Are you looking for a beginner’s guide on how to bet on tennis? Here’s our 10-step guide that will bring you to tune with tennis betting as a beginner or an early amateur.
Tennis is one of the most followed sports in the world and as a consequence, tennis is also one of the most popular sports for betting enthusiasts. According to statistics, tennis is the fourth most popular sport in the world for betting after soccer, American football and basketball and second most popular in Europe.
If you are new to sports betting and/or tennis betting, here’s a step by step guide on how to bet on tennis. Some of the pointers below could be quite obvious for experienced betting pros, but this guide is made with the beginner in mind. This doesn’t mean that a more experienced pro cannot refer to a few of the pointers here though and even if you are looking to slowly get into a tennis trading career, this could be an excellent starting point.
Here’s our step by step guide on how to bet on tennis even if you are a beginner.
Step 1: Learn about the Tennis Season, Tournaments & Surfaces
Now, if you are looking to bet on tennis, it is obvious you would want to understand how the tennis season operates, what are the tournaments played in the season, what are the men’s and women’s competitions, which surfaces are they played on and so on.
It’s always good to get a bigger picture of what you are betting on. Check the next season tennis schedule for ATP and WTA tennis here to get an idea but remember, tennis has multiple rungs of play.
At the highest level of men’s and women’s tennis, they feature in the Grand Slams (or the majors as they call it), other than the other ATP and WTA competitions throughout the year which can find in that link above. A notch lower is the Challenger circuit for men and that is followed by the Futures tournaments.
All of these competitions aid a player’s rise through the ranks as they win points by winning matches and tournaments at every level.
Step 2: Learn the rules of tennis
Again, we are quite sure you have a basic idea on how tennis matches are played and won. However, it is very important to not just scratch the surface but also get a very fair idea about rules of the game. Especially if you are looking to make tennis betting your career, vital to get involved in the sport from the most basic level upward so that you grow to have an in-depth understanding of what’s happening in a match.
Understand how serving is crucial in the men’s game but there are far greater number of breaks of serves in the women’s game.
Look out for which of the higher-ranked players do not historical do too well on particular surfaces.
Drill in deeper with the head to head analysis of players. All this and more will especially be useful for in-play tennis betting at a later stage.
One good resource to understand most of the basic tennis rules is this. It’s a handy reference guide if you want to come back to check on the rules of the sport.
Step 3: Know all the tennis betting markets
Now that you have learnt about the sport and its tournaments and surfaces in greater detail, it’s important to understand the betting markets involved in tennis. And there are quite a few, starting from the very basic, tournament and match winners to in-play tennis betting.
Here’s our tennis betting markets guide with examples for your understanding. Some of these markets might be called by different names depending on the bookmaker and which region you are from; for instance, handicap tennis betting is the same as spread betting.
How does this help? Well, quite simply if you are looking to bet on a sport and you don’t know everything about the betting markets in that sport, you might be missing out on some low-hanging fruit. In other words, who knows you are an excellent tennis betting analyst on a specific market but don’t even know it exists!
Step 4: Understand Tennis Betting Strategy
Now that you know the rules of tennis, the various tournaments that are played along with the players and the tennis betting markets, it’s time to get a tad in-depth in understanding betting strategy.
There’s a lot one can study and become equipped with the knowledge on tennis betting. Start with our basic tennis betting strategy guide here, and you can move on to understand the slightly more complex concepts like tennis Accumulators, Arbitrage betting in tennis, Hedging in tennis betting and a few others.
The one thing you must always keep in mind while betting on tennis – or any other sport for that matter – is there are no guarantees of a win. Doing your research on the players, surfaces, tournaments and everything else mentioned above builds bettor instinct as well, and helps immensely, especially during in-play betting.
Step 5: Sign up with a Bookmaker
Once all your research is done, you can dig right into signing up for bookmakers with whom you would like to start off your journey. At the very outset, we always advise to sign up with as many bookmakers as possible but at the same time to do that in a staggered way.
Signing up for different bookmakers allows you to get the best of odds on offer but at the same time it also allows the access to the bonus offers and promotion deals for new signups. With experience and by following advice from experts and elsewhere on the internet (in fact we have compiled a list of tennis betting predictions app here for you to use for the same purpose), you will not just be signing up for bookmakers to get those better odds but also use their offers to garner extra returns and in the process, learn the nuts and bolts of tennis betting.
What are the factors you need to consider before you sign up with a bookmaker? Here’s our list of the five main ones you want to consider before opting for your bookmaker to start off with.
You can learn more on how to turn your bookmakers’ bonus money or offers into money that you can withdraw here.
In terms of our favourite bookmakers with whom you can sign up, we have three listed below.
- Bet365 (sign up with bet365 here)
- Unibet (sign up with Unibet here)
- 888Sport (sign up with 888Sport here)
Step 5b: Verifying your details with signed up bookmaker
Now, this is a part of signing up with a bookmaker, which is why we should probably have included it in the previous subsection but this is for customers who end up registering with a bookmaker but are unable to move further because of detail verification. Most bookmakers ask for a customer verification, as a part of Know Your Customer (KYC) and you can use the allowed national documents to verify your identity.
