Sports Betting Online Beginners Guide

The African gambling market is one of the fastest-growing in the world. For years, decades, African countries have been offering their players and punters with a friendly and accommodating regulatory market where they can bet and follow sports. In South Africa, the National Gambling Act of 1996 helped promote gambling in a more regulated environment. Learn more about the sports betting market in South Africa by checking this brief guide. Betting on sporting outcomes is both fun and lucrative but it also comes with challenges. To improve your sports betting experience, we highly recommend that you check this sports betting guide.

Sports Betting Terms You Should Know

To fully understand the online sports betting industry, you should know first some of the most popular terms that are often used. Here's a look at the lingo you'll encounter when you sign up in a top sportsbook for African punters.

• Bet - To wager or to put your money on the outcome of a sports event.
• Bookmaker - This refers to the site where you can find betting and accept real money bets from African punters.
• Dividend - Payout for your winning bet. The actual dividend depends on the wager and published odds.
• Even money - This is a 50-50 wager where no side gets the advantage.
• Favourite - The team or player's that's expected to win the match.
• Futures - You're betting on the long-term results, like the winner of the championship.
• In-play - You can place bets even when the match or game is ongoing.
• Pre-match - Wagers are submitted before the start of the match.
• Single bets - A type of bet on just one outcome, like the player who will win the tennis match.

These are just some of the popular terms and lingo that you will encounter online. As you become more experienced and explore more types of bets in many top online sports betting sites, you will discover new terms. So, as part of your betting lifestyle, you should always refer to an online betting guide that covers the most important terms.

How the Odds Work in the Betting Industry

In betting, one of the most important concepts that you should understand is the sports betting odds. Odds tell you the likelihood of an event happening and determine your payout if you're prediction is correct. In many top online sports betting sites for African punters, the odds are displayed in one of three ways- decimals, fractional, and the Moneyline. For the purpose of this free sports betting tips and betting guide, we focus on the decimal format.

As mentioned, the decimals odds tell you the likelihood of an event happening and your expected payout. For example, your top sportsbook publishes odds for 9.00 for your team to win the match. If you bet 100.00 units, it means that your payout is 900.00 (odds x wager) which means that your profit is 800.00. Using the same computation, a team with odds of 1.25 will offer you a payout of 1,250.00 units if using the same wager.

What are the Types of Bets You Can Play?

Although sports betting requires predicting the outcome of the match, there are different ways on how to do it. Often, the types of bets you can play in a top sportsbook also depend on your preferred sports. For this reason, you should review first a guide to betting that lists the most popular bets to play. Here's a look at the most common bets you can play in many African betting sites.

• Win or Moneyline bets. This is the most popular way to bet on sports where you pick the winner of a match or game.
• Totals or the Over/Under bets. In totals, you will bet on the total number of goals or points that will be produced in a match or game. The top sportsbook will identify this number, and your task as the punter is to predict whether the actual number of goals or points will go over or under this number.
• Asian handicap. This is a popular type of bet that's often used in football markets.  In this betting arrangement, a team or player is given a virtual head start before the start of the match. For example, a team will be awarded a +5 or -5 depending on how the sportsbook operator sees its advantage.
• Futures and outright betting. In this popular type of bet, you're putting your money not just on a single match but on the long term result. For example, when betting on football, you will put your money on the team that will end up as the champion.

Use These Tips to Get Started

Betting on sports is fun, but it comes with several challenges and risks. There's no sure bet in sports, so the stakes are high when betting in your top sportsbook. But these can be addressed by following a few free sports betting tips and by using a few tested suggestions on how to bet on sports.

If you're a new punter, it's best that you always start by identifying your budget or bankroll. The bankroll is an amount that you're willing to lose when betting on your favourite teams. For individual bets, experts recommend that you shouldn't exceed 3% of your total bankroll. Also, it's best to register an account in at least three sportsbooks that accept bets from African punters. With multiple accounts, you can easily compare the betting odds and the availability of free bets and other bonuses.

Use our online sports betting guide to improving your gambling experience. We review the best African sportsbooks and we recommend the top sportsbooks that offer a secure and responsible way of betting on sports.