You may or may not have already learned that futures bets are bets placed long before a sporting event after reading our Overview of Sports Betting Types. The basics are all there, so the purpose of this article is to explain why futures offer such strong value and give tips on how to improve your chances of winning when betting futures.
The main advantage of futures is that you can get attractive odds by betting when the odds makers first publish them or long before an event is decided. For example, placing a futures 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 true 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 might be 20/1 in 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. Futures 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 college basketball and MLB baseball are team oriented in that you bet on the team’s performance, while proposed bets on future non-team events involving the likes of boxing, tennis, golf and NASCAR. . Keep in mind that with futures you are always betting on the event happening, 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 you’ll win $500 if they win it all, but with standard futures betting you can’t 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 competing for a championship like the Super Bowl or the 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 achieve superstar status much sooner (i.e. 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 select 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 position.
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 he would not re-sign with them.
O’Neal’s status shifted the balance of power between the Eastern and Western Conference in both situations, and the Heat became serious title contenders in his first year with the team. A savvy NBA futures bettor would have bet money on the Heat winning the NBA or Eastern Conference title right after the trade took place.
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 tried very hard 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 pitchers to get past the World Series-winning Boston Red Sox.
In college football and basketball, there’s the added dimension of returning starters from a team. The early graduation or defection of players to professionals plays a fundamental role in the composition of the team for the next season and must be examined. However, while losing a Heisman Trophy winner in quarterback Carson Palmer in 2003 seemed to be 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 punters’ 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 step 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 hiring mishaps, including the failed recruiting of coaching legend Bill Parcells, Gruden turned out to be their man and proved to be the difference. It wasn’t cheap, costing 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’ve put together all the Tips to Win, you should try to gauge the true value of a team’s future betting odds. But your perception of how well a team will perform and how you interpret the meaning of Winning Tips will determine whether or not a team is worth betting on.
Sometimes a team like the 1999 St. Louis Rams comes along, who won the Super Bowl that year despite starting the season as a long shot at incredible 200/1 odds. When such unlikely bets appear, it demonstrates another strong draw of futures betting, that a fan can place a small bet on an unlikely bet, enjoy following its results all season long, and perhaps cash in a big ticket! A safer approach is to pick a playoff team or one that was left 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 risky as their odds are already very low and it would take a lot more money to bet to make it worthwhile. However, there is still some value in instances like this if you strongly believe they can make the playoffs again. The further they go, the smaller your odds will be down the road and the more value you will have by betting well in advance.
That’s the bottom line with any futures bet: true value comes down to how you feel about a team compared to the odds maker’s projections. If your Tips to Win 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.
