Betting on Major League Baseball for the Noob
It’s the start of the season and time to start thinking of your Top MLB Winners for this year!
Whether or not you’ve really put a lot of thought into it, Sports Betting is perfectly legal now!
This does mean that with the start of most “Sports Seasons” there’s going to be a slew of new players coming along that have an interest in doing some gambling and winning some cash by placing their bets on the games. These players will be wagering on their first MLB game(s) and they’re going to want to make sure that they really pay attention here. I’m going to hit up the different types of bets that you can be placing right now to walk away with some dough!
Those of you that do have some knowledge in this area will want to keep on reading as well as I’ll also be going over the best and safest sportsbooks to place your bets! These are all sites that I have been working with for literal decades now in some cases! You can rest easy knowing that any sportsbook I recommend has really put in the time and effort to be listed here.
One could pour over some older articles and see that maybe some sportsbooks have been listed in the past that just aren’t anymore. That’s because once a bookie screws myself or someone else over, that’s it. I won’t deal with them anymore! I take pride in the fact that I know all of the sportsbooks I’ll send you over to are legitimate, no fly-by-night name, and when you win you will get paid!
Let’s go ahead and slide into the stuff for the newer gamblers out there. If you believe that you already know what you’re doing, feel free to just scroll on down to the Best Sportsbooks to visit to place your MLB bets!
So, Where Should I Start?
If you’re new to the world of betting on MLB games, this is a great question! There are 4 streps here that you should follow.
- Become Familiar With The Types Of Bets
You probably already know that the world of Online Gambling goes so, so much deeper than just “I’ll bet these guys are going to win”.
The ‘types of bets’ list that will follow in this area isn’t going to be the most exhaustive, but it’s going to get you out the door and ready to go do your thing and win some money!
- Learn To Read The Odds
Once you’re comfortable with the types of bets that you would like to place, you’re going to want to make sure that you’re getting the best odds and getting the most bang for your buck!
Naturally this means that you’ll have to learn to read them to make sure that you know what all those numbers actually mean!
- Find Yourself A Reliable, Trustworthy Sportsbook
You now know the types of bets you want to place and you know how to read the odds.
Next up is going to be finding yourself a safe place to make those bets to ensure that when you come out a winner, you come into some cash and it actually gets paid out to you!
Rest assured, if there’s a sportsbook I’m promoting here, they’ve made the cut. If a sportsbook doesn’t perform to my standards, they get taken down immediately! If I sent you somewhere shady that ticks you off, I would stop making money. This makes sense, right? There really are a ton of choices out there so you’re going to want to make sure that you’re going with the right ones for you!
Once you’ve made your selection(s) on the where, it’ll be time to really get into it.
- Do Your Homework
You’re going to want to check out the data of the teams as well as the performance of the individual players themselves. Many times a person will decide on “their team” for whatever reason they may have and that’s always their “go-to” team. This is actually a bad decision! As an example, just because they are the home team doesn’t mean that they’re going to be doing very well at any time.
You’re going to want to make sure that you’re doing your homework and keeping up on the best teams, the best players, the best stats, to ensure that you’re making smart, educated decisions. Naturally, the best place to get your stats from is going to be MLB themselves!
Now let’s get into a little more detail about each of those steps I have gone over.
The Types Of Bets
- Money Lines
- Total or Over/Under Bets
- Run Line
- Futures
- Props
- Parlays
Unless you only want to stick to props (which you shouldn’t!) you’re going to have to learn about the different types of bets!
This is where the bulk of your action is going to start off. Once you are able to read the odds, everything will make more sense so let’s go ahead and start off here. This is a straightforward bet and is the type recommended to the newcomers.
The objective here is to pick the winner of a game. That’s it.
As an example, you’ve got a game between the Pirates and the Rockies. Odds are at -136 for the Pirates and +126 for the Rockies. This would mean that the Rockies are the underdog and you would win $126 if you bet $100 and they win.
Going with one of these bets makes the winner irrelevant. You would be wagering on the total number of runs that the two teams in a game would score. Often a half point is added to avoid any ties.
