How to bet on sports

Have you always wanted to know the tips and tricks of how to bet on sports or special events? Perhaps you simply want to expand your existing repertoire of betting knowledge to make yourself a more effective bettor?

Allow Mr Green to guide you through the basics of sports betting, the markets, the odds and the types of bets available so that you can place a bet on your favourite sport, league, event or team.

Firstly you need to find something that you would like to bet on. It could be anything from an outright winning team of a major football league, a specific tennis match at this year’s Wimbledon or even the next winner of the X-Factor or Eurovision song contest.

The bet menu on site has been designed to help you locate events by order of sport, for example Football, Horse Racing, Tennis or Basketball. Can’t find the particular event you’re looking for? Try the sports locator search function. Just enter a team, name of a particular player or country.

Mr Green has even included a quick filter if you’re looking for LIVE odds for matches that are being played as you bet. Or for events that are starting soon. These are useful if you would like to place your bet and have it resolved (paid out) sooner.

Once you have found a match or event you are interested in, you can open it to view all the possible "bet markets" (learn more about markets further down) available for you to bet on.

Odds are simply a reflection of the chance or probability of a certain outcome in an event or sports match. In any event, every outcome has a chance or likelihood of taking place. Odds are simply an interpretation of those chances. A bookmaker will form odds or prices to reflect those chances.

The odds on screen look strange, I’m used to seeing other odds? Most online bookmakers like Mr Green give you the option of which type of odds you want to use. The odds can be displayed in decimal, fractional or American format.

On the Mr Green sports betting page, simply select the drop down menu to choose the odds display that you feel most comfortable with.

Decimal odds are most commonly used throughout mainland Europe and are also commonly known as ‘European odds’.

It’s super easy to understand how decimal odds work and how much you can win if the bet goes your way. Basically, you multiply your stake by the decimal shown and the answer is how much you'll receive in winnings - including your stake.

For example, if you bet €20 on a wager with the odds 2.00, the payout will be: €20 x 2.00 = €40.

Conveniently, all this information is clearly displayed on the web site, so you do not need to calculate this by yourself.

Odds displayed as fractions show how much you will win on a bet compared to how much you put on it. The first number in the fraction shows how much you will win if you place the amount shown in the second number. Fractional odds are most commonly used in the UK.

For example, odds of 2/1 tell you that for every one (1) euro you stake, you will win two (2) euros. If on the other hand you saw the odds 1/3, this indicates that you will need to stake three (3) euros in order to win just a single euro.

For your convenience, the payout is automatically calculated and displayed on the web site, so you will never need to calculate this by yourself.

American odds are also known as lines or money line odds. A negative number indicates what you must bet in order to make €100 profit (or equivalent in your chosen currency), while a positive number indicates how much you might profit if you bet $100.

For example, if you bet €110 on a team with American odds of -110 and they win, you will make $100 profit (plus your original €110 stake). If you bet €100 on a team with odds of +120, and they win, this will return €120 profit (plus the original €100 stake).

Every match or event will tend to offer a selection of betting markets (bet options), with big events often giving players a huge selection of over 100+ betting markets per game.

Popular betting markets in a football match for example include who will win (home, draw, away), over/under a number of goals, Asian handicaps, correct score, first goalscorer, half-time result and many, many more.

Example: In a match between Newcastle and Manchester United, a €100 bet placed on the ‘Match’ market for the Away team to win (Manchester United) at odds of 1.70 (7/10). If Manchester United win the game, you will have earned €170, €70 of which will be pure profit.

In another example, if you placed €100 at 2.40 (7/5) on the ‘Total Goals’ market at ‘Over 2.5’ goals in the same game, and the match finished 1-2 to Manchester United (Total goals = 3). You will have earned €240, €140 of which will be pure profit.

Single bet

A single is a bet on 1 selection in one event. Your selection must be successful to get a return.

Each way

Commonly used in horse racing or any event with a tournament based qualifying format, an ‘each-way’ bet is a wager that consisting of two separate bets: a win bet and a place bet.

For the win part of the bet to give a return, the selection must win, or finish first, in the event. For the place part of the bet to give a return, the selection must either win or finish in one of the predetermined places for the event, such as first place or second place.

Combination

Also commonly referred to as an ‘Acca’, a combination bet is one bet requiring a selection of multiple bet markets on a single bet slip, the only difference being that ALL the selections must win to have a return.

The advantage of a combination bet is that winnings are much higher at the expense of increased risk. The only drawback is that it takes just a single selection in the combination to lose, for the entire combination bet to lose.

To place a combination bet, select the markets you would like to bet on so that they appear in your bet slip. Select the ‘Combination’ tab to combine the selections and enter the stake you want to wager. The bet slip will calculate the potential payout for your combination bet.

