Set Betting Tennis

Tennis is definitely one of the most popular and cherished sports in many countries located all over the world, so it’s only natural for online sports betting sites to provide their customers with an amazing selection of tennis markets.

Consequently, bettors who’d like to put their money on high-profile tennis games are free to go for the best bonuses and odds, which makes it an excellent choice for inexperienced punters who’d like to improve their handicapping skills. However, many people are afraid to make the first step, as even the most basic wagers might seem complicated if you haven’t ever bet on any sports before.

Contrary to this belief, learning how the popular wager types work doesn’t take a lot of effort – in fact, once you’re done reading this guide, you should be well equipped to join any tennis-friendly betting site.

Ways to Bet

  • Tennis Set Betting. This means that all you want to predict the exact outcome of the bet. This can be very risky at the same time very rewarding. Risky in the sense that, if you wrong, you lose the whole bet, but.
  • Tennis betting at William Hill Online William Hill offers punters the very best in tennis online betting. From the majors such as the US Open and Wimbledon, to the regular tournaments on the WTA and ATP.

There are many ways to wager real money on tennis online, but I’d advise you to stick with the most popular and easiest bet types at first. The most popular options are betting on the outright winners, set wagering and proposition bets, but if you’re an adrenaline-thirsty high-roller or you’d like to spice-up your betting career, you might also try parlay bets and betting on tennis futures. Finally, you should keep in mind that not every bet has to be placed pre-match. In fact, many sites allow you to engage in live, in-play betting, allowing you to call the shots as you watch the action unfold on your TV screen.

Match Betting

Match betting or money line betting is very simple and intuitive, as your job is simply to predict who will win the match outright. Most sites express the odds for bets of this kind using $100 as a basis. The line that allows you to bet on the favorite is marked with a minus sign, which means that you have to risk more than you’ll be able to win. Conversely, the line that allows you to put your money on the underdog is marked with a plus sign, which means that the potential returns would be higher than your initial investment. For example:

When betting the set spread, instead of looking at how many games a player wins, you are looking at how many sets they win. Most matches are best of three sets, and will have a set line of +-1.5. Betting On Tennis - Sets. To bet on a given set score is the equivalent to betting on the final score in football. In tennis you bet on the score in sets. For example, Player A wins 3 sets, Player B wins 2. The rules of live betting tennis are pretty simple. The main key is that you have to get your bet in before the point starts. As each point is played, the odds will change. That means that sportsbooks will.

Rafael Nadal -120

Roger Federer +110

In this matchup, Rafa Nadal is the clear favorite. This means that you’d receive $100 for every $120 you put on him if he actually managed to win the match. Conversely, betting on Roger Federer would result in a $120 profit for every $100 you put at risk in case of his victory.

Tennis Set Betting

Set betting isn’t all that different from correct score bets that you can place on soccer, which means that bets of this kind tend to be somewhat risky. When you place a set bet, your goal is to predict the exact result of the match – if you make any mistakes, you lose the bet. As you’d expect, the odds offered for wagers of this kind tend to be surprisingly high, so if you’re looking for some high-risk, high-reward action you might give them a try. However, you should keep in mind that winning set bets isn’t all about luck – in fact, many professional bettors have turned them into a steady source of income through solid handicapping efforts.

Parlay Betting

Parlays are combination bets, which means that they allow you to link set bets and match bets into a single wager. Parlays pay many times more than placing each bet separately, but there is a catch here – losing a single selection means that your entire parlay is lost. This means that parlaying your bets is inherently risky, so you should be very careful about adding money lines or sets to your parlay ticket. However, many experienced bettors take advantage of this type of wagers by parlaying sure-bets, which allows them to maximize their profits without increasing the variance too much.

Futures Betting

Wagering on tennis futures is pretty much all about predicting who wins the largest tennis competitions before the tournament actually kicks off. Bets of this kind are always a long-term investment, but they offer better odds than match bets, set bets and even simple parlays. Most sites tend to post ATP and WTA odds about a week before the first matches are supposed to start, but larger events like Australia Open, Wimbledon, French Open or US Open usually have all the lines posted months ahead of the schedule.

Proposition Betting

Proposition bets are also referred to as props and are essentially gimmick wagers that can involve everything tennis-related that hasn’t been covered by any of the popular categories described above. Example props include guessing the first set score, predicting whether a player will place higher than his rival in a specific tournament or predicting whether there’s a tie break or not.

Whether you’re an experienced ace at betting on tennis or you’re brand new to the courts, you’ve officially stumbled on all of the information you could ever want or need on the subject and more. In this guide, we’re going to walk you through the world of tennis sports betting from start to finish. Our goal is to empower you with knowledge and strategies that will help you crush the sportsbooks and put some extra money in your pocket.

We’ll walk you through the best places to bet on tennis, the top strategies used by the pros to make better picks, and the breakdown of all the different types of tennis bets that you have at your disposal. This information is not only for beginners. Experienced sports bettors who know the game of tennis well should still get quite a bit out of this guide and be able to take their betting to the next level.

