Want to know the differences between a betting market and a betting exchange? Unsure what acronyms like BTTS and RTP mean, or why your bet was a push? You’re completely lost when trying to understand your fellow bettors?
Betting has a specific jargon, and it can be quite confusing. That’s why we’ve created this sports betting glossary, a comprehensive list of sports betting jargon and phrases, so you can become a true punter.
A to Z Betting Terms and Phrases
Here you’ll find an A-Z glossary of betting terms, all the common (and some uncommon) terms and phrases you’ll regularly encounter at sportsbooks. We’re regularly updating this list, so make sure you bookmark this page!
A
- Accumulator / Acca bet - A bet consisting of multiple selections, usually from different matches, also called a parlay. Each selection has to be successful for this bet to be considered a winner.
- Action - Synonym for a bet, a wager.
- Against the spread (ATS) - Bets made in the point spread (handicaps) market.
- Also ran - In horse and greyhound racing, this term describes the runner that participated in the race, but didn’t get a podium (top 3) finish.
- Alternative line - Betting markets with odds that differ from the main (1X2) line.
- Ante-post wager - In horse racing, an ante-post wager is a bet placed before the official declaration of participating horses is released. It is a way to secure a better price for your bet, but it’s risky, as on the day of the race, your selection may not end up participating due to an injury. In that case, your bet would be settled as a loser.
- Anytime scorer - A player proo where you bet whether a particular player will score during the particular game. Can also be an in-play bet.
- American odds - Types of odds represented with positive and negative numbers, typical for American sports and bookies. Positive numbers represent winnings per €100 wagered, while negative odds represent how much you’d need to wager to win a €100.
- Arbitrage betting (ARB) - A strategy for betting on various sports where you place bets on all possible outcomes of a match to guarantee a winning wager.
- Asian handicap - Typically a football bet where one team is given a goal advantage, and the other gets an equal disadvantage, displayed as -1.5 or +1.5, making it a two-way bet with no possibility of a tie.
B
- Bankroll - The amount of money you’ve dedicated to betting, be it deposited into your betting account or just set aside.
- Bankroll management - Strategies on maintaining control over your betting expenses, for example finding the best odds for your money, limiting wager amounts, and only depositing the amounts you can afford to lose.
- Bet Builder - A popular tool for making accumulator bets within a single event.
- Bet calculator - A tool for calculating the potential winnings from a bet, especially useful for complex bets.
- Betting exchange - This is a platform that acts as a middleman between customers who bet against each other, while taking a commission from each bet.
- Betting market - Same as the type of bets, various outcomes of an event you can bet on.
- Betting slip - A digital or physical receipt for your bet. It shows your selections, odds, and stake, as well as potential winnings.
- Blowout - When one side (a player or a team) wins by a large margin.
- Book - Short for sportsbook, a betting site.
- Bookie / Bookmaker - A bookie in betting is a person or a business entity that takes bets and calculates the odds, or the owner of a betting site.
- BTTS (Both teams to score) - Commonly used in football betting, a simple Yes/No wager on whether both sides will score a goal in the match.
C
- Cash out betting - Offered by online bookies, cash out betting allows bettors to settle their bets early, albeit at lower odds, securing their money.
- Cashback - A bonus often offered on a weekly basis that grants you a percentage of your losses back.
- Chalk bettor - Someone who mostly bets on favourites.
- Contrarian betting - Betting against the majority opinion.
- Cover - In spread/handicap betting, when the favourite wins by a margin larger than the spread given by the bookmaker.
D
- Dam - A horse’s female parent.
- Dead heat - A tie in a sporting event, for example, when two horses cross the finish line at the same time.
- Decimal odds - Types of odds presented as decimal numbers, for example 1.52, often called European odds as they’re the default format in the European betting sites and shops.
- Draw no bet - A type of bet where your money is returned if the final result is a tie.
- Drifter - A bet slang for a selection whose odds are increasing. This typically happens due to low interest from the punters or when certain information can impact the match outcome.
E
- Each-way betting - Mostly a horse racing way of betting, but also present in other racing sports, each-way means making “to win” and “to place” bets on the same racer.
- Edge - An advantage.
- Evens - Evens or even money bet is when the bookie offers odds that return exactly as much as the original bet. This would be shown as the 2.00 or 1/1 odds.
- Exotic bet - Bets that don’t fall into the most common types. These are typically prop bets, combo bets, or fast markets.
- Exposure - Money that a bettor could lose on a particular bet.
F
- Favourite - The most anticipated and most highly likely competitor (team, player, racer) to win an event.
- First past the post - The winner of a race, the first racer to cross the finish line.
