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R/sportsbetting: An online forum dedicate to gambling on all sports - NFL to table tennis, small straight bets to huge parlays, slight favorites to. Q: Is baseball partnering with a gambling origination? If so, is that really a good idea for baseball? Remember they banned Pete Rose from the Hall of Fame and baseball for gambling on baseball.

While it’s taken a while to get here, the internet has made many daily tasks more convenient than ever for millions of Americans.

Almost every part of American life has been changed by the internet’s growing popularity. One of the activities most affected by the convenience of using the internet is online shopping. In 2016, 209.6 million people in the US bought things online.

Brick and mortar stores have struggled to keep up with the market trend of consumers’ shopping habits shifting from in-person to online. Stores like JCPenney and Macy’s have floundered, and are threatened with being annihilated entirely by behemoth online retailers like Amazon.

Like shopping, gambling is another American market that has begun to shift online. While in-person sportsbooks are still thriving, unlike their retailer counterparts, gambling is expanding online at a blistering pace.

It’s simpler than ever to place bets online and consumers around the country are taking advantage of it. Now you can use your smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer for every step of the wagering process.

You can deposit money, bet, view odds, and even view games in real-time on some smartphone apps. Online gambling can provide all the glamour and excitement of in-person gambling without the need to go to a brick and mortar sportsbook. Some people even go through the hassle of traveling across state lines to bet on sports in person.

The following 6 steps can help you transition from having no experience at betting on baseball online, to making your first online baseball bet.

1 – Know the Law

The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act limited legal sports betting to Nevada, Oregon, Delaware, and Montana. These states had pre-existing lotteries and sports betting frameworks so they were grandfathered in and allowed to continue offering betting when the 1992 law passed.

In May 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal ban on sports betting was a violation of state’s rights and many states began preparing legislation to legalize sports betting.

In addition to giving states control over in-person sports betting, this law also gave states control over the legality of online betting.

States with Legal Online Betting

• Colorado
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Michigan
• Mississippi
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• Tennessee
• West Virginia

However, some of these states have restrictions on the online betting process.

Nevada will track your phone to make sure you’re physically in the state before you can make a mobile, online bet.

Bettors in Nevada must also make an account in person at a casino, verify their identity, and make a minimum cash deposit between $50-$100 before betting online.

Mississippi requires bettors to be within the casino to place an online sports bet, which kind of defeats the purpose of placing an online bet in the first place.

Additionally, you must be of the state’s legal betting age and within state boundaries in all states.

2 – Choose an Online Betting Site or App

Once you’ve determined that you’re in a state that allows online betting, your next move should be to find a site or app where you can place some bets.

You can do this in a couple of different ways.

If you’re on a computer, it’s easy enough to google sites, do some research, and find a site that works for you. Check to see if the site has an internet sports betting operator’s license to ensure that you can legally place bets there.

If you’re on a smartphone or tablet, you can use GooglePlay for Android or the App Store for iOS.

App shopping centers are a tremendous resource because you can filter by average customer review to discover a widely-used app. You can also read comments to ensure the app is trustworthy, operates legally, and has an easily usable interface.

An effective user interface is vital, so check the site or app before you sign up to see if you’re comfortable navigating it.

You’ll be better prepared to place bets if the interface is easy to use. Making bets can be stressful and the last thing you want is to get stuck with a clunky interface when you’re trying to put a bet in right before a ballgame.

Some sites or apps will have the option of live betting, which could be the determining factor. The luxury of getting to place live bets in real-time is a great perk.

If you’re watching a game and feel like the starting pitcher’s mechanics are breaking down in the second inning, live betting is a great way to increase your chances of winning.

Many sites or online gambling apps will also offer promotions for new bettors to encourage members to sign up. You can take advantage of these promotions by signing up for multiple sites.

Examples of new service promotions include $125 of risk-free bets and exclusive bonuses on certain deposit betting options. Exclusions will apply though. There’s no such thing as a free lunch and many of these bonuses come with strings attached, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find value in some of them.

Lastly, you’ll want to compare odds across different betting services. Some services offer longer odds and smaller payouts. Pick 1 ball game and compare the odds given across multiple books.

You may find a site or app that gives you much more favorable odds, giving you a shot at a bigger payout with the same stake.

3 – Sign up to Bet

Once you’ve found a website or app you’re comfortable with, you can sign up to bet.

The first part of the signup process you’ll complete is creating an account. Different books may require different account information, but you should expect to enter your name, date of birth, phone number, email, zip code, and preferred currency.

A payment method will also be necessary. Different sportsbooks accept different methods of deposits but some examples of accepted forms of payments are checking account, debit/credit card, or PayPal.

4 – Learn How the Website or App Works

Next, it would be beneficial to just explore the website or app and get a feel for its features.