In our example of Pirates and Rockies, if the total is set at 4.5 and the total of runs is 5 or more, anyone that bet the Over would win.
This is a type of Point Spread Betting. A 1.5 point spread would be taken away from the underdog to balance out the difference.
If a team is a four-run underdog, the sportsbooks will push them away from a heavy or medium category underdog letting the players bet that they will lose by less than 2 runs, for example.
This is where some of the more “fun” bets are going to start to take place! Here you will tune into any psychic powers you may think you have and predict things to take place in the future, hence, the name!
As an example, this would really come into play for your bets on who would win the World Series, which you can do pretty much anytime throughout the year at some sites.
Are you familiar with the saying “the early bird gets the worm”? Well, that bird really does here as you can find some absolutely amazing odds if your bets are placed soon enough!
And going along with the “fun” side of things, we’ve got some prop bets!
The prop bets, or proposition bets, are bets that have nothing to do with the outcome of a game. As such, really anyone can place some prop bets with little to no knowledge of the sport itself. These take virtually no skill, you’re really placing your bets just for fun! You may notice that for this reason alone, many gamblers just don’t take these types of bets seriously at all.
Now this is where the fun stops and doing some due diligence will really come into play.
What do you get in exchange for this? Big Payouts.
With a parlay bet, you are essentially placing more than one bet at a time on multiple events or outcomes and there’s virtually always more money to be won this way. However, take a loss on any of the bets that are attached to this and you lose it all!
Now, there are exceptions to this rule. An example is “get your stake returned to you as a Free Bet if you lose by one selection” or something along those lines. That’s all a matter for another article all together.
You may also want to take a look at our page before you take off!
Learning To Read The Odds
While all of the points that are made here are important in their own way, this one here is important in itself.
Let’s say that in our example game of the Pirates versus the Rockies there is a clear favorite on either team or any specific player. All of the legitimate sportsbooks will be clearly showing said favorite, right? But the thing is here, is that they may all have various odds that differ just the tiniest bit.
This means that you place a bet at X site and win $25. Maybe if you had looked around and found better odds you could have won $28. Is there a world of difference here? Of course not! You may be thinking to yourself, “it’s okay. I’m a grown up with a job, I can afford to miss out on three bucks!”
Well, sure, that’s a thing. But if you’re planning on doing a good amount of gambling, that three bucks here and there is going to add up! This is all just a part of placing “smart bets”.
You may be wondering at this point just how to read odds if you’re new to the world of betting on the MLB season, or just new to betting on sports in general. Just take a look at this page and you’ll be ready to go in no time!
Do Your Homework
You’re going to put in the work like this little guy here!
This point cannot be stressed enough.
If you’d like to start making some extra dough by placing bets on Baseball, you’re going to want to be aware of the best bets you can make!
You may find all kinds of people in your day-to-day life that want to “help you” with your betting and letting you know exactly what kinds of bets you should be making, but if Bob at the office really knew as much as he thinks he does, why is he still working there?
I’m not going to get into a ton of detail about this subject right at this moment, but this is important enough that it gets its own page which How Your Research Helps You Become Much More Profitableyou can find right here!
The Best of The Best In Sportsbooks
I have already talked a little about the fact that any of the books that you find on any of my lists have been thoroughly vetted and I have actually worked with a number of them for literal decades!
If you find a sportsbook here you can already take solace in the fact they are a legitimate sportsbook that has been around for many years. They have paid out to their winning customers. They actually have a customer service department that will help you in the case of an arising issue, and the list could go on and on.
Just click on the name of any of these if you would like to check out a full review of each of these sportsbooks, or you can even click on the image of their logo if you would just like to head straight over and start placing some bets!
Bovada
Make no mistake about it, Bovada is just about always going to be at the top of any lists I make of this style. They really can be looked at as probably the best choice for those gamblers that are in the US, (there is a small number of states that are not allowed to gamble at Bovada for legal reasons. If you live in one of those states just keep on reading and I’ll get to one that you can legally gamble at).
