through the seasons

There are certain times in the world of sports when things align perfectly. During the fall, college football combines with the end of the Major League Baseball season and the beginning of both basketball and hockey.

In the winter, things get even better. Right at the beginning of the year, sports fans get to fire up a wide range of different interests. There are so many sports on television that it can be difficult to know what option to watch next. The good sports fan always stays organized and knows what’s coming down the pipe.

During the middle of winter, college basketball truly heats up. Out-of-conference play in college hoops can drag on for what seems like forever, but when teams get into conference play, there is seemingly non-stop action. Six nights per week, sports fans are treated to some of the best games from around the country. Whether it is the Big Ten, ACC, or PAC 12 you support, this is one of the best times in sports. Early winter brings bits and pieces of what we can expect to happen in March when the best sporting event under the sun comes to television.

The NBA is also on its way during the early part of the year. Sports fans typically tune into the NBA once the league gets close to the All-Star break. By that time, things have sorted out to some extent. It is clear who will be in the playoff hunt, and it is even more apparent when there have been disappointments.

January is the perfect time for sports fans to start to get interested in the NBA as the race for the number one seed heats up in both conferences. More than that, NBA All-Star weekend provides excellent entertainment, even for those who don’t love the game.

Hockey has roared back over the last five years, with rule changes making it more popular and watchable than almost ever before. The great thing about hockey is that the season ebbs and flows. The games are more intense than basketball, and the players seem to care more during the regular season. The early part of the year brings us hockey teams starting to find a rhythm.

The NFL playoffs linger on in January, with the Super Bowl coming up in February. This is a time when sports fans begin to lament the end of another football season while anticipating the season’s biggest game.

The NFL provides sports fans and sports talking heads with an almost constant topic for discussion during these weeks. Even while games are going on in other sports, many sports fans want to talk about football. It is a testament to football’s place atop the sports world that fans continue to follow the game well into January.

Finally, the sporting year brings about tremendous opportunities to enjoy alternative sports. Tennis, for instance, gives us a sequence of betting opportunities through the year via the Australian, French, Wimbledon, and US Open tournaments. Likewise, the golf season is getting going, and though the Masters won’t take place for a few months, many enjoy watching Tiger Woods and the rest of the field take to the course in some of the early-season events.

Betting markets and types of bets

Having plenty of options for selecting and making a bet on your terms is a significant feature that determines the class of a sportsbook. The bets available can vary wildly and sometimes depend on the sport.

Overall, however, the types of bets available are reasonably consistent, and the best betting sites will have a comprehensive list detailing the types of bets they permit. This list can range from accumulators, singles, doubles, conditional bets, full cover bets, system bets, handicaps, and forecasts.

Giving bettors a choice when placing wagers is the sign of a good betting site, and almost all the top sites will deliver on this.

The list of most popular bets in the US includes spread bets, moneyline, totals, parlays/teasers and halftimes, prop bets, and futures. Let's take a look at a handful in more detail:

Spread Bets

In both major league and college sports, Just like the NFL, one of the most popular wagers with gamblers is the spread bet.

Betting on the underdog means taking the spread while betting on the favourite means giving up points. Betting on the favourite with the spread offers greater odds than doing so with the moneyline.

Point spreads often provide slightly negative odds or equal odds than a moneyline bet, which offers less reward for the favourite and greater risk with the underdog. Betting on the point spread requires careful consideration to guarantee that your chosen team will win and "cover" the points. This implies that the underdog must lose by fewer than the number of points they were given in the spread, while the favoured team must win by more than the number of points they surrender.

Moneyline

Moneyline wagers predict the game's outright winner. In sports betting, the odds on the favoured team are negative, while those on the underdog side are positive.

Moneyline payouts are reversed for heavy favourites and heavy underdogs, respectively. It is not as frequent for the underdog to win as it is for the favourite to do so, but underdogs sometimes pull off an upset. Betting the underdog with the moneyline may result in a large payout if they win, but it requires research on the teams' past performances to determine whether or not the underdog has a realistic shot.

