The hardest sports to bet on are cricket, darts, and golf. Whether it surprises you or not, it’s a common find that not all sports are equally easy to bet on, and our BetZillion experts wanted to see if there’s a pattern behind it.
In this guide, we’ve ranked different options from the challenging to the toughest sport to bet on by looking at the numbers. We’ll present our findings below, and then we’ll start our countdown to the official hardest option.
We’ve ranked some sports as moderately difficult to bet on, as they usually require a decent understanding of strategy, stats, and context. The good news is, if you do your research well, you have all the chances of placing a winning bet. Here’s a brief overview of each:
Table tennis is one of the hardest sports to bet on due to the fairly limited data and information about popular players. On top of that, the fast pace of the game makes it nearly impossible to wager on table tennis live, so that leaves you with just the basic pre-match options.
Horse racing is hard even for experienced bettors to make successful wagers. Some markets offered by popular horse racing wagering sites are fairly difficult to understand, especially betting options like the Superfecta, where you need to guess the exact order of the first four horses to reach the finish line. Moreover, a lot of external factors, such as a jockey problem, bad weather, or even poor racing turf, can affect the outcome of a race.
Basketball has one of the hardest odds to bet on, with an array of different markets and options. They include everything, from match-winner or tournament-winner outrights to player props on points, assists, rebounds, and other specials.
Still, wagering on the NBA, the Euroleague, or the FIBA World Cup is quite different, due to the slight differences in rules. So, it’s sometimes a bit tough to follow up with all such details, making basketball one of the most challenging sports to bet on.
College basketball, or the NCAA, is often viewed as one of the most challenging sports for betting, mainly due to teams struggling to keep their young players together for more than one season. On top of that, lots of unpredictable things can happen, such as players’ turnovers.
Plus, it’s the first time that many players are facing rivals in different age groups, which makes it the most difficult step before the NBA. Because recruiting and organizing a nationwide competition involves high travel and logistical costs, college basketball is divided into divisions. Such uneven competition levels often lead to confusion when placing bets, as there’s simply not enough info like head-to-head comparison and previous results.
Baseball has an extremely slight difference separating the best from the worst, especially when it comes to the MLB. It’s often the case that a championship winner has only 20% more wins in a season compared to teams at the bottom of the ladder.
Another thing that’s not exactly common for team sports is the pitcher rotation, where each starting pitcher takes the main stand once every five days. Because of that, it’s simply unpredictable to wager on.
Since the teams are pretty evenly matched and the wagering markets are easy to understand, baseball falls right in the middle when it comes to betting difficulty.
Football is surprisingly on our list of the toughest sports to bet on due to all the external elements like low scoring, no-goal draws, or direct influence of the fans or the referee. Also, the weather conditions and factors like historic rivalries might greatly affect the difficulty of staking on football.
Betting on college American football is very similar to the NCAA, as it brings cross-school transfers and rivalries that make betting on it unpredictable. For instance, the odds almost never truly represent the favorites or the underdogs of the famous game between Michigan and Ohio State, and we’ve had a series of unpredictable outcomes in their matchups.
Besides, the league’s system as such leads to many mismatches, so the margins are often pretty high. Another factor to account for is the constant shift in rosters, as teams can freely exchange players during the transfer window. Plus, there are over 130 teams in the professional college division, making it hard for those relying on stats to make a proper analysis before betting.
Now that we’ve covered some moderately difficult options, it’s time to discuss the hardest sports in the world to bet on. Due to complex betting markets and various factors that can influence the outcome, these sports are especially difficult to predict accurately, even for experienced bettors.
Looking at sports ranked by how hard they are to bet on, cricket takes one of the top spots. Popular leagues like the IPL are fairly unpredictable, with 8 different teams winning the league since 2008. One of the things making it difficult to bet on is the large number of hard-to-understand props like total innings, runs, wickets, and top batsman.
Other factors include weather interruptions, when rain can stop or shorten the match. Additionally, cricket’s complex rules also lead to some confusing odds and markets, such as props on wickets, runs, and bats.
There’s a good reason behind darts being on our list, and it’s the overall inconsistency of players. They’re not to be blamed, though, as darts is a very specialized sport. Plus, you’ll need to know your game in terms of props, with options like the Most 180s, nine-dart finish, or the highest checkout, which truly sound a bit confusing.
Finally, for our number one spot, we’ve got golf as the toughest challenge for bettors. Besides skill and strategy, golf depends a lot on luck. There are also a lot of external factors, like the weather or the course type, that might decide the winner.
Plus, betting on some odds requires you to follow the game for hours, which is not as convenient as wagering on football or basketball.
Overall, the general difficulty of betting truly depends a lot on the sport, and some options like golf, darts, and cricket are among the most challenging ones. Hopefully, this guide will point you in the right direction for simpler sports to stake on.
If you still wish to pursue betting on one of the hardest options, we advise getting to know the sport, popular teams, and individual players. On a side note, sports like MMA and boxing are among the simplest options with rather plain markets like match winner and props by rounds. Drawing the line, we’d say that even wagering on seemingly “easier” sports won’t guarantee a win.