One consideration is the clarity of the user interface. Make sure the service feels logical and you understand how to make bets, view odds, and withdraw and deposit money. If the website or app is clunky or has a lot of flashy ads, it may be a waste of your time.

A responsive interface is also critical. How many times have you tried to load an image on a website, and been greeted with a big gray box? Websites freezing or loading improperly is one of the most frustrating things about using the internet.

A responsive interface will make your online gambling experience much more pleasant. You’ll know which section of the site or app you’re on, know what the purpose of each page is, and you won’t be left with questions over what bets you’ve made or what the odds of your bets are.

Efficiency is another important consideration. If the website or app doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do or takes a long time to do a simple task, you’ll be left in the dust.

You don’t want to end up with a metaphorical winning ticket in your hand on a bet you didn’t get the chance to make because the website wouldn’t load correctly.

5 – Make Bets

Now we’re getting to the good stuff. The meat and potatoes of online gambling are the actual bets themselves. Looking at and comparing odds, seeing how much you can win, and predicting which team will win are all the biggest thrills of gambling.

Different sites or apps will offer different bet types, so in addition to all the research listed above for a sportsbook, you should also research to see if they even offer the type of baseball bet you want.

Moneyline bets are one of the most common bet types. The book will give you the teams and odds, and you’ll bet on which team you think will win.

Many bettors prefer to bet on the underdog because the payouts are bigger but it’s more important to look at the stats and histories of the 2 teams.

If you know what a spread is, you know what run line bets are already. Like spreads, run line bets add in the fact that the winning team must win by a certain amount of runs for a bet on them to payout.

6 – Withdraw Money

Lastly, once you’ve had your fun making some bets, make sure you know how to withdraw your winnings from the site or app. You’ll be able to withdraw money using one of the same payment methods listed above for depositing money.

Sportsbooks will have to verify your identity and documentation before you can place a withdrawal request. Some sportsbooks may lock your account and only allow a certain amount of money to be withdrawn at a time.

You may be able to only withdraw $200 even though you have $500 in your account if you haven’t cleared a bonus rollover yet.

Conclusion

Do you have any questions about how to bet on baseball online? Let us know in the comments.

These Sites Are the Home Run of the Betting World

Baseball betting season is one of the best times of year for sports gamblers. Of all the major sports, baseball has the most games, the most analytics-friendly rules, and the underdogs win a higher percentage of their matchups than any other league.

What all of these variables mean is lots of opportunities to find value and turn a profit. But before you do that, you’ll need to find the best baseball betting sites. To make money betting baseball, you’ll need a book with a full range of games and wager types, good odds, and reliable, trustworthy service. We’ve scoured the internet and determined the following recommendations are the best baseball betting sites on the internet.

Selecting Legitimate Baseball Betting Sites

If you ever hope to have a productive baseball betting season, you’ll first need to make sure that you’re placing your bets on the right website. The internet is full of unethical betting operations and scam sportsbooks designed to take your money. That’s why we’ve done the research for you and located the best MLB betting sites online.

There are many variables that go into our recommendations. If you’d like a better idea of the types of things we examine when ranking online sportsbooks, you should take the time to read our specific website reviews. In the meantime, the following factors are several of the primary criteria we consider to ensure we supply our readers with only the most legit baseball betting sites.

History and Reputation

Online Multiplayer Baseball

Our intention is to supply you with the best betting knowledge and a legit baseball betting site on which to use it. One of the first things we research when reviewing an online sportsbook is their history and reputation with previous customers.

We don’t want to recommend sites that have previously been blacklisted, have let their gaming licenses lapse, or have a history of disappointing customers.

That’s why we comb through previous customers’ experiences and search through industry blacklists before passing a site on to our readers. One of the best ways to predict future actions is by studying past actions. This theory holds true for both handicapping baseball and choosing the best betting site.

Safety and Legitimacy

If you’re going to be making bets online, you’ll first have to deposit some of your real money. That means that keeping your financial information safe and ensuring you’re doing business with a legitimate gaming operation is extremely critical. This is our number-one priority when vetting betting sites for our readers.

Online sports betting is a nearly $50-billion-per-year industry. That kind of money brings all of the scammers and unethical businesses out of the shadows in an attempt to steal a piece of the action. This is the main reason we put so much time and energy into selecting our recommendations – to guarantee customers a rewarding gambling experience without the risk of being stolen from.

Reliable Customer Service

Another criterion that proves to be crucial for overall customer experiences is the quality of a site’s customer service department. We judge a betting site’s customer service by considering a few factors. First, the customer help area should be easy to locate with straightforward options and information.