Over/under or Totals bets

Over/under wagers are another popular and easy betting strategy. The over/under wager predicts whether the total number of points scored will exceed or fall below a specific target.

Parlay/Teasers

When placing a parlay bet, you combine the chances of each game you're betting on with the odds of the games you're adding together to get a new total.

A multi-game parlay bet might include wagers on both the spread and the moneyline for each game. In a two-game NFL parlay, you could, for instance, bet the moneyline on one contest and the spread of a different game. In horse racing, you'll be rolling up the odds on multiple horse races.

A teaser bet allows you to select certain spreads or bets ad combine them into a parlay that is more likely to win than a standard parlay. For instance, you could benefit from an additional 7 points when you combine NFL games into a teaser.

If the team you wanted to bet on was listed as a -7 point favourite, then you could utilise a 7-point teaser, and your team would only need to win instead of covering 7 points.

Be careful when betting on teasers, though, because the adjusted odds can create a bit of overconfidence, and players may misjudge their odds of winning.

In-Play Betting

In-play betting, commonly known as live betting, is now a standard offering at almost every online bookmaker. If you want to wager on your favourite sports while they're happening, you may take advantage of "in-play" betting. You can place wagers throughout some sporting events by using the site's designated live betting feature.

Although football is one of the most popular in-play betting sports due to the abundance of quality live betting options it normally provides, bettors may also place wagers in real time on horse races, tennis matches, and a broad range of other sporting events.

Betting on those events while they're still in progress may be made more exciting by the addition of live wagers. If you see a trend developing in a game or match that you believe will result in a rapid profit, these situations can provide excellent possibilities for making nice profits.

Prop Bets

Props are a common kind of supplemental side bet you can place on an event. The most popular are player props which might be minus, even, or positive. Your bet is based on a prediction of how a player will perform in a game. Counts of throwing yards, running yards, touchdowns, or field goals are all good instances.

Betting on the Move: Mobile Sportsbooks

Betting sites can no longer succeed just via their desktop websites. The use of mobile phones is as ubiquitous in gambling as it is in many other forms of entertainment. So, the operators take great steps to ensure their mobile capability gives an experience that's on par with that on their desktop versions.

As long as you have access to the internet and a valid account, you can log in to that betting account from any location with a mobile phone.

Live bettors, in particular, may find that downloading mobile apps is the best method to monitor betting markets and stay informed of any breaking news. Betting companies have capitalised on the lucrative app development field by catering to clients' growing need to place wagers on the move.

Most mobile applications have the same features as the desktop version of a betting site, and in some instances, the UI is even more user-friendly.Account holders can utilize sportsbook applications on their smartphones to place wagers in a flash, manage accounts, make payments and withdrawals, and keep tabs on the latest odds and markets.

Bonuses and promotions for sports bettors

Gambling is a hugely competitive industry, with operators constantly battling to get new bettors on their books. Hence, nearly all betting sites offer lucrative bonus deals and promotional offers. The sportbooks offering online sports betting need to find ways to attract new account holders, and the great news for all of us is they do this by offering various types of incentives to either make a first deposit or maintain an existing open account.

These promotional offers can range from conventional welcome bonuses designed for customers registering a new account to free bets and other promotions as perks for existing customers.

Welcome bonuses vary wildly between operators and the best way to find the latest deals is to check out the list of USA sports betting sites here on ProfessionalRakeback.

But this world of bonuses and other promo offers can be a complex one. It's not hard to see how you can use them to the best advantage, after all, it's free money right?

Well....not exactly. There are some pitfalls to be aware of. We cover the subject of betting bonuses extensively elsewhere, but here's a summary of the different promotional offer types.

First Deposit Match Bonus

Probably the most common type of offer and virtually every online sportsbook has a new user bonus promo. If they're not displayed prominently you can often find them in a section titled something like sportsbook bonus features. They'll match the value of your very first deposit up to a certain percentage amount, occasionally as high as 100% and sometimes for a greater amount.

Note that some sportsbooks might require you to enter a bonus code to claim the offer, and some need no code. If one is required, just search the term 'use bonus code' on any website you visit to identify valid codes to use.

