It may not come as a surprise to many of you, but it’s true that prop bets are becoming more and more preferred by punters, especially in big, prestigious and high profile sports events.
Recent statistics from top bookmakers in Nigeria and online sportsbooks’ revenues reveal that in some cases like the Super Bowl, F1 Grand Prix or other tournament finals that enjoy widespread popularity and are watched by millions and millions of fans across the world, prop betting explodes.
What are prop bets?
Prop bets – or more precisely proposition bets – are actually bets that do not involve any outcome or final result of a match or a game. They are bets which call punters to wager on a proposition that is not outcome-related. This proposition can be on anything that is relevant to the game -though not the end result.
There can be proposition bets on athletes/players, on teams/clubs as well as non-game related propositions. For example, a prop bet can be on how many goals a certain footballer scores, how many points a basketball team wins at the end of a game or even which tennis player will have the quickest serve in a tennis match.
A prop bet can be about the number of a certain player’s TD in NFL, the first team to score a given number of points in the first half, the number of changes that the manager will perform in a match in NHL or even the outcome of a coin toss (this is particularly popular in some events like the Super Bowl) or the color of the Gatorade bath at the end of F1 championship.
As you can see there are so many different prop bets, that they can cover every little aspect and every little thing about a game.
Prop bets have grown so popular in the last years, that sportsbooks dedicate larger and larger sections in their sites to provide as many and as interesting such wagers as possible to their customers.
There are three reasons that make prop bets so popular. Let’s see those.
Prop bets are fun and exciting
Prop bets can be really entertaining for bettors as they don’t require them to think in a sophisticated manner when they place wagers that are more demanding like who will win a match or who will win an entire tournament.
They can reduce punters’ stress or eagerness when waiting for a big game to end to see whether their bet has won or not and they are, generally, seen as secondary bets that ‘loosen up’ the heat while watching a match. So, they can be fun and entertaining – but they can be more than that as well, as we will see below.
Prop bets are profitable
Don’t think of prop bets only as a way to de-burden your tense when you are watching a big match. Prop bets are often used by sportsbooks to get the attention of punters or attract greater revenues, but the truth is that betting sites don’t always put the same effort on setting odds for props. This means that they are leaving more room for inefficiency and so greater opportunities to beat the house.
So, don’t fall into the trap of thinking prop bets only as ‘supplementary’ wagers to make things more interesting and fun. They can also be about winning and making profits from using prop bets in your betting strategy.
Prop betting tests bettors’ skills
Some bettors want to have extra action when they engage with a match. Predicting who is going to win in the end is just not enough for them. They want more analysis, more complicated prediction and on top of this they like to test and verify (in case of winning) their ability to read matches, recognize strengths and weaknesses and break down entire games into smaller pieces.
For these punters, prop bets are the absolute answer. With prop bets they get to predict, for example, not only who is going to win, but also how a team is going to win, who will make the most difference in the team, which player will lead the score, who will perform better and so much more. And this helps bettors both to to test their skills and verify their predictive capability.
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