Tennis, like cricket and golf, has a bit of a barrier to entry in terms of the jargon used and how each match is structured.
It’s nothing overwhelming – fans will usually pick up the meaning of terms such as ace, love, and breakpoint fairly quickly – but becoming familiar with the game is still an early hurdle. Of course, once people start betting on tennis, too, a whole other dictionary is thrown into play.
Betting on sport tends to be a universal concept, as things like markets and outrights are applicable from one activity to another. However, due to the fact that tennis is played for sets and games, there may be a distinction in how bets like over/under are applied to the sport. In any case, a football fan who’s already familiar with betting on the Premier League should have no issue doing the same on the ATP or WTA tours.
The subtleties of any hobby are important, though, so let’s take a look at the various markets and offers available in tennis betting.
Ongoing Bonuses
Betting operators are increasingly robust, meaning that users’ experience from one site to the next can come down to things like customer service and the colour of a website, rather than the availability of certain markets and sports. There are also rarely any restrictions on coverage by location. It’s just as likely that an Indian betting outlet will offer WWE or NBA odds as an American one will, for instance.
To continue with our India example, the subcontinent is home to major brands like bet365, Betway, and LeoVegas Sport, which demonstrates the success of the industry there. In fact, the Indian betting market is so big that it has a group of sites that accept Indian Rupees, to pull Indian bettors away from European and American options.
This inevitably means that the sports betting industry in India is crowded. So crowded, in fact, that websites tend to offer incentives to players to sign-up for their offering over that of a competitor. For example, 1xbet, one of the best betting sites in India according to the sportsbetting24 website, is currently advertising a 100% deposit bonus of up to $160 for new players.
Whereas Parimatch, a competitor site, is offering bettors a 100% deposit bonus of up to 8000 rupees, although it’s in Rupees which could suit Indian players better, is worth less than the first example in dollars. Therefore, understanding these offers and options is more important than it may seem, as there are usually stipulations on how the bonus can be used and are of varying benefit. As with any service, a bit of research can help customers avoid disappointment at a later date.
Tournament Winner
Tennis betting can be no more complicated than betting on the overall winner in the outrights market. The benefit of this type of wager is that it can provide good odds when betting in advance but these prices tend to diminish with decreasing time to the event. To put that feature into perspective, betting on the tournament winner with in-play betting can seem a little futile.
Set betting is where tennis rewards veteran fans. In brief, set betting requires predicting the winner of each set, such as three to one. However, it’s not unheard of for experienced bettors to wager on a per-set basis. It might sound a little taxing but people who understand the role that surfaces, prior form, and tournament history play in a tennis player’s overall chances of winning can find this market rewarding.
Lowering the complexity a bit, the next market on our list is over/under, which involves choosing whether a tennis match will end in more or less than a particular number of sets, such as 3.5. In the latter case, an over 3.5 sets bet is won if the game goes to four or more sets, while a similar under bet will payout on the condition that there are a maximum of three sets in a game.
Finally, handicap betting adds an advantage or disadvantage to one or more players. In this case, a bookmaker may impose a +3.5 handicap on the favourite athlete, which means that they have to a) win and b) win by more than 3.5 games.
While a deceptively simple sport, tennis and tennis betting both have enough depth for veteran fans of either hobby.