- First to score - A betting market where you're betting on the side that will score first in a match. Alternatively, it can be a player prop where you choose a player to score first.
- Fixed odds - The most common kind of sports betting. Once you’ve made a bet at offered odds, they become fixed for you and do not change if, for example, odds go down before the match starts, meaning you retain the price.
- Flat race - In horse racing, a race on a course without any obstacles.
- Form - Performance of an athlete, team, or a horse.
- Fractional odds - Types of odds displayed as a fraction: 5/2. Frequently called British odds, as they’re most common in UK sportsbooks.
- Futures bet - Also known as an outright bet, a bet placed on an event that will happen sometime in the future. These are typically bets on the winner of the entire league or a tournament.
G
- Gambler’s fallacy - Frequently called the Monte Carlo fallacy, it’s a belief that, if an event occurred at a lower frequency in the past, there are bigger chances that it’ll occur in the future.
- Goliath bet - A multi-bet involving eight selections and 247 bets in total: 28 doubles, 56 trebles, 76 fivefolds, 28 sixfolds, 8 sevenfolds, and 1 eightfold accumulator.
- Grade - Formal confirmation of the bet results. Once a bet has been officially proclaimed as a winner or a loser, it’s considered a graded bet.
H
- Halftime bet - A bet made on only the second half of the match. It can be made as a live bet when the second half starts or during the intermission after the first half.
- Handicap bet - Bets offered by the bookies where a favourite or the underdog is given a surplus or deficit.
- Handicap race - In horse racing, a handicap race is when horses carry additional weight so they’re, at least on paper, equally matched.
- Handle - Your total amount of money put on a bet.
- Hedging bets - Betting on the opposite sides of a single match to guarantee a payout.
- Heinz bet - A multibet consisting of six selections, with 57 bets in total, in reference to 57 varieties of pickle in Heinz ketchup.
- Home field advantage - A psychological advantage when a team plays in front of their fans at their home field, oftentimes a key factor in predicting the outcome of a match.
- Hook - In spread betting, a half-point added so the bet cannot be counted as a push.
- Hurdles race - A type of horse or greyhound race where obstacles, called hurdles, are evenly placed along the course so the competitors have to jump over them.
- House edge - The long-term advantage of a bookmaker.
I
- IBAS - Independent Betting Adjudication Service is a UK-based independent agency that provides resolutions for disputes between licensed bookies and bettors.
- In-play betting - Betting on various outcomes of a match after it has already started, often called live betting.
J
- Jolly - A favourite in a race, most commonly used in horse racing.
- Juice - A bookmaker’s commission, incorporated in their posted odds.
L
- Lay betting - You do the lay betting on betting exchanges to wager that a specific event will not occur or that a team will not win.
- Lay points - To bet on a favourite.
- Layoff bet - A bet that a bookmaker places with a betting exchange or another bookmaker to minimise risks.
- Line - A betting line is a betting market and the odds set for it.
- Live betting - Betting on a match or a race while it’s ongoing, betting on live matches. Also known as in-play betting or in-running betting.
- Lock - A synonym for a favourite.
- Longshot - A synonym for an underdog, a player or a team that is not likely to win, so the odds on them winning will be higher.
M
- Matched betting - A betting strategy that includes backing and laying the same bet using a free bet to cover all the potential outcomes of a bet.
- Moneyline - Another name for the winner betting market or moneyline odds, which is another term for the American odds format.
- Multiple bet - A bet that consists of multiple legs or selections on a single bet slip.
N
- Nailed on - A term for an almost certain win.
- Nap - The top bet of the day.
- No action - An event that is no longer active for betting, so no bets are accepted, and the wagers get returned.
- Non-runner - A term to mark a horse or a runner that pulls out of a race, leading to a no-bet situation.
- Novelty betting - A common term for betting on non-sports events, such as TV and entertainment shows, award ceremonies or politics.
O
- Odds - Odds determine the potential payout in a bet.
- Odds boost - A bookmaker can boost odds on specific markets to make them more attractive to bettors because of a potentially bigger payout.
- Odds-on favourite - A strong favourite that doesn’t bring profit when you wager on them.
- Odds shopping - Going from one bookmaker to another in search of higher odds and potentially larger wins.
- Off the board - When something significant happens before or in a match, the sportsbook can remove the match from pre-match or live betting if the event could influence the game and outcome.
- Outright betting - Outright or futures betting means betting on the final outcome of a league or a tournament, such as betting on the Premier League winner for the upcoming season.
- Over/under - A betting market where you bet whether more or fewer goals or points will be scored than the threshold, for example, over/under 2.5 goals in the entire football match.