This is one of the very first sportsbooks I started to work with many, many years ago and they’ve never let me down! Great promotions, great odds, great customer support, great site all around!
- The MLB Bets
As of this time you can easily find:
- Game Lines
- 5 Inning Lines
- Innings Lines
- Will There Be A Run In The First Inning
- Total Hits, Runs, and Errors
- Team Totals
- Futures
If you are the kind of person that’s just into Baseball as a whole and not just the MLB, you will also find bets for Japanese Baseball as well as College Baseball!
- The Promotions
You’ll find yourself a number of promotions over at Bovada to make sure that you get some real value for your dollar. Naturally there are promotions that are aimed toward the people that are also in the Casino or Poker Rooms, but as for the ones that are Sportsbook specific you can find:
- A $250 Welcome Bonus for those that are using cash and you do not need a code for this to work
A $750 Welcome Bonus for those that are able to make their deposit with Bitcoin or any of the other cryptos that are accepted by their team, use code BTCSWB750 when making your deposit
Make sure that you also take a look at their Referral Program where you can earn some extra cash just by bringing your friends along for the ride!
MyBookie
Here’s one that you may have heard of already just based on the love that customers have for them. MyBookie is talked about quite often all over social media, the radio, TV spots, and on and on.
Is MyBookie perfect? Close!
They have had problems many years ago, yet if you were to really look at the issues that plagued them at the time, you would also see that they have worked tirelessly to fix said issues. I am proud to say that there have been no major issues since I have started to work with them.
MyBookie has also been given the acid test by millions of players since and MyBookie comes through every time!
- The MLB Bets
As of this time you will find the following sets at MyBookie:
- Spread
- Moneyline
- Total
You may notice that this really isn’t the biggest selection around so you may also wonder why they’ve made this list.
Well, for those of you that are into the “Live Betting” bets, you’re going to find one of the best sites out there to get into MLB Betting while the games are underway!
- The Promotions
Like the previous book, and every one that will follow, there are a number of promotions for those that would like to check out the Poker Room, the Casino, or the Horse Racing Track, but as for the stuff that’s geared toward the Sportsbook you can look forward to:
- A $1,000 Welcome Bonus if you deposit with the code MYB50
- A $200 Welcome Bonus if you would like a bonus with smaller rollover requirements, you would need code 200CASH to use that one
- A 25% Reload Bonus on your account reloads with the code MYB25 which you can use as many times as you would like!
BetOnline
Those of you that are into the promotions will absolutely love BetOnline! Those of you that aren’t really into the promotions will still absolutely love BetOnline!
Of course there are so many more reasons to do some gambling over at BetOnline. One of the main reasons here? Their Credit Card Acceptance Rate. No, seriously!
You may find that at other sportsbooks, if you choose to use a card to make your deposits that your card may get declined from the very beginning or even as a returning customer even when you know full well that there’s nothing wrong with said card or your banking account.
You see, this happens often at many sites and it’s not the fault of the site. It’s not the fault of your bank either. There are various laws that have been created by our government to help protect you from doing what you would like with your own money. This is another case of being a matter for another article altogether.
Luckily, we have BetOnline which prides themselves on the fact that they are able to accept virtually any card their way! If you have had a decline at any other sportsbook for whatever reason, go and check out BetOnline where they will more than likely be able to accept it, (especially for those of you that may be looking to make a rather “nice-sized” deposit).
- The MLB Bets
Right now this is what you will be seeing when you look up MLB over at BetOnline:
- Money Line
- Total
- Run Line
Toward the top of the main MLB betting screen you will also see a very clear option to break things down by either Game or 1st 5 Innings.
As the season gets good and going this list will probably get so, so much bigger. BetOnline is good for hosting all kinds of stuff as time goes on.
- The Promotions
Get ready here, BetOnline is going to nail it in this department!
- A Welcome Bonus of up to $1,000 with the code BET1000
- A 25% Reload Bonus> with code LIFEBONUS
- A $25 Risk Free Props Bet
- A $25 Live Betting Free Play
- $50 Refunds for various sporting events
And those are just the Sportsbook specific bonuses.There’s actually a total of 32 different promotions for you to look over to see what tickles you at the time!