If you’re ready to get started, let’s grab our rackets and get to serving up a nice chunk of knowledge.

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Best Tennis Betting Sites

Knowing who or what to bet on is only part of the equation. One of the biggest decisions you will have to make in your tennis betting career is where you are going to place your bets. Think it doesn’t really matter? Think again. In the older days, your only option to bet was the closest sports book or a sketchy back-alley bookie who was willing to take your action for you. While these options did serve their purpose, they lacked the comfort, convenience, and overall betting flexibility that is required to really take advantage of your tennis knowledge.

Thankfully, the internet has come to the rescue again. Today, you can find hundreds of online sportsbooks offering significant tennis betting action. You can place all of your bets, shop lines, and collect your winnings without ever setting foot outside of your house or your office. But where do you start? With so many options, it can seem overwhelming to pick the best site for you to place your bets at.

Set Betting Tennis Odds

That’s where we come in. Our team of betting experts has scoured the web looking for the best online sportsbooks that offer the best tennis betting action around. Not only do the sites they found offer the best action, but they are also the most trustworthy, easiest to use, and quickest at processing cashouts. Remember, no sites can ever pay us for a better recommendation or to be included on this recommended list. The only way onto the list is to be the best in the business. Period.

Tennis Betting Strategy

Now that you know where to bet, we need to talk about getting you fully equipped to know who and what to bet. We’ve compiled all of the best strategy tips from our team of experts to help you master the world of betting on tennis. We’ll walk you through the basic strategies you need to know, the common mistakes bettors make, and then take you through some advanced strategies to help you truly become a master of making winning picks.

If you’re ready to take your tennis betting game to the next level, click the link below to our dedicated strategy guide.

The Most Popular Tennis Bets

The next thing that we would like to cover is the different types of bets you have available at your disposal. Contrary to popular belief, you can bet on a lot more aspects of a tennis match or tournament than just the winner of a match. The flexibility that comes with all of these options should be a welcomed sign to sports bettors. Yes, it’s more to learn, but it allows you to bet every one of your predictions and make sure that you are squeezing out every bit of profit from your predictions.

Remember, just because there are a bunch of different bet types available does not mean that you have to bet them all. In fact, if you decide you only want to bet on match winners, that’s totally fine. There are plenty of successful sports bettors that choose to follow the, “Keep it simple, stupid” (KISS) mantra, and it works out great for them.

Outright Winner Bets

An outright winner bet is sometimes referred to as a “to win” bet. This bet is the simplest bet on the list and probably a great starting point if you are new to tennis betting. Think Nadal is going to win the next tournament? You can bet on him with an outright winner bet, and if he wins, you win! Before a major tournament, you should be able to get betting odds on every person who is competing.

All of the players will almost always pay out better than even money, meaning that if you bet $100, you will receive more than $100 in profit for a correct prediction. Usually, the heavier the favorite a player is, the less money you will get for a correct pick; the bigger the long shot, the more you will get if they pull off the big upset.

For example, the biggest favorites in a tennis tournament are usually somewhere between +200 and +400. This means that if a player is +200 and you bet $100, you would get $200 in profit if that player wins the tournament. The biggest underdogs can be found in the +10000 to +20000 range. If you were to bet $100 on a player who was +20000 and they won, you would get $20,000 in profit for that bet! Before you get all excited, realize how unlikely it is for someone like this to pull off such a massive upset. Not impossible, but HIGHLY unlikely.

In between those ranges fall all the other players for a tennis tournament. Remember, as we discussed in the strategy section, this creates an opportunity for you to bet on multiple players, especially if you don’t think the favorite is going to win.

Match Betting

A match bet is similar to an outright winner bet, except that instead of picking the winner of an entire tournament, you are picking the winner of an individual match. You’ll have the option of picking either of the players to win. Again, depending on the level of favorite or underdog the player is, the payout odds will be adjusted. The favorite will usually pay out less than even money, and the underdog will usually pay out better than even money, similar to the outright tournament winners above.

Remember to keep an eye on the payouts associated with the match you are interested in, as the lines will likely shift based on how the betting public is betting. This can create some great value opportunities if the betting public starts to bet too heavily in the wrong direction. As a spoiler, the betting public is not usually regarded as intelligent and has a tendency to move lines incorrectly quite a bit. This is where you pound, and this is how you make money betting on tennis.

Handicap Betting

Want to bet on a player, but you still think they are going to lose? If you think that a player is going to perform better than expected but is still going to lose, you’re going to want to look into handicap betting. Handicap betting is a lot like spread betting in other sports. It aims to spot a number of games to the underdog to give them a fair playing field. Ideally, if the line is set correctly, the player who performs better than their expectations will be the winning bet.

The handicap bet is completely independent of the outcome of the match. If you’re confused, that’s ok. Let’s look at an example that will clear things up.

