Futures Bets Explained

Anytime a person makes a sports wager, they are betting on the outcome of a game that hasn’t happened yet. After all, it wouldn’t be much of a bet if the game had already taken place. So in essence, every sports wager is a bet made on the future. However, there is only one kind of sports wager people make which actually carries the title of “futures bet”. Keeping in mind that this is a rarely discussed sports betting, here is everything you need to know about futures bets.  

Basics of a futures bet

The easiest way to explain a futures bet is that it is a wager made on a game which will happen several months in the future. But these aren’t bets that you’ll see offered all over the place since the most popular ones deal with predicting who will win the title of a certain sports league. However, there are plenty of futures bets you can make on regular season games at some of the bigger sportsbooks. A lot of places will even allow you to make futures bets on predicted division and conference champions. Since futures bets need to be made months in advance, bettors will have the odds they need to make these wagers months in advance as well. 

Future betting money line

When a person makes a future bet, they will be betting with a money line; the money line is simply how much money a person stands to gain from a $100 wager. For instance, if the futures bet money line for Brazil to win the World Cup is +300 then you will be risking $100 in order to win $300 ($400 total). Even if you are like most gamblers and bet less than $100, the money line will just be adjusted to fit your particular wager. 

Sometimes a sportsbook will offer futures bets on how many games a team will win in a season and these have a couple of money lines. For example, say the NFL’s Cleveland Browns are expected to win 10 games in a season. The sportsbook would then give a money line looking similar to this:

In this scenario a person will win $140 for a $100 bet if they wager that the Cleveland Browns will get over 10 wins. Likewise, they must bet $150 in order to win $100 on a wager that the Browns will win less than 10 games. If the Browns win exactly 10 games then a push occurs and the money will be returned.

While almost every futures bet will draw action from bettors, there are definitely some which are more popular than others. The biggest yearly futures bet always revolves around who will win the NFL Superbowl. The NFL also draws pretty big futures bets for who will win the division and conference championships as well. In addition to the Superbowl, another huge event for futures bets is the World Cup, even though it only happens once every four years. Futures bets for the overall winner of the World Cup as well as group play will be offered for this event.  

Bettors can expect to see the odds for Superbowl and World Cup futures bets about half a year in advance, but they should be warned that these odds are always subject to change. Player signings, trades, injuries, and coaching changes will all happen between the time the line is release and the point at which play begins. Seeing as how these events can all heavily impact who wins the title, the lines will be shifted quite often in the months leading up to the start of play. 

Strategy for future bets

Sometimes it can be tough to utilize strategy with futures bets because there is so much that is out of your control. After all, there are plenty of injuries, trades, and changes that can take place on a sports team over the course of several months. So the first thing you need to do is find out if your return will be worth the bet you’re making. Sometimes handicappers will make a certain team such an overwhelming favorite that you don’t stand to gain much from the futures bet. And with the fact that you are banking on this being the same team several months in the future, the payoff has to be worth the risk. 

Another thing to do is look for bargain futures bets on total wins. Every sports league will have a team that rises from the middle or bottom of a league to win way more games than the experts thought they could. It’s just a matter of finding which teams have the potential to do this and are offering you a good return on the futures bet. When you’re trying to find these teams look for the ones that have not only picked up a star player or great coach in the off-season, but also teams that have picked up some great utility players as well. Above all, make sure odds makers are offering you good value for these futures bets.