You may or may not have already learned that futures bets are bets placed long before a sporting event after reading our Overview of the types of sports bets. The basics are all there, so the purpose of this article is to explain why futures offer such strong value and give advice on how to improve your chances of winning by betting on futures.
The main advantage of futures is that you can get attractive odds by betting when they are first published by the odds makers or long before an event is decided. For example, placing a future bet on the Kentucky Derby a month in advance can get you a much better price on a horse than betting much closer to the race when the real contenders are revealed for all to see. Future odds are not set and may be adjusted from time to time by sportsbooks, but the odds at the time of your bet are the odds you have.
An example of futures betting with major team sports would be NFL futures, where you can often get much higher odds on a team by betting before the season starts. A future NFL bet on a team to win the Super Bowl could be 20/1 in the preseason, but midway through the season, those odds could drop to 10/1 if the team turns out to be a legitimate championship contender.
It is important to note that sportsbooks can change futures at any time and are available for betting until the event begins. Future betting isn’t limited to the championship game either, as you can also bet on who will win a conference or division.
Futures bets on NFL and college football, NBA and MLB college basketball and baseball are team-oriented in the sense that you bet on the performance of the team, while proposed bets on future non-team events involving people such as boxing, tennis, golf and NASCAR. . Keep in mind that with futures you are always betting on the event happening, on whether the team will achieve something like a championship and not against their chances of doing so. For example, if Duke is 5/1 to win the NCAA basketball championship, you can bet $100 on Duke and win $500 if he wins it all, but with standard futures you cannot bet against Duke winning it all.
tips to win
The key to betting futures is realizing their true value and using the right Winning Tips. The most important consideration is determining what changes a team has made to improve its chances of contending for a championship like the Super Bowl or World Series. Draft picks, coaching changes, free-agent signings, trades, and returning starters affect a team’s ability to compete, so every aspect should be considered when placing your future bet.
The project
The draft is a much bigger factor in NBA basketball and NFL football as a rookie can reach superstar status much sooner (ie LeBron James) than other sports like MLB baseball, where players can take years to develop. Of course, the way drafts are structured, weaker teams almost always draft taller players than stronger teams. However, elite teams like the San Antonio Spurs and New England Patriots are well known for making the most of their picks despite their poor draft standing.
player movement
Nothing has changed the landscape of sports more in the last 20 years than free agency. Superstars like Shaquille O’Neal can simply walk away at the end of their contracts, forcing their teams to decide how likely they are to re-sign and potentially trade them before their contracts are up to get something in return.
O’Neal is a perfect example to examine since he left the Orlando Magic as a free agent to join the Los Angeles Lakers in 1996, leaving the Magic with nothing in return. Eight years later, he forced the Lakers to trade him to the Miami Heat so the Lakers could get something in return while he was still under contract, since he let them know that he would not re-sign with them.
O’Neal’s status shifted the balance of power between the Eastern and Western Conferences in both situations, and the Heat became serious title contenders in his first year with the team. A smart NBA futures bettor would have bet money on the Heat to win the NBA or Eastern Conference title right after the trade was made.
In NBA basketball and MLB baseball, the mid-season trade deadline could also be very critical to a team’s improvement. The New York Yankees went to great lengths to get star pitcher Randy Johnson out of the Arizona Diamondbacks at the 2004 deadline and probably would have won the World Series if they had. Instead, they were forced to wait until the offseason to trade for Johnson and didn’t have enough pitching to get past the World Series-winning Boston Red Sox.
In college football and basketball, there is the added dimension of returning starters from a team. The graduation or premature defection of players to professionals plays a fundamental role in the composition of the team for the upcoming season and should be examined. However, while losing a Heisman Trophy winner like quarterback Carson Palmer in 2003 seemed like a blow to USC’s chances of winning a national title, it also allowed another Heisman Trophy winner to shine in Matt Leinart, so that not every loss hurt an NCAA program.
Timing is everything with player movement. Sometimes these moves pay off, sometimes they don’t, but often they seem to give teams a fighting chance in bettors’ minds and make future betting more interesting.
training movements
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers made big news during the 2002 offseason when they asked Jon Gruden to move away from the Oakland Raiders to be their head coach. Tampa Bay management felt they had the right players in place and just needed the right person to put all the pieces together and lead the way.
After a series of recruiting mishaps, including the unsuccessful recruiting of training legend Bill Parcells, Gruden turned out to be their man and proved to be the difference. It didn’t come cheap as it cost the Buccaneers a number of draft picks and money, but no one could argue that it wasn’t worth it when they won their first Super Bowl. The best future price for the Bucs turned out to be before the regular season began, and Gruden’s full impact was felt in Tampa and the rest of the NFL.
Actual value measurement
Once you have collected all the Tips to win, you should try to measure the real value of a team’s future betting possibilities. But your perception of how well a team will perform and how you interpret the meaning of the Winning Tips will determine whether or not a team is worth betting on.
Sometimes a team like the 1999 St. Louis Rams comes up, who won the Super Bowl that year despite starting the season as a long shot at unbelievable 200/1 odds. When such longshots come along, it demonstrates another strong appeal of futures betting, that a fan can place a small wager on a longshot, enjoy following its results all season long, and maybe collect a big ticket! A safer approach is to pick a playoff team or one that sat out from the previous year and made some smart moves to make it a contender.
Betting on the pre-season favorite like last year’s champions is a bit of a gamble as their odds are already very low and a lot more money would need to be wagered to make it worthwhile. However, there is still some value in instances like this if you strongly believe they can get back into the playoffs. The further you advance, the smaller your odds down the road and the more value you have betting well in advance.
That’s the bottom line with any futures bet: the true value comes down to how you feel about a team compared to the odds maker’s projections. If your Winning Tips point to a team worth betting on and that team eventually follows you, you’ll have entrenched interest throughout the season and get the most out of your futures bet.