Handicap 2-Way Games Won

  • Player A -2.5
  • Player B +2.5
Betting

What this is saying is that Player A is the favorite in this match. They assume that they are going to win by 2.5 games. As you might expect, this means that they think Player B is going to lose by 2.5 games. Whoever you bet on, as long as they outperform this prediction, you win your bet. Now, we know you are wondering why it says half games (2.5 instead of 2 or 3) when you can’t win half games in tennis. This is to prevent ties. Basically, if Player A wins by three games (which is more than 2.5 games), bets on Player A would win. If Player A wins by only two games or less or loses (all less than 2.5 games), bets on Player B would win.

Remember, this has nothing to do with the outcome of the match, but only the games won. Let’s say the match goes three sets and the scores are 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 in favor of Player A. We add up the total games won, and we see that Player A won fifteen games and Player B won fourteen games. Player A won one more game than Player B. This means that even though Player A won the match, bets on Player B would win because Player B outperformed their prediction. They were supposed to lose by 2.5 games, and they only lost by one. Player A was supposed to win by 2.5 games, but they only won by one, meaning they underperformed their prediction.

This sort of betting can be applied to more than just games won. It can also be applied to the number of sets won in a particular match. You can also try your hand at 3-way handicap betting, which is exactly the same except you have the ability to bet on a tie in the number of games or sets won.

Over/Under Betting

An over/under bet in tennis is a bet on how many sets the match will take to complete. As is customary with over/under bets, you aren’t required to pick a winner; you only have to pick the duration of the match correctly. In a three match format, you’ll have the option of betting over or under 2.5 sets.

What does this mean in simpler terms? You are either going to bet that the match ends in straight sets by taking the under 2.5 sets, or you are going to bet that the match takes three sets by betting the over 2.5 sets. Straight sets would be two sets, which is under 2.5. Three sets is, well, three sets, which is over 2.5 sets.

One thing that is different than some other sports you may have made over/under bets on is that the payout odds will be shifted some and will not pay out even money on both sides of the bet. If the match is predicted to end in straight sets, expect to get paid better if you correctly pick the over and vice versa.

Exact Score Betting

If you’re an absolute tennis wizard or someone who likes to make some higher variance bets, you’re going to love these exact score bets. These bets allow you to try and predict the exact score of each set or the exact number of sets won by each opponent. As you can imagine, this is probably pretty challenging. This means that you should expect a pretty healthy payday if you nail one of these bets.

We looked at some upcoming tennis matches, and the absolute worst you could get paid for a correct pick was +450, with some exact predictions paying as well as +15000 in the same match. Here’s how the bet looks. Let say that Player A and Player B are playing, and you want to make an exact score bet on the first set. For some reason, you think Player A is going to crush Player B and win 6-1. You can place an exact score bet on this, and if you are correct, you will win big. Remember, you have to be 100% correct, and you have to pick who the winner is as well. You can’t just pick 6-1 and then if either player wins 6-1, you win. You have to be precise.

The same goes for the exact set betting, though, it’s going to be a little easier for you to pick. In a three round match, you’ll only have four options to choose from — 2-0 and 2-1 for Player A and 2-0 or 2-1 for Player B.

Prop Bets

Tennis prop bets can be a fun and profitable way for you to make some money betting on the sport. Prop bets are wagers where the sportsbook proposes something to happen, and you bet on whether or not you think that is going to happen. Here are some examples of prop bets you might see in tennis:

Set Betting Tennis Tournaments

  • Head-to-head matchups on which player will last the longest in a tournament
  • Will there be a tie-break in the match? Yes or No?
  • What round will player X be eliminated in?
  • Total games played in a match

As you can see, there are a lot of creative options here, and this is just a taste of what you’ll see offered at online sportsbooks. You will sometimes see a few of these prop bets made available at brick-and-mortar sportsbooks, but that is usually only for the biggest of tournaments, and even then, the options are limited. We aren’t trying to knock the brick-and-mortar establishment; they just don’t always have the resources and board space available to offer as many options as the online sportsbooks do.

How do these prop bets work? Simple! Let’s say that you want to bet on whether or not there will be a tie-break in the match you are watching. If you think there will be, you bet “Yes.” If you don’t think there will be, you bet “No.” If you’re right, you win! Payout odds will be adjusted based on the likelihood of the prop hitting, so make sure you take a minute to make sure the risk is worth the reward for your bet.

Prop bets can be a lot of fun and can really enhance the tennis betting experience. Just make sure that you are betting prop bets that require skill to predict (like the examples listed above) and nothing crazy and wild that is just gambling. You’ll know the difference when you see them.

The Big Picture – Tennis Betting

Your equipment bag is now filled to the brim with all of the tools, tips, and strategies that you need to master the world of tennis betting. Does this mean that you’re going to start winning every single one of your bets immediately? While we hope that’s the case, it’s probably not very likely. You see, knowing the correct strategies and the right places to bet is only part of the puzzle. In order to really start beating the books, you need to couple that knowledge with sound research and develop your own winning strategy.

We recommend that you start small and test out your new strategy before you move your betting to the next level. Remember, tennis is not going anywhere for a long time, so you will always have tons of opportunities to make money betting on the sport. There is no reason that you need to rush anything. Take your time, make sure your overall strategy is sound, work hard, do your research, and the next thing you know, you could be crushing the books and rolling in the dough!