Sports betting has become more prominent throughout the years. Big-time events increased the number of bets being placed throughout the country as well as the amount of money being placed on them.
March Madness brings in thousands of dollars in both public and private bets between brackets and betting on scores. People also bet privately between friends.
According to The Guardian, over 350 million bets were placed for the Super Bowl, and over half the bets placed were made on illegal platforms.
While betting is not legal for all ages, many bets go on between friends and family that are never documented. Kids will even bet on apps using their parents’ information to “legally” bet through sports betting apps.
“[Betting is] a lot of fun and it gets the nerves going during the game, and honestly I have won more than I lost,” said a 16-year-old who wishes to remain anonymous because he fears retribution from a biased opinion from teachers.
Many sports betting apps constantly run multiple sports betting commercials during big-time events to try and persuade you to bet.
“I don’t think there is anything wrong with sports betting on its own, at least not from a morality standpoint,” Varsity Football Coach Eric Stricklin said.
There are many different ways to bet when it comes to sports betting. A very common way to start betting is to bet on the money line, the money line simply means you are betting on a certain team to win their game.
When the spread gets involved, things change. The spread means that the team favored to win will have to win by a certain amount of points in order for the bet to win. So if a team is favored to win, they could have a -3.5 spread which would mean they have to win the game by more than 4 points for the bet to count, whereas the non-favored team would be at +3.5 if you bet on them to win.
Another way to bet is by betting in a parlay. A parlay can have multiple “legs” to the bet and this just means you are betting on more than one thing at once. You can bet on someone to score more than 10 points, to have less than five assists, and also for their team to win. This would be considered a 3-leg parlay. There can be as many legs to a parley as you want and the more legs you have the greater your reward would be in winning.