P
- Parimutuel betting - A kind of betting where all wagers on the same type of bet (usually in horse racing betting) go into one pool, and the awards are shared from there after the house takes the vig.
- Parlay - Another name for an accumulator bet (multiple selections on one bet slip), typically used in the US.
- Patent bet - A bet that consists of three selections that make seven bets: three single bets, three doubles and one treble bet.
- Payout - The amount of money a sportsbook pays out when you win a bet.
- Point spread - A point spread is the number of points the favourites must win by for you to win your bet (if you bet on them). The underdogs would need to either win or lose by fewer points than the spread if you bet on them.
- Price - Betting price is actually the odds the sportsbook sets.
- Prop bet - Team prop bets are focused on specific aspects, such as how many corner kicks they will take or how many free throws. Player props focus on a single player, such as the number of goals, yards gained, and points scored.
- Punter - Another term for a bettor.
- Push - When the match ends on the exact spread number the bookie has set, you get your wager back, and it is called a push.
Q
- Quarter bet - A type of bet you place on the outcome of any quarter of the match. It can be placed on the winner market, spread, or totals, for example.
R
- Reload bonus - Reload bonuses are designed to give you something back on your deposits (a percentage of your deposit or free bets) for deposits after your first one.
- Return - The entire sum you get from a winning bet, meaning the profit plus your initial wager.
- Return to player (RTP) - The theoretical RTP is the average return on a bet (typically for casino games) that players can expect from a game.
- ROI - Short for return on investment, a term for the profit that bettors make or the amount they lose when betting.
- Rounder - A colloquial term for a bettor who goes from one sportsbook to another looking for the best odds to place bets.
S
- Selection - One leg of your bet, the player, team or outcome you bet on.
- Single bet - A bet placed on a single outcome, a one-selection bet.
- Specials - Special markets that a bookmaker designs for bettors. Also, a name for markets outside of sports betting, such as entertainment, politics, or awards betting.
- Sportsbook - Another name for a bookmaker or, alternatively, all the sports, events and markets an operator offers for sports betting.
- Spread - Short for point spread.
- Stake - The amount of money you wager on a bet.
- Steam - When there is an influx of bets on one side (one team, player, the spread) because of a tip from a tipster or for any other reason, the odds will change, and the bettors could follow the steam and wager like other bettors.
- Straight bet - Betting on a team to win the match is considered a straight bet.
- Surebet - When you make bets to cover all potential outcomes of a match with different bookmakers to ensure at least one of them wins, you are making a surebet.
T
- Teaser - The bookmaker can offer the bettor a chance to change the spread bet to increase the chances of winning, but also to accept a lower payout in return.
- Tick - A slight change in odds, whether up or down.
- Tips - Tips are picks that tipsters make and share publicly with bettors looking for suggestions on what to bet on.
- Tipster - A tipster is a person (preferably a betting expert) who gives predictions and tips on which markets to bet on when betting on a particular match or event.
- Totals - Totals or an over/under bet allows you to predict whether the total number of goals or points will be over or under the threshold that the bookmaker set, or that you choose.
- Tote bet - Your wager from a tote bet goes into a pool where the other bettors’ wagers also go to form a common fund from which the winnings are paid at the end of the match or event.
- Trixie bet - A bet that consists of three selections that form four bets: one treble and three double bets.
U
- Undercard - A list of fights that happen before the main event in boxing or other combat sports.
- Underdog - A contestant or team that is predicted to lose the match against a clear favourite.
- Underlay - Underlay is a strategy used in matched betting, or a term that points out that the odds are in favour of the house.
V
- Vigorish/vig - A vig in betting is the so-called cut that the bookmakers take when setting the odds presented to the customers to ensure they always have a small commission.
- Void bet - If something unpredictable happens and the match or market you bet on gets cancelled, you will get your stake back.
W
- Wager - Your wager is actually the amount of money you are investing in a bet (per one bet slip).
- Wagering requirements - Deposit match bonuses and free bets typically come with wagering requirements that indicate the rules under which you will be able to make a withdrawal request after betting with bonus funds.
- Welcome bonus - A welcome bonus represents the ‘extra’ funds a bookmaker gives you when creating your account. It comes in the shape of a deposit match bonus or a free bet and typically with wagering requirements.
- Win total - A futures handicap bet that allows bettors to predict how many wins or losses a winning team will have at the end of the season.
- Wiseguy - A colloquial term for a person who does research and places informed bets.
X
- X - The X in a match winner market means that the score at the end will be a draw. It is commonly found in football betting.
Y
- Yankee bet - A four-selection system bet that consists of eleven individual bets: six double bets, four trebles and one six-fold accumulator bet.
