Best Way To Bet On Hockey

Are you getting bored of simply betting on who will win the game each time? Change it up and bet on the total instead. Total betting is essentially a 50/50 proposition on whether the total points scored by both teams will go over or under the bookmaker’s posted total.

• Best Way To Bet On Hockey Team
• Best Way To Get Into Hockey Shape
• Best Way To Bet On Nhl
• Best Way To Get Hockey Cards
• Best Way To Bet On Ice Hockey

Also known as over/under betting, this type of wager is available on almost any sport you can think of: football, basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer to name a few. Hockey, as we explain in this article, is perhaps the best sport for profitable totals betting, as it’s the easiest one for handicapping totals. That doesn’t mean there isn’t money to be made by betting the total for the other sports mentioned though.

Do Live Betting. Once the puck drops, everything can change quickly. Live betting is a great way to. Hockey first period betting is a fast-paced way to bet on hockey matches at hockey betting sites. The object of first period betting in hockey is to predict which team will be winning at the end of the first period. First period bets are similar to regular wagers on hockey games except the bet only applies to the first period of the game.

In this article we cover how to price betting totals, and provide a number of other strategies for using this type of wager effectively.

If you’re not yet familiar with how this type of wager works, please see our beginner’s guide to totals betting.

Pricing Betting Totals

Again, we’ll point out that it’s much easier to handicap totals betting in hockey than with any other sport. This simple formula should be enough to help you make a rough prediction for how many goals will be scored in a hockey game.

For baseball, all sorts of other factors come into play. The starting pitcher, how batters have performed against pitchers with similar stats, today’s lineup and the bullpen all have to be considered. Technically, when it comes to baseball there’s a lot more useful data to work with, which means making more precise predictions is a strong possibility. However, interpreting all of that data correctly in order to make valid judgments is easier said than done.

A challenge we face for football betting is that there are simply not enough games in the season to get an accurate figure using points scored and points allowed alone. For this, the first adjustment required is to use medians not averages. Looking to this set of numbers: 3, 7, 15, the median is 7 and the average is 8.33.

How do you apply this to betting football totals? When calculating points scored and points allowed, place each into a list in ascending order. The number in the middle is your median, and you can use that number in conjunction with the league average to find your estimated points scored in a game.

Here are the calculations required to do this.

The problem here is that this model is far too simplistic to yield long-term profits. No matter how simple the sport, you’ll need to make other adjustments.

Of course, if handicapping totals were easy then the market would dry up and there would be no profit left. So, if you’re ambitious, the fact that they are hard can be an advantage for you.

Alternative to Pricing Totals

Rather than learning how to price totals, a good strategy for the ambitious beginner is learning predictive modeling.

There’s a good article on this in the book shown here, Conquering Risk: Attacking Vegas and Wall Street by Elihu D. Feustel. This book can be purchased on Amazon. It’s the perfect read for those interested in advanced fundamentals.

Now for those who don’t want to wait for the book, we continue with more helpful advice on total betting.

Understanding Key Numbers

When projecting betting totals, it’s important to understand key numbers. For example, in NFL football, the most common total points scored, in order, are as follows.

• 41
• 43
• 37
• 44
• 51
• 33
• 47

Knowing this we’d be far more likely to bet over 41 when our model predicted 41.3 than we would be willing to bet under 41 when our model predicted 40.7. While 40 is still a rather common outcome, 39 and 38 are very low probability totals. Over 41 gives us a push on the most common outcome and a win on the second and fourth most common outcomes.

Off Market Prices & Bonuses

With the information just given, there’s a relatively straightforward way to profit from betting NFL totals. The goal is to take advantage of sports betting bonuses and off market prices simultaneously.

What you need to understand is, as mentioned in our article on how to handicap the market, there’s two distinct types of sports betting sites. Sharp books, which are betting sites friendly to professionals, and square books, which are betting sites that target recreational bettors.

It’s also important to understand fan bias. NFL fans typically prefer to bet in favor of something happening rather than against something happening. In other words, betting the over is a lot more fun than betting the under. This leads to recreational betting sites often padding the total an extra 0.5 points, thus making the line worse for bettors wagering on the over.

Best Way To Bet On Hockey Team

Recreational sites often have total disregard, or might even be unaware of, the implication of key numbers. Remember the most common total points scored in NFL games we mentioned earlier? If you were to shop a recreational site against a square book looking for spots, here’s what you’d probably find: the sharp book offering a 47.0 betting total and the recreational site offering a 47.5 betting total. You’d quickly see that the under bet at 47.5 is close to neutral expected value.

When you’re lucky enough to find a near neutral EV bet while also having a bonus, chances are high that you’ll be able to make considerable profits by betting totals.

Please see our article on sports betting bonuses and rewards for more information on the extra value you can get at online betting sites.

Making Correlated Wagers

One way to gain maximum value when total betting is to consider if there’s a correlation between the total bet you’re making and a game’s point spread. For instance, let’s say you’re betting the under based on the fact that Ben Roethlisberger is playing with less than 100% health, and you believe the Steelers will run the ball and eat the clock.

