Sports betting, and even all of gambling, in general, can be a confusing thing if you have no idea what are the thighs being talked about around you. It can be overwhelming if you don't understand most of what is being discussed, so much that it may even feel like a completely foreign language. However, familiarizing yourself with the lingos, the jargon, and the terminologies being used in this industry can help you gain more confidence in wagering your bets and improve your betting skills, too.
Another thing that you need to familiarize yourself with is on finding the online sports bookmakers that will serve your needs just right. Several bookmakers offer discounts, special offers, bonuses, and freebies to attract new players. Reading reviews and recommendations from a good review site can help you decide which bookmaker to sign up to.
To help you become a more confident sports bettor and sound like a high roller (an expert bettor) more than a square (a newbie and inexperienced bettor), here are the top sports betting terms you should learn and understand.
Bookmaker
Technically a sports bookmaker or sometimes fondly called a bookie, these are people who are at the center of the entire sports betting industry. They are the ones who take the bets of the bettors, and they are the ones which pay out the winners, too. Most of the time, the bookies are also the ones who are responsible for setting the odds for a game. They do this to make sure that no matter what the outcome of a game is, they still earn money from the bets. After all, being a bookmaker is still a business and not charity work.
Odds
Odds are the numbers that the bookmakers, or sometimes separate oddsmakers or linemakers, present to bettors as a guide on the probability of a team or player to win the game. However, this does not reflect a definite chance for either side at all, and odds are actually more of a bookie balancing the returns and earnings they can get more than giving the actual probabilities for a game.
There are many types of odds, depending on which part of the world a game will be played. However, they all can tell you how much profit you can make if you bet on a certain team or player and you win the bet.
Vigorish
The vigorish, in the simplest of terms, is the amount of money the bookmaker earns for every bet placed through them. As mentioned above, bookmakers are in the industry not to give free service to the bettors but to make business, and thus, they have to make money, too. This is how they do it--through the vigorish.
The vigorish is also called by a lot of namesakes. Some people call it the juice, the under-juice, the take, or the cut. In casino gambling and online casinos, this is the same as the house edge. You can think of the vigorish as the "fee" you pay the bookie to facilitate your bet.
In a Moneyline bet, the vigorish may work like this: think of betting for a favorite with an odds of -115, and you won the bet. This means that you earn a profit of $100, and the extra $15 will be what the bookie would earn as the vigorish. Just like the odds, bookies also sometimes adjust the vigorish for a certain bet to balance the number of wagers per side of the game.
