A guide to long-term betting

The start of a new season always comes with renewed optimism for everyone from Golf players to NHL teams. But will it bring the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat? For sports bettors, a new season is the time to place long-term wagers such as futures and seasonal bets. Continue reading to discover what futures wagers mean, the most popular types of seasonal bets and some essential tips for making smarter long-term wagers.

What are futures bets?

Technically speaking, all bets are placed on events that will happen in the future. In the sports betting world, a so-called “futures bet” is the name given to a wager that will finish in the long-term future such as weeks, months and even years from now.

Case in point, the former Liverpool, Wigan Athletic and Sheffield Wednesday goalkeeper Chris Kirkland. When Kirkland was 11 years old, his Dad and some friends had placed bets of £100 each at 101.0 (+10,000) odds that he would play for the senior England national team before the age of 30. Fifteen years later, at the age of 26, Kirkland made his debut for England and a cool £10,000 each for his Dad and his delighted mates.

Futures bets (or Futures) are different from wagers on the outcome of a single game because they’re single wagers that have a longer life than a standard bet. However, it’s important to remember that even though the odds on futures bets may change, the wager is only valid for the odds listed for the initial bet.

So, apart from betting on outcomes that might happen years from now, what are the best futures wagers in sports?

Popular types of futures bets

Futures bets are prevalent in all types of sports. In the NFL, for example, there are tons of futures bets available such as:

Super Bowl winners
Conference Champions
Division Champions
Defensive Player of the Year
Most rushing touchdowns.

Perhaps the most popular futures bets in the sport are over/under (O/U) win totals. This is where sports bettors estimate how many wins a team will have in the regular 17-game season.

For example, in the upcoming 2024/2025 regular season, the highly-fancied San Francisco 49ers O/U is set at 11.5 with some sportsbooks. As sportsbooks don’t like pushes, i.e., when a bet is neither won nor lost, many bets, including O/U wagers, are offered in half numbers. That way, any O/U bet on this market will result in either a win or a loss.

The beauty of futures is that there are futures bets for everyone. In the Euros 2024 in soccer, for instance, some of the more leftfield futures wagers include:

The lowest-scoring team
Total penalties missed
Highest scoring group
Total extra time goals
Total yellow cards.

With so many weird and wonderful futures available, it’s easy to see how they keep everyone from sports bar regulars to seasoned sports bettors engaged. But that’s not the only advantage of futures and long-term betting.

The benefits of a seasonal bet

As mentioned above, futures wagering provides punters a season-long way to engage with their favourite sports leagues like the NHL and MLB. But more importantly, futures offer sports bettors and casual punters more opportunities to win.

Specifically, futures betting lets punters:

Gain potential high returns - as futures betting odds tend to be higher, there may be more hidden value when placing futures bets than when betting on individual games. Imagine the future odds for the favourites for Wimbledon, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, who both have odds of around 2.7 (+170) with many sportsbooks. A $100 bet returns a tidy profit regardless of which one of them ends up with the winning trophy in his hands.

Diversify bets - a futures bet allows punters to diversify their sports betting portfolio. In addition to popular wagers like player props, money lines, first goalscorer, totals, etc, futures bets allow punters to have multiple ongoing wagers at once. For instance, if the 49ers don’t cover the points spread in a game, they win. While a short-term bet might not win, a futures wager such as an O/U on total wins bet could still hit big down the road.

Methods for successful long-term betting

As the late, great American playwright Neil Simon once said: “There’s no such thing as a sure thing”. That’s also true with all sports betting, and in this case, futures betting. That said, there are some strategies that can help punters make smarter futures bets, such as:

Hedging bets - when it comes to hedging, i.e., placing wagers on the opposite outcome of an original bet, it’s about knowing when or if it’s the right strategy at all. Consider a punter called Jack wagers $100 the over on 11.5 wins @2.05 (+105) for the 49ers. Now let’s imagine that due to some unforeseen injuries, they start the season 0-2. Under these circumstances, it could be time for Jack to hedge and bet the under.

Alternatively, it could be time for Jack to use the Cash Out option. While the original over 11.5 bets would return $205 (including $105 profit) if successful, cashing out offers Jack the chance to recoup some value from what appears to be a losing bet.

In this case, Jack could be offered to Cash Out at $50, thereby cutting his losses while he still can.

Studying the form book - any potentially successful bet involves a basic amount of research. For sports like the NBA, NFL and NHL, that starts with monitoring the Draft, postseason trades and acquisitions.

After that, Jack will need to study a team or player’s schedule, form and any injury concerns. And where applicable, look at factors such as expected goals and expected value (EV) and how they could impact both short term bets like player props and long term wagers such as over/under total wins.

Employing bankroll management - long-term betting strategies are great for bankroll management and vice versa. That’s because long-term wagers like futures help bankrolls last longer than most single bets. This, in turn, mitigates Jack’s risk of ruin while also promoting more balanced and thoughtful wagering.

Potential drawbacks of futures bets

When they say the house always wins, they’re talking about the house edge. By definition, the house edge is the average gross profit that sportsbooks and casinos can reliably expect to make from each game. It’s the house edge that makes future bets potentially unsuitable for some sports bettors. That’s because futures bets typically have a larger house edge than most single-game wagers.

Single-game wagers have a house edge of around 4.5%, while futures bets, such as wagering on the NBA MVP or Stanley Cup winners, can have a house edge as high as 25%. Like all betting, it helps to calculate the risks of future wagers and determine if it’s right for you beforehand.

Another pitfall of futures betting is that it offers a poor turnover rate.

The issue is that with these types of bets, punters sometimes have to wait for months for the wagers to settle. While bets are still pending, that money, i.e., the amounts staked, isn’t working for the punter, resulting in a poor turnover rate. In practice, the money wagered on futures is no longer available to the punter while bets are still pending. So because their bankroll has shrunk, they now have to make smaller bets on single matches to stay within the limits of reasonable bankroll management.

That’s why many professional sports bettors only invest tiny amounts of their bankroll into futures. That’s because they would rather have as much disposable cash as possible to bet on single matches, where they can extract value over and over again during the season.