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Ever wondered what the easiest sports to bet on are in the United States? While the answer may vary depending on your knowledge base and general wagering preferences, some sports naturally offer a straightforward wagering experience.
In this guide, we will explore the best sports to bet on and offer some tips to help you maximize your betting game. Additionally, we will examine the role of data in betting to make more informed decisions. If this sounds good, let’s start with easy sports for beginners to bet on.
The Top 10 Easiest Sports to Bet On
When determining what is the easiest sport to bet on, it’s interesting to note that the most straightforward markets pertain to US leagues and competitions. However, some major European sports and events also unlock simplistic and diverse markets.
1. NFL Football
Approximately 73.5 million Americans took part in NFL betting last season, and that’s before you factor in the iconic Super Bowl. You can certainly find extensive market coverage of the NFL, including moneylines, spreads, and totals lines. Moneylines are the most straightforward wagering type here, as you simply have to pick one franchise to defeat another.
Point spreads are a little more advanced. They assign an advantage to the underdog while handicapping the favorite, resulting in an evened-out playing field. Totals betting, on the other hand, allows you to wager on the likelihood of the combined score going over or falling short of a set number.
Why Bet on NFL Football?
You can access extensive market coverage of NFL matches, especially when considering moneylines, spreads, and totals wagers. In addition, highly competitive NFL and Super Bowl outright markets are available, thanks to the number of competing teams and potential winners each season. The NFL also generates huge datasets each season, which can help you make more informed picks. Sites like “ESPN” and “Team Rankings” are particularly insightful, alongside the official NFL site.
2. NBA Basketball
Like the NFL, NBA basketball betting also unlocks simple and often competitively priced wagers such as moneylines. The regular NBA season also features a whopping 1,230 games combined, so there’s ample opportunity to pick match-winners. You can also access a huge range of stats and data when analyzing NBA betting markets through trusted sites like ESPN and Yahoo. This makes it one of the most predictable sports to place wagers on.
The most popular NBA markets include point spreads, player props, and moneyline bets. As with other sports, the moneyline involves selecting the outright winner, making this one of the easiest sports to bet on. The sport has a range of player props that are dependent on the individual performance of each player, such as assists, total points, and rebounds.
Why Bet on NBA Basketball?
The NBA has an 82-game regular season for each team, so you will have several betting opportunities. Lots of resources offer detailed breakdowns of NBA games, news, and stats. You can use sites like ESPN, Yahoo, and the league’s official site to inform your team and individual player wagers. NBA betting also unlocks a huge array of props and micro bets. This is ideal for those of you who like to wager in-play and bet on matches while watching the action unfold.
3. NHL Hockey
Ice hockey is also one of the easiest sports to bet on, especially if you’re a fan of the NHL. There’s no doubt that NHL betting unlocks relatively safe totals and over/under markets, especially with scoring averages relatively stable throughout history. Typically, NHL teams average 3.12 goals per game, so over/under wagering can be quite lucrative here.
The most common and easiest bets to make in the NHL are moneylines, totals, and puck lines. Similar to point spreads in other sports, NHL puck lines are typically set at -1.5 for the favorite. Since there are no ties, moneylines are one of the easiest sports bets to win, as you must only pick a definitive winner, while totals aim to predict the total number of goals under a set line.
Why Bet on NHL Hockey?
Stable scoring averages in the NHL unlock relatively safe totals and over/under markets, which are ideal for beginners. Each NHL franchise plays 82 times during the regular season. This unlocks a total of 1,312 games per campaign, creating numerous opportunities for moneyline wagering. Since there are no draws in the NHL, matches are decided either during a period of overtime or following a shootout. This makes moneyline NHL betting even more appealing.
4. MLB Baseball
Like the NBA or NHL, Major League Baseball unlocks a huge number of matches and moneylines each season. Incredibly, each MLB franchise plays 162 games during the regular campaign. When you engage in MLB betting, you can also create value by leveraging run lines, which represent baseball’s equivalent of the spread bet.
Here the sportsbook will assign a -1.5 spread on the favorite, just like when you are betting on hockey. Totals and moneyline bets are straightforward and work pretty much the same as other sports we have covered so far.
Why Bet on MLB Baseball?
Ingame betting adds further excitement when you are betting on MLB, allowing you to react and benefit from real-time developments. The long season also offers consistent betting opportunities with each team playing 162 MLB games during the regular season. You can access detailed MLB team and scoring data through sites like Team Rankings. This allows you to pick run lines accurately and optimize your chances of success.
5. Tennis
Tennis is another of the easiest sports to bet on. The reason for this is simple: all tennis matches deliver a decisive result, and the draw is eliminated as a potential outcome. So, moneylines are effectively two-way wagers when betting on tennis, while matches are played on different surfaces all year round.