Once there, ideally the page will include a frequently asked questions (FAQs) section, as well as contact information. Next, the customer service page should include several avenues available for contacting their helpdesk employees. Ideally, they will consist of a telephone number, an email address, and a live chat instant messaging option.

Before signing up with a betting site and placing your baseball wagers, it’s worth your time to test a site’s contact methods to verify that they’re tended to quickly. Call the numbers and make sure they’re answered and that it’s easy to have issues addressed. Send a test email, and time how long the company takes to respond. You can even test out the chat function. None of these require much effort, and you’ll feel much better about any future issues if you already know that they take customer service seriously.

Wide Variety of Wager Types

What makes baseball season so lucrative for sports bettors is the massive volume of games and the many wager types that allow you to maximize your knowledge. The baseball betting sites that we rank highly offer odds on all of the MLB games and allow gamblers to place a wide range of bets.

An excellent site to use for betting baseball will enable customers to utilize run-line point spreads, five-inning odds, and all sorts of additional possibilities.

To be a successful sports gambler, you’ll need to be able to identify mispriced odds and capitalize on them. The more exotic or specific you can get with your wagers, the more you can hone in on a particular niche or specialty. If your only skill is predicting how many runs an away pitcher will give up in five innings of play, you need to be able to make that exact bet rather than wasting time trying to pick moneyline game winners.

The Best Odds

If our readers are to be profitable betting on baseball, they’ll need to have access to the best odds. The companies included in our trusted baseball gambling sites will offer odds that are competitive, fair, and consistent with the rest of the industry.

One of the primary benefits of placing your sports bets online is that you can commonly find better odds than their land-based competitors can provide. This is because brick-and-mortar operations require considerably more overhead to keep their lights on. Without the need to purchase land and pay a much more extensive staff, online betting sites can reduce the bookmaker’s advantage, meaning more favorable lines for you.

Bonuses and Loyalty Rewards Programs

You will also notice that our list of recommendations includes the various deposit or sign-up bonuses being offered to new customers by each site. With so much competition in the industry, bonuses and rewards programs are one of the foremost ways betting sites can compete for your business. These gifts can really add up, so they’re worth additional consideration when choosing a bookmaker.

The entry-level bonuses for signing up or depositing money typically come with lots of strings attached. They’ll frequently have high rollover requirements, for example. Regardless, free bets can help you test out different wagers or practice betting on new sports.

The real value is found in the loyalty rewards programs. Legit betting sites will track a user’s betting habits and calculate how much money they commonly gamble to determine what kind of perks and prizes they will offer. Your average sports gambler can expect to earn points that they can redeem for merchandise, gift cards, or even cash back over time. High rollers will be offered everything from vacation packages to automobiles; the sky is the limit.

Beginner’s Guide to Betting on Baseball

Once you’ve found the perfect site on which to bet on Major League Baseball, it’s time to start placing your bets. But before you can, you’ll need to know the various types of wagers available for baseball betting and what they mean for you. There are many different approaches to betting on MLB games, some of which are common in all sports gambling and some that are specific to this sport.

You’ll also want to form a solid foundation of knowledge about the sport itself. It helps to understand the different rulesets the individual leagues have, how the season is scheduled, and what variables you need to consider when placing a bet on baseball. Once you understand the gambling terminology and the ins and outs of the sport, we’re sure you’ll find baseball betting to be one of the most rewarding forms of sports gambling.

If you’re brand new to the sport, here are a couple of fundamental factors to remember when forecasting a game:

• Each team has a unique stadium with site-specific dimensions that affect pitching and hitting. Know if a stadium benefits pitchers or hitters before placing your bet
• The starting pitcher is the most important position in the game. It’s also the variable that the majority of the betting public bases their picks on
• Travel plays a critical role in team performance
• There are umpire stats available online at websites like Rotowire.com. An umpire’s strike zone significantly influences the amount of scoring and is vital information for totals bets
• In the National League, the pitchers have to take at-bats. In the American League, pitchers never bat; their place in the lineup is replaced by a designated hitter
• Bullpen pitching is commonly overlooked but can be every bit as important as starting pitching

Types of Bets

The majority of traditional sports wagers are available for betting on baseball. You have the option to create parlay cards, make futures bets, bet the moneyline, or gamble on the total number of runs scored, for instance. But there are also additional types of wagers that are unique to baseball.

One baseball-specific wager that you will find is called the run line. These bets apply a 1.5-run handicap to the total score in either direction. The underdog receives 1.5 runs, while the favored team gives them up, which is why their number is expressed as –1.5.

Online Baseball Games

You also have the option of betting on partial games. Since starting pitchers rarely complete the game, bookmakers give you the option of buying odds exclusively on the innings you expect the pitcher to be playing. You’ll frequently see bets on either the total number of runs or the winning team through only 4 ½ or 5 innings, in addition to the complete contest.