Remember as well you're not only limited to registering with just one sportsbook. You can have accounts spread over different books, and that way take advantage of multiple different offers.

So all of this sounds great, right?

Well, it is, and bonus promos are always well-touted. But you have to remember that there are drawbacks, Most often these will be spelled out in the terms and conditions. To know if that's the case you need to see if the words t cs apply appear under or near the offer.

The most common conditions of bonuses are:

• No cash won by playing with bonus money can be withdrawn until you have played through (or in our case, wagered) the amount of the bonus value a specified number of times. Often these playthrough requirements can be very high, increasing the chances you'll lose your bank before meeting the requirement.
• There can be time limits applied where if you haven't wagered the required amount within a certain time, you won't actually be awarded the bonus at all.

The strong advice here is to always check the fine print to be sure of what you're getting.

Risk-Free Bets

As an incentive to sign up, some bookmakers will allow you to place a risk-free sports bet. In other words, if you lose, that lost money is re-credited to your account. Note that when using the free bets incentive the amount can't normally be withdrawn, and you need to use it on another bet.

This free money is effectively the same as a bonus, but you'll be using it as bet credits. You'll normally see an option to use free bet money in your bet slip as it's populated, and you can usually choose whether to use it or not.

Free bets do normally have some restrictions. You'll have to pay attention to the terms and conditions to ensure you could withdraw winnings without having to meet wagering requirements, and typically your stake is not returned if you're on a winner with free bet cash.

No Deposit Bonus

As the name implies, these are offers of fully free cash placed in your account just for signing up. They're rare - and often for fairly low amounts - but still worth watching out for.

Reload Bonus

After your initial deposit - and if you've lost it and want to keep betting - you'll need to add more funds. This is where reload bonuses enter the picture, with some books offering extra bonuses for second or third deposits.

Odds Boost

Normally seen on individual matches or contests, an odds boost does exactly what it says - it enhances the odds of your selection by a specified amount. Don't expect massively enhanced odds, we're only talking about small values. But still, if you were going to bet on that selection anyway, then you've lost nothing and maybe gained a few dollars in winnings if you're successful.

Insurance Bets

Often seen in parlays, these are bets where a parlay wager is refunded if all of your teams win except one. There's normally a rule that this only applies to parlays containing at least four selections, and normally teams that are big favorites and consequentially at very low odds are excluded.

Special Events

While all the promotional offers we've mentioned have value, the best promotions often come in the form of special events. These might be tournament style competitions or sweepstakes.

VIP reward programs

Some operators will let you place bets where you'll also earn points in the VIP rewards program. Generally, the more you wager, the greater the rewards in the form of cash, points, hotel stays or other prizes.

Cashback

Cash back offers can also be valuable. They're similar to those cashbacks you'll see in general shopping offers.

Winning money at sports betting - Basic sports betting advice

You can't influence the results of the games or competitions you wager on, but you can influence the impacts on your bankroll by carefully considering the odds and oddsmakers before committing any real money.

Finding value and knowing where and when to make the most efficient bets, alongside having the ability to research and analyse sports data, are just two of the many skills necessary to turn a profit when betting on sports.

It doesn't stop there. There's luck involved, too, and you also need a healthy bankroll to start, so you can ride out the inevitable losing streaks without missing out on any potential winning bets. Finally, you need patience, self-discipline, and the strength of character to wait for the perfect opportunity, as well as the conviction to follow through on your bets.

Finding sports betting advice

No matter what kind of gambling you're interested in (horse racing, football betting, picking lottery numbers, etc.), you won't have trouble finding a website, magazine, text message service, or newspaper ad that promises you the moon if you just follow their betting recommendations.

It's possible to find selection strategies for betting on various sports, and in certain cases, expert advice on picking winners.

But be sure to pause for a minute before joining up for a service that offers betting advice of this kind. if it's that good, why are they selling it?  Why wouldn't they just keep it quiet and make the cash from the winning bets themselves?

The obvious responses to questions like this are the vast majority are hoaxes of some kind.