With most bookmakers they are good to receive a photocopy of your passport, usually scanned and uploaded to their systems. However, if you don’t have a passport or if the bookmaker doesn’t accept passports, then you can get in touch with them to ask them for a workaround. Typically other national documents include driver’s license, financial documents and credit card bills which can also be emailed to the bookmaker.
It takes a few working days for them to verify these documents manually but once it’s done, you can start betting.
Step 6: Learn Bankrolling
So what is bankrolling? It is budgeting for how much can you afford to lose through sports betting in general or in this case, tennis betting.
If you are a beginner you don’t want to be putting too much money into it but bankrolling isn’t just about the budget for it or for those who are starting out. Even if you have bet before and not used the concept of bankrolling before we would recommend you read to get a fairer idea for it.
Suppose you decide your budget or your total bankroll for your tennis bets is GBP 500, you would obviously not want to put the entire sum on one bet. Typically tennis betting experts reckon you can look at anywhere between 1-3% of your total bankroll for each of the bets you make and even that is dependent on multiple factors like your risk appetite and the odds on offer.
For instance if you are planning to get 1% of the bankroll of GBP 1000, would you bet the same amount if the odds are 10/1 and 8/11? Obviously not. There are different methods to decide on this but as a rule of thumb you could look to get 1-3% of your bankroll for odds of around EVENS and increase or decrease that bet if the odds go down or up respectively.
Also remember, gamble responsibly, and gamble for fun but if you think that’s not for you, please refrain from doing that. Also visit BeGambleAware or other such agencies for assistance.
Step 7: Learn to make Deposits to Bookmaker
Once you have your bankroll ready, it’s time to make your first deposit to the bookmaker you have selected. The thing to note while making your first deposit with a bookmaker is they would usually have an offer for you and it’s important you don’t just make use of it but also read the fine print.
To avail of most of these offers, the punters need to make a minimum number of bets at certain minimum odds, so please ensure you have read through all of that.
More importantly, there are different ways to make deposits to your account with the bookmaker, and depending on which bookmaker you are signing up for and which country you are in, this might vary. You can find this list of all the ways to deposit money to your bookmaker here quite useful to understand your options but always remember, all of these options might not be available to you.
Check with your bookmaker on what he has to offer before you sign up with the company and if you think the options on offer aren’t manageable, either opt for another bookmaker or get in touch with them through their usually, 24-hour chat helpline. Explore your options with them.
As a bonus tip, some bookmakers like bet365 , Unibet and William Hill offer live streaming of tennis matches but only after you have made a deposit with them. You don’t even have to bet, just need a pre-funded account and you would be able to watch the live streaming of multiple matches with some of these bookmakers.
Step 8: Choosing the Best Tennis Betting Market for you
Now we are moving into the serious stuff. Once you are verified and you have made your deposit, learnt how to bankroll your bets, all that is left to do is to make bets on your favourite tennis matches, right? The thing is there are multiple tennis betting markets (you can take a closer look at them here) and the big question is which one to choose to start things off in the world of tennis betting.
Well, it is a very subjective call, but if you are fully prepared with the knowledge of all your markets, and tennis players and tournaments, then it makes sense to kick-start with the very basic – the match winner market. You can kick-start things with pre-match tennis betting but as you go along getting more experience you can also try and bet in-play, and opt for a bit of hedging in tennis betting.
With time, what a punter looks to grow out of is looking at favourite markets and check for those markets where the bookmaker has probably delivered value in the form of better odds than deserved. Also with time, some bettors move into tennis match trading, something that needs a lot of experience and confidence.
Pre-match v In-play betting. Refer to tennis betting strategy.
Step 9: Keep a Record – Tennis Betting Sheet
This is a step that runs in parallel with once you start off your tennis betting obviously. There are many tennis betting spreadsheets which are available online, which will help you calculate your profits and ROI. These help you with your bankrolling for starters but more importantly, help you reassess your long-term strategy and tweak it if things aren’t quite going your way.
Some sports bettors grow to treat tennis trading and betting as their business and it obviously makes a lot of sense to pay it the kind of respect one would to a business. Some of the sections you need to have in your tennis betting spreadsheet could include the following:
- Date of the Bet
- Game Bet on
- Market Bet on
- Selection Made
- Odds Received for Bet
- Won/Lost/Cancelled
- Comments if any (especially strategic)
There are websites like BettingTools, which allow punters to download their free sports betting records spreadsheet. There are other such websites which give their own version of an online tennis betting calculator, download any one of them and ensure you are maintaining your tennis betting records.
Step 10: Withdraw from the Bookmaker
One of the factors to consider while signing up with a bookmaker is its withdrawal methods. Some bookmakers might not offer you the same options to withdraw money as you would use to deposit it, and that’s something you might want to consider before you opt for that bookmaker for your tennis betting.
Again, different bookmakers offer different methods for withdrawal of your money and some of these ways to withdraw are mentioned in this list here. Select which is the most convenient way to withdraw your earned money and check if your bookmaker offers you that option in your country.
Yep, withdrawals are country-specific, so even if a Bookmaker A might be offering Method X to allow money withdrawals in Country M, they might not offer than same method in Country N. Make sure to check this before you sign up with any bookmaker of your choice.