Oddjack’s Event Betting Primer: Smell the Love

READ MORE: Event Betting

At Oddjack, we’re obsessed with betting on everything. In fact, we just bet our co-worker we could do four gravity bong hits in a row and complete thisposstkeajdk…

Fine. He won. Anyway, many people are just bored with the same old money being thrown away on football and NCAA games. It’s time to bet on something important—something you can actually track, like, the winners of the reality show Beauty and the Geek.

If you’ve heard friends talking about the strange world of, say, Tradesports, now’s your chance to get in on the action. After the jump, use this Oddjack compendium for all your event betting needs.

The first thing to know is exactly what you’re betting. You know those funny little numbers you’ll see after something like “Bo Bice (-250)”? That means he’s favored to win and it’ll cost you a $250 bet to win $100. On the other hand, if say Vonzell Solomon was listed as (+$250), well, you could bet her at $100 and cash in with a $250 take on top of your $100 bet. Simple enough? Yay.

For example:

Bodog is currently taking bets on the winner of the new Fox cooking reality show Hell’s Kitchen. Right now, it’s set up as follows:

Will the winner of Hell’s Kitchen be male or female?

Male -120
Female -110

This line tells us that males are favored to win, and that a $120 bet on Male stands to win $100. Now, these lines will most likely change every week based on the outcome of the show, so it’s best to pay attention to how things play out. Tell your friends you’ll talk to them after the season’s over and take them out for a nice steak dinner with your winnings. And these will be big steaks. We’re talking steaks the size of toilet seats.

The Tao of Tradesports

One of the more comprehensive event betting sites can be found at Tradesports. Here people can bet, ahem, “trade” on future events just like you would stocks in the stock market. You sign up for Tradesports just like you would any other kind of online trading house—you pay a fee, get a password, and you’re good to go.

Then, Tradesports has a handy little direction page to show you exactly what to do. The Bid and Ask prices listed are the best prices available on each contract. They are the prices at which you can currently Sell and Buy at, respectively. The quantities listed next to the prices, B Qty and A Qty, are the number of lots currently available at the prices on display. (Bear with them, they’re Eye-lish.)

Once you have entered a trade and had it matched, you can then either hold onto your position until it expires or sell it out for an early profit or loss. Say, for example, you bought 10 lots at 57 on Bush. If a week later, news comes out that strengthens Bush’s position in the polls, that might push the Bid/Ask on TradeSports up to 70 Bid and 72 Ask. Now you are in a position to sell your 10 lots at 70, which would net you a $13 profit, clearing out your position. Or, if you had sold originally at 55 and the price moved to 70 Bid, 72 Ask and you wanted to cut your losses, you could now buy back your 10 lots at 72, taking a $17 loss.

Still confused? Go through the real time demo on the bottom of the How It Works page for more.

Betting on the Weather at Pinnacle Sports
What a great way to make vapid elevator conversations that much more compelling. Now, when someone starts to give you the old “great weather we’re having,” you can look at them and yell, “Eat me! I lost $400 on this shit. It was supposed to snow today.” Yep, Pinnacle Sports has one of the better weather tracking wagering systems available. It works similar to how you would bet on, say, the American Idol competition with odds varying in the +880 or -660 camp. Go there and you can bet on how much snow you think Aberdeen, WA will get on Christmas 2005. For real.
Betting on the weather [Pinnacle Sports]

So there’s a primer. Now it’s time to dig into all the options out there. If you’ve got favorites, we’d love to hear about them: tips@oddjack.com. We love you already.