You should be suspicious of many of them, but the ones that stand out as potentially workable are those that either rely on insider information or give information that you can use to develop your own opinion and use your own knowledge and expertise.

Using your own sports knowledge

When you put in the time and effort required and discover an angle that few others have discovered or noticed, that's when you have a good chance of making a winning bet. If you can identify a winning opportunity where the probabilities of it happening are higher (and in the best circumstances, substantially higher), you will obtain value in such scenarios.

As an example, in the United Kingdom, a novice hurdle race for female horses solely was held not too long ago. The starting line for the event included perhaps a dozen or so competitors. Research on my part has shown that mares' races are not always competitive, often producing long shot winners. Based on their pedigrees, which indicated they may be better than they'd demonstrated so far, I reduced the field down to three long-shot underdogs.

Against all odds, the third contender prevailed. The payout on the markets on the Betfair betting exchange was almost 800 to 1. The result was a nice profit, but it pales in comparison to the satisfaction I received from knowing I was among an exclusive group of people who realised, or at least thought, the horse had a shot.

The rewards for using your own expertise to make successful bets are substantial. Long-term, stable profits are possible if you put in the time and effort to research, learn from your errors, maintain a level mind, and keep trying.

Understanding Probabilities

In every kind of gambling, knowing the probability anything occurring is crucial. You could say that understanding probabilities is more applicable to playing poker and casino games than sports betting, but it will still pay to keep in mind.

Depending on your level of interest, probability has the potential to be a deep and involved topic. We'd need a good few pages to cover the subject satisfactorily, but for a good read you could do a lot worse than the best book I've found ''Taking Chances : Winning With Probability''. This book is widely available at Amazon online stores.

Analyzing Statistics

Clever analysis of opportunities supplements the previously discussed strategies of relying on one's own expertise and seeking out betting advice in order to identify prospective wins. You may find statistics recorded and shown on a variety of websites, either in pre-formatted displays or searchable databases.

One salient point to remember is that occurrences and sequences of events that have happened in the past may happen again if the conditions under which they initially occurred are recreated.

Once again, horse racing serves as a strong illustration. You may find, by statistical research, that all the progeny of a certain sire have a 1 in 3 winning rate at a certain distance and on soft ground conditions. These findings will often have been collated over a substantial time frame, ruling out the possibility that they are one-off occurrences. If the odds of winning a race are more than three to one, betting on every runner from that sire is a good investment statistically. The results may be considerably greater if you waited for a select group of long-shot runners.

Football betting, like betting on any other sport, is open to the same theoretical and statistical research around the teams involved in a match.

Placing Bets Effectively - Finding Value

An excellent betting strategy, as I've discussed before, is to seek value bets. That entails looking for wagers with higher chances of paying off than the current odds suggest. Finding instances when a favorite's chances are better than they should be based on your assessment of their genuine likelihood is another angle.

When you learn how to find value in sports betting, you'll have an easier time making accurate predictions. It's easier to predict the outcome of a game if you know more about the sport or team. Focus on one sport or league to learn the intricacies of the odds.

Learning how to find value in sports betting is not an overnight process, and you'll need to take your time. However, it's well worth the effort. It's important to be patient. Sometimes you'll get stuck or make mistakes, but by following many of our other strategies, over time it will become second nature to look for and identify the value bets.

Using Patience & Self Discipline

The difference between long-term success and failure hinges on a person's ability to exercise patience and self-discipline in addition to the other qualities listed above.

In many respects, they are interchangeable. Patience is the self-control to wait for favourable circumstances to present themselves. Without self-discipline, it's easy to make foolish wagers based on feelings rather than facts. When that occurs, it's more probable than not that you're depending on sheer chance rather than well-considered betting strategy.

Seeking no lose bets

We'll finish with a strategy that you could argue is more of a desire than a way of winning - the prospect of placing bets that can't lose.

You think it's impossible?

Well, there are definitely ways to place no lose wagers. That's another big subject for in-depth coverage on another day, but the most popular is known as arbitrage - essentially a way of betting on all the possible outcomes in an event at odds that mean you'll win whatever the result.

Who can bet