Other key tennis betting outcomes include set betting and over/under totals. Set betting is when you try to predict the exact scoreline. Over/under totals betting is somewhat simpler, focusing on the overall number of games played in the entire match. You can also take advantage of fast markets. Some of these include who will win the next set, the next game, and even the next point.
Why Bet on Tennis?
Numerous high-profile tennis tournaments are hosted each year, including the four Grand Slams and Masters 1000 events, providing you with nonstop betting opportunities. Since tennis is an individual sport, it lends itself to comprehensive player analysis, allowing you to make more informed betting decisions. Lastly, all tennis matches produce a decisive result, which minimizes your risk of loss when betting on events such as the US Open or Wimbledon Championships.
6. Golf
Golf wagers are also among the easiest sports to bet on at betting sites, especially when you explore outright betting. This market is a staple of golf betting, especially when wagering on major tournaments that boast a large field and a significant number of potential winners. Golf wagering also unlocks markets such as round betting, which can focus on head-to-head matchups between players.
Notable markets in golf betting include outright winner and top-10 finishes. If you are interested in long-shot opportunities that maximize gains, outright winner golf betting is the ideal choice. For a more conservative betting experience, a top-10 finish provides a less risky approach to golf betting. When considering what to bet on, golf offers both conservative and high-risk options.
Why Bet on Golf?
Golf tournaments on the PGA and breakaway LIV tour are played all year round, creating ample opportunities for outright two-ball and three-ball betting. Golf’s multi-day structure also allows you to make ongoing strategic adjustments. Round-by-round betting opportunities are also available, ensuring bettors are always engaged.
7. Horse Racing
Horse racing betting is popular across the globe, and it dominates sportsbook handles in the UK and Europe, with the Grand National capturing global attention. This is also one of the easiest sports to bet on, especially when you engage in straightforward win-market wagering. With regular short, high-stakes events on the cards, horse racing betting is a fast-paced activity, engaging for both novices and experienced bettors.
Popular horse racing betting types are win, place, show, exacta, and trifecta. The simplest to understand is the win bet, where you just need to pick the winning horse. Naturally this bet comes with more risk, so you can make place and show bets which cover multiple winning positions instead. You can cover all three spots by betting a horse “across the board”
Why Bet on Horse Racing?
As you can see, horse racing is a rapid-natured sport that offers quick results, making for an adrenaline-filled betting experience. Many events are characterized by large race fields, opening up the possibility for high payouts. Furthermore, horse racing’s unique parimutuel betting system guarantees dynamic odds.
8. Boxing
Despite being relatively straightforward for fans of boxing, this is a more difficult sport to bet on compared to others on this list. Still, boxing betting unlocks a surprising variety of markets and competitively priced lines, which include the method of victory and round betting. Once again, you can also bet all year round on bouts from across the globe.
One of the easy bets in boxing is to pick the winner of the bout, which is just a case of predicting which boxer comes out with a victory. You can also bet on whether the match goes the distance or the match will finish with one fighter winning through a knockout.
Why Bet on Boxing?
Boxing betting caters to a wide range of bettors with bets like winner, totals, and “will the fight go the distance” to match your style. To make things even more interesting, there are several sources of prematch boxing data and interviews that you can use to advise your betting decisions. Boxing events are hosted all year round, so you can target specific fights and cards based on your market analysis. This also makes it easier to identify higher-value betting opportunities.
9. MMA (Mixed Martial Arts)
MMA is also one of the easiest sports to bet on. Like boxing, this is a highly accessible sport that hosts bouts all year round. However, MMA and UFC weight classes are streamlined and feature just a few dominant fighters, making individual win market outcomes much easier to predict here, but these have lesser value. Once again, you can also create value by betting on the method of victory and similar markets.
The number of markets available for MMA and UFC betting will largely depend on the site you join. Some sportsbooks have moneyline and totals bets covering the entire fight period. But you can also bet on the method of victory and whether the fight goes the distance. For a more fast-paced experience, MMA round betting allows you to bet on the winner of each round or whether it ends in a draw.
Why Bet on MMA?
UFC weight classes feature a single champion and fewer premium fighters. So, it’s often much easier to crack the win market and predict the outcome of bouts. Furthermore, you can also construct lucrative combination bets without overly compromising your chances of winning!
10. Esports
Esports gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry, famous for its high-profile tournaments and events for games like League of Legends, Dota 2, and CS2. Millions of viewers worldwide follow these events, and many because of the diverse betting markets. The available options include outright winners, individual match outcomes, and specialized prop bets.
Some of the popular wagering alternatives in esports include the total number of maps played and in-game events like the first kill, first tower destruction, or total rounds won. Most esports titles feature seasonal leagues where you can place futures bets on the championship outcome. For those looking for the most profitable sports to bet on, esports can offer significant value due to its growing but still-developing market.
Why Bet on Esports?