Now, if the Steelers are -7.5 favorites in the game, then maybe your opinion that the game will go under also means their opponent is more likely to cover the +7.5 point spread. When this is the case, we suggest betting the point spread and the total together in a parlay bet.

Odds or Evens

To state what to many is probably obvious, in certain sports, even and odd number totals make a huge difference. This relates to low scoring sports such as baseball, hockey, and in certain cases soccer. Keep in mind that in baseball and hockey, if a game ends in a tie, it keeps going until the tie is broken. Since ties always represent an even amount of points, it’s clear to see why an odd total outcome is more likely to occur than an even total outcome.

How does this relate to soccer? In some circumstance, like elimination tournaments for example, soccer games aren’t allowed to end in a tie. In such matches, a total betting line of 2.5 has only four ways for the under to win. These are 0-1, 1-0, 0-2, and 2-0.

Notice that the only way for the under bet to win is for a shutout to happen. We’ve actually found occasional arbitrage bets (bets where you can bet multiple sides of a game to guarantee a win) just from taking this into consideration.

Totals wagers placed on soccer matches where a tie must be broken often only take the first 90 minutes of normal time into account. In that case, there would actually be six possible scorelines for the under to win. 0-0 and 1-1 would also be possibilities.

Avoiding Suckers Bets

We can’t stress enough the importance of avoiding sucker bets. For example, making teaser bets on totals is a long-term losing proposition that is better off avoided. What else do suckers do? They forget to shop around for the best lines.

Remember, as mentioned earlier, recreational betting sites will often shade lines or adjust odds to make things worse for those wagering on the more popular selections. This is to trap “fish” – the bettors that tend to lose frequently because they DO make sucker bets.

If you don’t want to be a fish, please check out our article on sucker bets and how to avoid them.

Have you considered betting on ice hockey online? It couldn’t be any easier than it is today to get started. The first step is to join one of the best hockey betting sites.

Finding an ice hockey betting site on your own can be challenging. There are dozens of online sportsbooks and bookmakers and not all of them are worthwhile.

Put another way, how much money and time do you want to risk finding the best sites for betting on hockey online? Tens of dollars? Days? Hundreds or thousands of dollars? Weeks or even months?

The time and money’s not even the scary part. What’s scary is spending all that time and money and still not finding a top site for hockey betting.

The good news, though, is that you don’t have to. You can place your first online hockey bet in the next couple of minutes if you join one of the top hockey betting sites we endorse.

Where do our rankings come from?

They’re not just randomly selected, that much is for sure. Our rankings are deliberate. The #1 hockey betting site is there because it trumps all the sites below it. The #2 is better than the #3, #4, and #5 sites, but isn’t quite as good as the #1 site.

We review and rank every online betting site using a list of criteria. Most of our criteria is the same for every category we endorse sites for.

• Gambling license
• Reputation
• Secure software
• Banking methods
• Customer support
• Sports betting promotions
• Mobile betting
• Terms and conditions

We share all this information in our reviews. This info tells you whether the betting site is safe and secure, if they have banking options you can use, and promotions you want to claim.

If the site fails miserably here, or in key areas like the gambling license or reputation, we won’t recommend them. It doesn’t matter how great their hockey betting lines are.

If everything checks out here, we move on to how great they are for people who want to bet on hockey games. Below, you’ll find a general idea of what we look for.

• What leagues they cover, like betting on the NHL, AHL, ECHL, NAHL, etc.
• Whether you can bet on playoff games and championship games, like the Stanley Cup
• The types of bets you can make, such as moneylines, futures, props, and totals
• The betting site’s features, such as if you can cash out early, live stream games, or gain access to league, team, and player data
• Whether you can bet on live hockey games

The criteria we mentioned earlier makes a difference in whether we’ll endorse a hockey betting site at all. But how relevant a site is will determine whether we’ll endorse them as one of the BEST ice hockey betting sites.

Best Way To Get Into Hockey Shape

The bottom line is, we put a ton of effort into our reviews and rankings. For that reason, we know that you’ll have a great time betting on hockey for real money at any site we endorse.

You won’t find a better list of hockey betting sites online than these. We hold every site to a high standard and won’t hesitate to remove one if their standards drop.

It all starts with safety. We only endorse real money gambling sites that are worthy of our Seal of Approval. This is our guarantee to you that the site you’re about to join is safe and secure.

Why does safety matter so much? Think about it. You can join a betting site that has hundreds of hockey markets, promotions worth thousands, and all the bells and whistles. But does any of that matter if they rip you off?

No way. That’s why we start with safety and, if everything checks out, we move on to ranking them in other categories as described earlier.

What we want you to take away now is that you can’t go wrong joining any of the sites we recommend because, if anything, they’re safe and secure.

It just so happens that they’re great for ice hockey betting, too.

Why Bet on Ice Hockey Online?

You can bet on hockey games offline. There are casinos, sportsbooks, and betting shops all around the world that will take your action.