Please note that some bet selections cannot be combined. The bet slip will notify you if any of your selections are incompatible.

System bets

A system bet is made up of several combination and single bets. As soon as you have added at least 2 or more bets to your bet slip, you can place system bets. To do so, click on the ‘System’ tab to see the number of possible system bets available to you based upon your bet selections.

Below are examples of combination bets and system bets. The number of bets selections (markets) that are required on the bet slip and how many combinations a particular system bet creates.

A Double is a combination of 2 bet selections, and a Treble is of 3 bet selections. After that, they are just known as a ‘Four-Fold Accumulator’, ‘Five-Fold Accumulator’ and so forth.

Trixie

A Trixie consists of 4 bets involving 3 selections in different events. The bet includes 3 doubles and 1 treble. A minimum of 2 of your selections must be successful to get a return. For example, if your 3 selections were A, B and C, then your 4 bets would be AB, AC, BC, and ABC.

Patent

A Patent consists of 7 bets involving 3 selections in different events. The bet includes a single on each selection, plus 3 doubles and 1 treble. Just one successful selection guarantees a return. For example, if your 3 selections were A, B, and C, then your 7 bets would be A, B, C, AB, AC, BC, and ABC.

Yankee

A Yankee consists of 11 bets involving 4 selections in different events. The bet includes 6 doubles, 4 trebles, and an accumulator. A minimum of 2 of your selections must be successful to get a return. For example, if your 4 selections were A, B, C, and D, then your 11 bets would be AB, AC, AC, BC, BD, CD, ABC, ABD, BCD, ACD and a Four-Fold accumulator ABCD.

Lucky 15

A Lucky 15 consists of 15 bets involving 4 selections in different events. The bet includes 4 singles, 6 doubles, 4 trebles, and 1 four-fold.

Super Yankee

A Super Yankee consists of 26 bets involving 5 selections in different events. The bet includes 10 doubles, 10 trebles, 5 four-folds plus an accumulator. A minimum of 2 of your selections must be successful to get a return.

Lucky 31

A Lucky 31 consists of 31 bets involving 5 selections in different events. The bets include 5 singles, 10 doubles, 10 trebles, 5 four-folds and a five-fold accumulator.

Heinz

A Heinz consists of 57 bets involving 6 selections in different events. The bet includes 15 doubles, 20 trebles, 15 four-folds, 6 five-folds and a six-fold accumulator. A minimum of 2 of your selections must be successful to get a return.

Lucky 63

A Lucky 63 consists of 63 bets involving 6 selections in different events. The bet includes 6 singles, 15 doubles, 20 trebles, 15 four-folds, 6 five-folds and a six-fold accumulator.

Super Heinz

A Super Heinz consists of 120 bets involving 7 selections in different events. The bet includes 21 doubles, 35 trebles, 35 four-folds, 21 five-folds, 7 six-folds and a seven-fold accumulator. A minimum of 2 of your selections must be successful to get a return.

Goliath

A Goliath consists of 247 bets involving 8 selections in different events. The bet includes 28 doubles, 56 trebles, 70 four-folds, 56 five-folds, 28 six-folds, 8 seven-folds and an eight-fold accumulator. A minimum of 2 of your selections must be successful to get a return.

There are two main betting methods in sports betting: pre-match bets, and LIVE bets for betting during matches.

Pre-match betting takes place before a match begins, even up to a year before the match begins and concludes once a match starts.

Pre-match betting involves successfully being able to predict or foresee particular outcomes before the events have started, then wagering on that event to happen or not happen.

Example: placing a bet on Leicester to win the 2015/2016 Premier League season before the season had begun, the odds were a huge 5000/1 – a €20 bet would have won you €100,000 a little less than a year later!

LIVE betting takes place after an event has started and up to its conclusion.

Watching an event LIVE and being able to appropriately predict and respond to a given situation, are the two most important factors in LIVE betting.

Example: During LIVE betting Tennis, players can bet on the next point, games to deuce, total points in a game, total games in a set, set score, plus a host of other markets. In LIVE football, you can bet on the half time result, next team to score, next corner, next goal scorer, plus the winner of the match and many more markets.

The odds change during the game depending on the performance and positioning of the team and players.

To place your bet, go through the following steps:

1. Find a bet you like, for example “Manchester United - Liverpool”
2. Click on the outcome you want to bet on, for example “Liverpool to Win” - a bet slip will open up with your selection on it
3. Enter a stake in the bet slip
4. Click “Place bet” and wait for the bet slip to be confirmed.
5. Your bet is now placed. You can view all the details for the bet in the betting history