Not all sports are the same. Here’s why…

Certain sports are better/worse to bet on than others. Maybe.
 
Sport, as we know, comes in all shape and sizes.

Running forward, rowing backwards.

Team events and individual pursuits.

Competitions settled in 10 seconds… some unfinished after 5 days.

And with the whole spectrum of sport in mind, I was inspired by a recent conversation with a member to illustrate how this wide variety of sporting endeavour is actually contested – and more importantly, how this affects the way we bet on it.

So what I did was to create three broad categories.

We have…

Eh..?

Ok, let me explain each one in greater detail by giving a few examples.

Key differences have a big impact – One v One

When you list sports like this, and then view them from a betting standpoint, you start to see some potential advantages/disadvantages of each type of contest.

For example, I’m a big fan of tennis and golf betting.

Two reasons.

Firstly, the guys you’re betting on tend to be around for quite some time. A high level tennis pro will be on the scene for 10-15 years (20+ if you’re Novak Djokovic!)… and in golf you’ve got players active for double this amount of time.

Secondly, it’s just them. Year in, year out. And a player who has a weak/strong part to their game, or a particular strength or failing in certain mental attributes… you get to know this, and understand it. And crucially to apply it to particular betting opportunities.

Better still…

You don’t then have some team-mate bailing them out with a stellar performance. Or their opponents horse falling at the last fence.

It’s a very pure and, arguably, more predictable type of contest on which to bet.

Yes, the odds will often be much shorter as a consequence. But one v one sports offer a higher strike rate which will ease bank pressure, allow for bigger stakes, and frequently offer more liquidity in the betting markets.

As a result they can be great sports to bet on. Simple, straightforward and devoid of any external influences.

Team Sports and Betting

We then have the dynamic of team sports.

A type of contest which has a strange relationship with betting in that layers apply a collective appraisal of the form to a single entity (team) that could be made up of any number of assorted, ever-changing individuals.

Where one game’s line-up can be totally different to the next.

The Liverpool football starting XI we see this week, the Dallas Cowboys NFL line-up next Sunday, the England national rugby team for their upcoming international…

We seem more than happy to attribute blanket form to these teams when we study the form.

Their recent record is this…

They traditionally do good/bad against this opposition…

A new coach/manager has this or that impact.

But all the time it’s shifting sands.

We’re making a judgement call on a football, cricket or rugby team’s form when half the side might be different to the starting line-up which played the last game.

Is that right?

As bettors we seem comfortable with this concept, but it’s like (ok, not quite this extreme!!) taking Scottie Scheffler’s form as a guide to backing Rory McIlroy.

Now, the team dynamic does offer us the chance for more consistent and predictable form… with 11, 13 or 15 players creating a standard level of performance for the likes of Real Madrid, or Chennai Super Kings, or Leicester Tigers…

And this can unquestionably assist the backer.

But there’s also any number of individual players who can then affect a result by a piece of exceptional play – whether good or bad!

It would also be naïve to believe in this data-driven age that the layers don’t manipulate their odds on the basis of key line-up changes (Haaland rested, an injured Patrick Mahomes, Antoine Dupont on the bench).

So what you might call “team betting” is an interesting concept.

And when laid out in black & white, do you think it’s more or less attractive than betting on individual One v One contests?

Sports with Variable Components.

Here the main sport which comes to mind is horseracing.

Formula 1 motor-racing is another.

The point being the result is a combination of efforts by both a “human” and A.N.Other factor – be it a horse, racing car, or whatever.

Now you could well say that in horseracing we back the horse not the jockey, whereas in F1 we back the driver not the car.

But either way these are contests which can be won/lost by more than one element.

You can have a poor jockey on a good horse (and a good jockey on a bad one)… a modest F1 car in the hands of a driving maestro, or a flying machine steered by an accident waiting to happen.

Not to mention cars breaking down, horses falling, or sheer bad luck due to traffic problems.

So whilst we have on the face of it an individual sport…

Something very similar to One v One…

There’s actually, if not a 50/50 split of responsibility, a sizeable percentage of the outcome which is determined by each element – horse/rider, car/driver.

Again, this can be seen as both a positive and a negative, depending on how you view the outcome of any particular race/event.

So which kind of sport is best?

Are we talking from a viewing perspective, or a betting point of view.

Because this can influence the answer.

What we have here are three ways of categorising “sport”… almost making them three very separate pursuits.

Those purely determined by an individual’s performance, another by a collective team effort, and another which can be affected by a mostly predictable (but occasionally totally unpredictable) external factor.

But these differences undoubtedly have an impact on the way in which these sports are played…

And so surely they should have a bearing on the way we study their form, and so bet on them – but do we?

 

OPINION: A lot of this comes down to personal choice and one’s own risk profile. Personally I gravitate more towards individual sports, because the team dynamic is such a huge variable. And then I place the likes of horseracing somewhere in the middle. But much depends upon how accurate we are at weighting the impact of the various components within these sports, and then applying these to the markets on offer. But without doubt, although sport, and sports betting, is a broad church, within its congregation there is a great deal of variety. Thank the Lord!