Best Way To Bet On Nhl

But we recommend you bet on hockey online instead. There are many benefits to online betting. The following are a few of our favorites.

Don’t like crowds? We hear you.

That’s one of the many reasons why online betting is king in our books. You don’t have to travel anywhere and brave the crowds. All you need is an account with one of the betting sites we endorse, and you can make your bets without ever getting off your couch.

You don’t have to worry about traveling, inconsiderate people, or dressing to impress people you don’t know, much less care about.

One thing every sports bettor must learn how to do is price shop. Compare odds at more than one sportsbook to find the most valuable ones.

Have you tried to price shop at a brick and mortar sportsbook? You have to go from one bookmaker to the next. By the time you reach the second or third sportsbook, the odds have likely changed at the ones you just left.

Price shopping is so much easier online. For example, while writing this, we opened a of couple sportsbooks and compared the lines for the NHL All-Star Game. We found a discrepancy right away.

Sure, this is a nominal difference, but it’ll add up the more money you bet and the more bets you make. What’s more is that it can take seconds or maybe minutes to find the best price.

Think of how much extra you’re saving or making for a couple of minutes worth of work. Don’t you think it’s worthwhile to find the best prices?

We think so, and it’s a piece of cake when you bet on hockey online.

Another struggle you’ll experience betting offline is the variety of wagers you have to choose from. There isn’t a single sportsbook we know of that offers every single hockey bet you can make.

This is true for online betting sites, too. But there’s one advantage you have when you’re betting on hockey online.

You can join multiple sportsbooks and have them open simultaneously. Not only does this help you compare odds, but the more betting accounts you have, the larger the variety of bets you have to choose from.

This includes making wagers like moneylines, futures, over/unders, and props, on games from leagues like the NHL, ECHL, and the NAHL. You can even bet on the Olympic ice hockey games when that comes around every four years.

Think about the last time you made a bet in person. Did the casino or sportsbook offer you a free bet or a deposit bonus valued at hundreds or thousands of dollars?

We’ve been going to brick and mortar casinos for years and can’t think of the last time that ever happened to us. Oh, that’s right, because it never has.

But it happens all the time online. Join one of the best sites for hockey betting and you can claim promotions like these.

• Deposit Bonus – The betting site matches a percentage of your first deposit.
• Free Bet – Make a hockey bet. If it loses, the betting site will reimburse you.
• VIP Perks – Earn points for every bet you make. Exchange the points you earn for cash back, exclusive bonuses, and other perks.
• Dime or Nickel Lines – Many hockey betting sites run a promotion where you pay -105 instead of -110 for hockey moneylines. This is a great way to ensure you’re always getting the best odds.

These are the most common promotions hockey bettors can take advantage of. They’re hit or miss at subpar betting sites, but not at the hockey betting websites we endorse.

The bottom line is that you can’t go wrong gambling on hockey online. You can bet from home. You can make bets for as little as $1. And you can switch sportsbooks in a matter of seconds.

If you haven’t made the leap yet, you should create your first online hockey betting account now. You won’t regret it.

When you bet the spread, your team must either win or lose by so many goals.

For example, if the Oilers are +1.5, they need to win by any score, or lose by less than 2 goals. Or if the Maple Leafs are -1.5, they need to win by 2 goals or more for the bet to pay off.

Yes, because goals scored in shootouts and overtime count towards the final score. So, this will affect any sides, totals, over/unders, and other bets you make.

This depends on the league. Many leagues do NOT end in ties. They have overtimes and shootouts if either team fails to score during regulation.

Fun fact: Nick Bjugstad of the Florida Panthers scored to beat the Washington Capitals after a record 20 scoreless shootout rounds in December 2014.

Yes, and you should. There are many benefits to joining more than one of the best hockey betting sites.

For example, you’ll have access to more leagues, types of bets, markets, etc. You’ll have more promotions to choose from as well. And you can price shop and arbitrage bets with multiple accounts.

There are so many ways you can go about it. It depends on your goals, experience, and expertise betting on hockey.

One tip is to bet on the team with a hot goalie. A goalie on a streak gives the rest of the players the confidence to take more chances to score since they don’t have to worry about defending the net.

That’s one tip. We share nine more tips on how to bet ice hockey on our blog.

All kinds. Some of the best you can make include moneylines, totals, sides, puck lines, over/unders, and props. Here are the common hockey bets you can make.

A three-way bet is a moneyline bet where you have the option to bet on win, lose, or tie.

Three-way moneylines can offer more value (sometimes) since the win and loss odds are longer.

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This is subjective. The hockey gambling sites we recommend are the best as far as we’re concerned. They have the best coverage of leagues and tournaments, largest variety of betting options, fairest prices, and more.

Yes. People make money betting hockey all the time. But only you know whether you can make money betting on hockey. It takes a lot of effort to profitably bet any sport consistently. Have you put in the work?

If not, the following section will show you where to get started.

Best Way To Bet On Ice Hockey

Use the following pages to improve your chances of making money betting on hockey online.