Esports offers multiple year-round tournaments, providing opportunities for constant betting action. Thanks to the industry’s digital nature, live streams are also easy to access, enhancing your real-time betting experience. There are also deep strategic elements, focusing on issues like team compositions, player form, and meta shifts, potentially beneficial to bettors who study the game. Understanding these strategic elements can give you an edge when choosing what to bet on.
What Role Does Data Play in Successful Sports Betting?
Of course, both manual and predictive analytical models are dependent on the quality of data fed into them. Make no mistake: you’ll have to identify the most insightful datasets before betting, while also learning how to analyze different types of information.
Remember, many of the easiest sports to bet on afford bettors access to huge swathes of data. Take the NFL, for example, where you can use detailed stats such as passing yards completed, QB touchdowns, and defensive interceptions to inform prop picks.
In the MLB, you can access runs, hits, and batting data, both for team units and individual players. Betting models are also now using AI to predict outcomes based on vast amounts of historical and real-time data. Understanding this data and its application is central to success when it comes to sports betting.
Lewis HumphriesSports Betting Expert
Here’s a summary of the best information resources for each sport!
| Sports Statistics Site | Description |
|---|---|
| NFL Football Statistics | This resource features comprehensive team and player statistics for each season. You can also access detailed next gen stats and search for specific players. |
| NBA Basketball | The official NBA data resource, this site provides information on daily and seasonal leaders. Once again, you can browse both team and player information, including key datasets like points, rebounds, assists, blocks, and steals. |
| NHL Hockey | This site allows you to browse information from individual franchises and seasons. The data breaks down offense and defense statistics while ranking goaltenders according to their save percentages. |
| MLB Baseball | The official MLB site allows you to access regular season, spring training, and All-Star game stats. You can search individual teams and players too, while comparing metrics like batting averages and on-base percentages. |
| Tennis | Access the ATP Tour page to review current men’s rankings, match statistics, and win-loss index. There are also tactical insights published here. Check out the WTA Tour resource for similar information about female competitors. |
| Golf | If you want to wager on golf, the PGA Tour website is the most insightful. This provides detailed player statistics such as strokes gained, scoring, and putting averages while ranking competitors on each metric. |
| Horse Racing | This resource from the jockey club makes horse racing one of the easiest sports to bet on from a punter’s perspective. This provides data from different tracks while analyzing how runners fare at specific courses and in certain going. |
| Boxing | BoxRec remains the most popular resource for analyzing an individual fighter’s record and past performances. If you want more granular data on punch output and similar performance metrics, you can also use the Compubox website. |
| MMA | The MMA is a broad vertical that includes numerous promotions and disciplines. However, the most popular promotion is the UFC, and this has an official site that’s chock-full of historic results and performance metrics like significant strikes landed. |
| Esports | Esports is also a broad and diverse category, but the Esports Charts website publishes data across different games. You can access comprehensive data on different teams and data, alongside historic results. |
Betting Strategy for The Easiest Sports to Learn
Now that we’ve analyzed some easy bets for beginners and precisely what sets them apart, you can start to identify your preferred betting markets and betting lines. This process requires focus and research, and we’ve also prepared some expert guides that may help. Here are five comprehensive resources to inform your core betting strategies!
- Sports Betting Terminology – Learn and understand the sports betting terms and jargon that will impact your online wagering experience.
- Sports Betting Strategy – Learn about viable betting strategies to suit specific sports and markets, in addition to setting optimal stake amounts
- Sports Betting Bankroll Management – Bankroll management will also be a key element of your sports betting strategy. Learn how to structure and manage your bankroll.
- AI Betting Predictions – Explore insightful AI betting predictions and how machine learning can help you identify the best value picks.
- Sports Betting Bots – Similarly, learn how sophisticated betting bots and software can help you to become more profitable over an extended period
Conclusion
That’s our take on the easiest sports to bet on! These insights will hopefully help you to identify the easiest sport to bet on to make money as a beginner, while more advanced bettors can leverage their existing knowledge and explore more advanced wager types using some of the data sets we have linked above.
Although none of the popular sports included on this list are particularly hard to wager on, our pick as the easiest sport to bet on is American football and the NFL. This is especially true if you wager at BetOnline, where you can access live betting, and a huge range of spreads, totals markets, and props, alongside competitive moneylines!
FAQs
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Responsible Gambling
Even when identifying the easiest sports to bet on, it’s important that you wager responsibly and within your means at all times. However, if your betting volumes start to increase or you identify the telltale early signs of a gambling addiction, we’d urge you to seek advice from the following resources:
- National Council on Problem Gambling
- University of Nevada, Reno
- Office of Addiction Services and Supports
Content suitable for 18+ readers only. Always gamble responsibly. The content found in this article is not to be taken as betting advice. Speculative gambling could lead to a loss of capital. It’s free to use this website, but we might receive a commission from companies featured within it. If you are having trouble with gambling then help and advice can be found at begambleaware.org
