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Sports Betting Overview: Definitions and types of affiliate programs

If you’re a beginner looking to get started as a sports betting affiliate marketer, here are the basics you need to know.

Get to know these terms — if sports betting is your niche, you probably already know them.

And when you understand them, communicate them to your site visitors. Explain them. Give your own thoughts on them. Pull your readers in with that kind of sticky content and you’ll be much more likely to win repeat visits.

Odds, point spreads and money lines
Odds are presented in a somewhat esoteric way, meaning, if you’ve never seen sports betting odds before, you’ll need them explained to you.

For example, in the most recent Super Bowl, the Packers were favored to win by three. So, the betting odds were presented as such:
Green Bay Packers: Point Spread -3, Money Line -135
Pittsburgh Steelers: Point Spread +3, Money Line +115

What these numbers mean: The -3 by the Packers means they’re favored to win by three points; that’s the point spread. If you bet on the Packers, they have to win by three or more points for you to win money on your bet. 

Bettors could also choose to bet the money line here. That’s the -135 number, and it means bettors will have to risk $135 to win $100.

That’s a ratio, though; bettors don’t have to risk $135 for $100, they can bet half or another percentage of that. It just represents a percentage. “It’s important to remember that even though money lines are expressed in units of $100, you do not have to bet that much money. The money line will work just as easily with a $5 or $10 wager as it does with a $100 bet,” Allen Moody at About.com helpfully explains.

Proposition bets, or prop bets
These are side bets made on a specific part of a game, usually not having to do with the final score. For example, in the NFL, prop bets typically involve how fast a team will score, what player will score first, even if a certain coach will be fired if the team loses, etc.

Totals
Totals — also called the “over/under”, are betting props that let you bet on a game’s combined final score. The winner doesn’t matter; the total points are the entire basis of the bet.

Parlays
These are multiple bets with very large payouts, but for a win, all placed bets must win. If that happens, though, the combined payouts are larger than what would be possible off just a single bet.

If bets
At least two straight bets, connected with an “if clause”: If such-and-such scores in the first half, then team X will win.

Future wagers
Bets placed before the season begins — or weeks before the game is scheduled, when true odds can’t relay be calculated — are called future bets. For example, most major online sports books are already taking bets for Super Bowl 46.

Head-to-Head bets
Betting against another gambler, and not on the result of the game.

How to get started in sports betting
Here’s where we put it all together.

Your sports betting affiliate program should be marketable to a niche audience. And that should be something you know and, preferably, love.

Consider promoting your favorite sports team on your site, and making that your niche. For example, how great a marketing hook you’d have as an Ohio State booster, given their prominence in the national sports betting scene. (You might’ve had an unhappy February, though!)

That would also give you access to a larger online sportsbook market; college football bettors tend to be college basketball fans, too. (And NFL fans, for that matter.)

Picking your program
Once you’ve got your niche and your marketing plan, choosing an affiliate partner is the easy part.

There are two basic types: A sportsbook or a betting exchange. Betting exchanges are relatively rare but can offer a good alternative to the more hard-line sportsbook odds; in exchanges, odds are decided based on a community consensus. Most of the CAP Listed Programs are standard sportsbooks, which are the more prominent type. 

But basically, no matter what type of betting you’re marketing — whether it’s the NFL or horse racing — CAP Listed Programs, and most other sports betting affiliate programs for that matter, offer a wide variety of odds on almost all international and national sporting events. View their program details here.