Prop betting is extremely popular amongst casual sports bettors, but most big bettors don’t focus on prop bets because they can’t bet enough on them. If you’ve ever taken a look at the betting limits at an online sportsbook you’ll realize that you can bet several thousand on most straight wagers, but when it comes to prop betting you can only wager a few hundred. A prop bet is a type of wager that you can make on a single event/outcome happening. We’ll take a look at a couple quick examples of prop bets below in case the definition is a little confusing.
Prop Betting Examples
- Will Tom Brady throw for over 330.5 passing yards against the Raiders? Yes -110 / No -110
- Will Sidney Crosby score a goal against the Maple Leafs? Yes +100 / No – 120
- Will Demar Derozan score over 15.5 points? Yes -110 / No -110
Prop Betting Strategy
Since the betting limits are small on prop bets, online sportsbooks don’t spend much time setting the lines. If you spend time analyzing a certain type of prop bet you’ll have a better understanding of what the odds should be and you’ll therefore be able to spot the weak lines posted by online sportsbooks. Prop betting lines will move quite a bit if they receive lop-sided action, so you need to make sure you’re always on top of what prop bets are available everyday and jump on any soft lines before they jump.
You’re not going to be able to make a fortune betting on prop bets due to the betting limits, but you can make a nice full-time or part-time income from betting on prop bets exclusively. Everyday there are hundreds of prop bets released by the major online sportsbooks and many of them aren’t that hard to predict. You won’t win every prop bet, but if you follow a certain sport or spend the time doing your research you’ll be fine.
One way that some sports handicappers use prop bets are to hedge their bigger bets. For instance, if you bet the under in a Heat vs. Celtics game, you might want to try hedging your bet a bit by betting on Dwayne Wade to score over 25.5 points. Wade is likely to score over that number of points regardless of the total score, but if he isn’t the only one to have a big game the score may go over the total, which would mean you’d at least have hedged some of your bet with the Dwayne Wade prop bet.
Another good prop bet to look at is in MLB and is whether or not a run will be scored in the 1st inning. Believe it or not, a lot of baseball games have a run scored in the 1st inning, so you need to be careful with this prop bet due to the juice. However, when you have struggling offences or two aces on the mound you should take a look at this prop bet. It’s a nice way to start the day off when betting on MLB if you make sure you only bet this prop when you have a good reason too.