SportsBetting
SportsBetting has been around for just under a couple of decades. Long ago they did run into some trouble but there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Instead of closing up shop and running the way an online sportsbook sometimes does, they just sold it all to the aforementioned BetOnline. BetOnline came in, fixed the problems, made good with existing customers, started running the show, and everything has been fantastic ever since!
As such, the MLB action that you’re going to find over at SportsBetting is in fact the same as the action at BetOnline. They’re almost the same site, but if you’re going to take the time to check out one of them you really should be taking at both of them, I’ll get getting to the “why” in just a sec.
- The MLB Bets
Now, since the 2 sites are pretty much the same, you already know that this is what the MLB action is currently looking like:
- Money Line
- Total
- Run Line
No surprises there so there’s just not a lot to say in this area, but just keep on reading!
- The Promotions
The promotions that you find at SportsBetting are almost identical to the ones that you’ll find over at BetOnline, just with different codes that you’ll need for some of them.
As far as promos that have already been glossed over but you would need those updated codes, they’re as such:
- The Welcome Bonus of up to $1,000 would now need the code SB1000
- And the 25% Reload Bonus> would now need the code FORLIFE
Now there’s something I absolutely make sure to tell all players, new and returning alike, pay attention to this one here –
There’s nothing in the Terms and Conditions that says you cannot join both sites. Any promos that you can only take advantage of once at one site? Use them a second time at the other site, between SportsBetting and BetOnline!
Everygame
Now to get into the wonder that is Everygame.
You may have heard of the Online Gambling site, Intertops. They have been around forever. They actually took the first online bet. This would be a very impressive feat in itself if they were still around.
Well, great news! They are!
You see, Intertops decided in 2021 to change their name to Everygame. I have no idea why the name change considering nothing else changed at all at the time, and that’s a fantastic thing! You’re still going to find the same impressive site that thousands of gamblers like yourself have been using for over 2 decades!
- The MLB Bets
As of this moment you’re really only going to find some ‘Game Lines’ and ‘1st 5 Innings’ lines over at Everygame. But if you’re the kind that likes to look forward to upcoming games you’re definitely going to want to check them out.
In fact, right now you can place a bet on the upcoming World Series if you really want to!
- The Promotions
As far as promos and bonuses go at Everygame, you’re going to find what may be considered the most fun of the bunch throughout the year if you keep going back to look.
For their sportsbook specific options right now you can take advantage of:
- A $750 Welcome Bonus when you use the code 3XBOOST250
- $500 Monthly going to the Odds Hunter of the month
- 20 x $50 Parlay Free Bets
- $1,000 Monthly to that months Parlay Prince
- And what may be the best Referral Program that you’ll find anywhere, 35% Commission paid monthly for any friends you bring along with you
CloudBet
Now I want to talk a little about CloudBet but be warned! They’re not for us here in the US! Nope, they’re just out there for our friends that live in other parts of the world.
CloudBet also happens to be a Bitcoin only Sportsbook. This does mean however that you’ll find one of the most incredible bonuses that you’re possibly going to find anywhere.
A Welcome Bonus of up to 5BTC!
While I’m typing this, even with the fairly recent dips, that’s a Welcome Bonus of up to $141,683.50! Go ahead and admit it, you don’t really know anyone else that’s going to give you a bonus like that!
- The MLB Bets
There’s not a ton of action out at CloudBet, that’s to be expected for a site that isn’t allowed to operate in the US!
Right now you’ll find Money Line bets on a few upcoming games and that’s looking like that’s about it. But hey, for a monster sized Welcome Bonus that large, even if you’re not looking to place any money line bets right now, you may as well go see if there’s anything you are interested in!
Wrapping Up
Now that you have made it through this and followed some of the other links that have been posted here, you’re ready to go and make yourself some MLB bets!
Use these tips and in no time you will become a true Sharp in the Online Gambling world yourself!
And Don’t Forget To Take A Look At These As Well!