Baseball Betting Tips

Betting on baseball is all about understanding which factors will impact the outcome of the contest. You’ll need to consider the strength of the pitching, how the umpire calls balls and strikes, the type of stadium, and both teams’ recent travel schedule. All of these things play a role, and predicting how they’ll all blend to influence the game is how you make money.

What’s great about baseball is that every statistic is counted and recorded. The sport isn’t much of a team game. Instead, it’s a series of individual contests that sometimes overlap but often don’t. For example, when a player is batting, there’s nothing his teammates can do to assist him. What matters is how the hitter plays against left- or right-handed pitchers, what type of ball they hit best, how they perform in different parks, and numerous other variables, all of which are tracked and available online at sites like Baseball-Reference.com.

Baseball Betting Strategy

The best baseball handicappers have a strategy for making their picks. There are all sorts of betting systems and procedures that can be used to produce winning choices when gambling on baseball. Many of these involve pairing a structured staking plan with games that match a specific set of criteria.

Gambling strategies can be as rudimentary or scientific as you want them to be. For baseball, they are most effective when they consider many factors, especially since valuable data is so readily available. If you’re hoping to turn a profit in the long run, you’ll most likely be implementing a betting strategy sooner rather than later.

Essential Baseball Articles

With its 162-game season and the data-rich nature of the game, baseball is the ideal sport to gamble on for handicappers. For the most part, the competition is built on numerous individual statistics that are easy to track and analyze. The same concepts that made Moneyball possible and Billy Beane famous also help sports bettors to identify juice lines and make smart bets.

Here are some additional articles to help beginners find success when betting on baseball:

Online Baseball Gambling Rules

Additional Sports Betting Articles

Some betting principles apply to all forms of sports gambling. No matter what sport that you’re betting on, it will always be necessary for you to utilize bankroll management and stick to a predetermined staking plan. Staying disciplined with your betting finances will help you avoid many of the pitfalls of problem gambling. It will also keep you from spending more than you intend and from chasing losses.

It’s also vital that you understand what you’re looking for when placing a sports bet. A beginner’s mistake is to think successful handicappers are merely picking the winning team. This couldn’t be further from the truth. In actuality, they are making predictions based on each team’s probability of winning and then comparing those numbers to the odds, which carry an implied probability. If a side is deemed to have a better chance of winning than the lines suggest, that bet holds positive value and is worth making.

You’ll also notice that odds are expressed in a wide variety of ways. Moneyline odds will be presented in positive or negative three-digit numbers that represent both the degree by which either team is favored and the earnings you may expect either way. Decimal odds are most commonly used in Europe, and these calculate the total payout, meaning both the winnings and the amount that was staked. Fractional odds are usually applied to futures bets and are expressed as fractions.

Online Baseball Gambling Websites

We go into more detail about all of these tips in the following dedicated articles:

About the Sport of Baseball

Despite Major League Baseball being exclusive to Northern America, the sport itself spreads much further. The game is a way of life in Latin America, where a large percentage of the best players in the game get their start. It is also played professionally at a high level in Korea and Japan.

Baseball has a long, rich history. The sport has existed for centuries and seen numerous legendary players turn in Hall of Fame careers, watched miraculous plays executed to perfection, and observed historical stadiums come and go. As the game has evolved, some leagues have been disbanded and/or merged, enormous scandals have occurred, and rules have been altered to fit the times better.

You could dedicate your life to studying the history of the sport and never run out of material. If you’d like to get started, here are some articles specifically about the international game of baseball:

Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball is the highest level of the sport in the world. The professional league is located in North America, with all of the teams except the Toronto Blue Jays calling the United States home. It was initially created when two separate entities, the American League and National League, merged to become one.

What’s interesting is that the two leagues still have slightly different rulesets. During interleague play and the World Series, the home team gets to play by their league’s rules, and the away team is forced to adapt. This makes for intriguing matchups and creative tactics.

The 115-year-old league consists of thirty teams organized into two leagues with three divisions apiece. Major League Baseball has been home to many of the most influential athletes in our country’s history, including Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, and Hank Aaron. Likewise, it has also seen its fair share of scandal and controversy.

For more in-depth articles about specific aspects of Major League Baseball, please read our additional articles on the subject:

The Future of Baseball

Baseball has gone through several different eras and levels of popularity during its long history. It was once the most popular game in the United States, at which point it earned the nickname “America’s Pastime.” After a lengthy strike decimated viewership numbers, the sport was reborn thanks to a steroid-fueled home-run race.

In the post-steroid-era world, the league is once more trying to regain its footing at the top of American sports. With football appearing doomed pending more concussion and brain-health research, could baseball once again be the United States’ preferred game? Only time will tell.

To read more about the future of the game, see our article on the matter: