The emergence of online sportsbooks in the early 2000s ushered in a new era for bettors. It meant a drastic shift from people having to make their way to a high street shop to place a wager and, as a result, take whatever odds that bookie had available. Instead, with multiple online betting sites conveniently accessible, bettors had the power to compare odds between different platforms for an increased chance of grabbing better value.
It was a complete digital revolution of the industry. To see how far things have come, you can discover top UK betting platforms on Legalbet, a review platform where experts explore and rate different operators. These days, sportsbooks offer plenty of features you’d never have found in traditional betting shops, such as welcome bonuses, live streaming, live markets, and more. Along with that came a flood of new terms that never existed in the industry before this revolution. Let’s take a look at a few of them.
Cash Out
The Cash Out phrase in sports betting is a direct result of the innovation that only online platforms could provide. The feature allows bettors to settle a bet (cash out) early to guarantee a return. A bookmaker will offer a reduction in odds to settle a winning bet, and in some instances, even allow the punter to decide how much of the bet they want to cash out (partial cash out). This is to give bettors a chance to mitigate the risk of letting the full bet ride on the final outcome. At a physical bookmaker, once a bet slip was handed over, it was locked in until the final result.
Bet Builder
Also known as a Same Game Parlay, the Bet Builder is another online innovation to arise from the introduction of sports betting. Before it was introduced, a bettor could only create an accumulator of selections from different events, like the winners of different horse races.
But the Bet Builder, which is now extremely common, allows combinations of options from the same football match, for example, to be put together in a bet. So now punters have the option of putting together something like the Match Result, Player X To Score and Over 3.5 Goals for the FA Cup Final.
Laying a Bet
When betting exchanges came along and joined the ranks of traditional online sportsbooks, they introduced an entirely new phrase to sports betting of ‘Laying a Bet’. As a betting exchange is a bit like trading on the stock market, bettors using the peer-to-peer platform suddenly had the option to make a wager against a particular outcome happening.
As long as a Lay Bet gets matched on the platform by another bettor, the wager is active and is essentially like betting that a particular horse will lose. There was nothing like this in traditional land-based bookmakers, and it has also played a part in introducing another now-popular betting term, which is “arbitrage”.
Arb betting is where a bettor lays an outcome on an exchange and bets the other side of the same market at a traditional bookmaker site, generating profit regardless of the result (due to discrepancies in odds). Arbitrage in its simplest form had existed even before the arrival of online platforms, for instance, when odds varied between different bookmakers. But the introduction of betting exchanges greatly expanded these opportunities, making it easier for punters to spot and act on price discrepancies in real time.
Welcome Bonus
Punters weren’t treated to the glut of welcome bonus offers before online sportsbooks appeared. A local betting shop wasn’t about to hand out free bets just for walking in and placing a bet. Why? Largely because you didn’t need an account to bet in a shop, unlike doing so online.
Given that the online sportsbook industry is extremely competitive, the welcome bonus phenomenon arose, as operators looked for a way to entice players to their services over those of their competitors. A welcome bonus typically introduces the next item, something another thing unheard of before online sports betting.
Free Bets
Free bets are typically given out in a welcome bonus, and can be earned through other features like Acca Clubs, Rewards Clubs and as compensation if a certain qualifying bet fails to win. A free bet is just a credit for a certain amount of stake (which is not returned with any winnings from it), and they are sometimes limited to certain markets and events. Just the logistics of managing this would be too much for a bookmaker’s shop, but it’s something that’s easily handled online, and they serve as a way for bookmakers to earn and retain customers.
More to It
Other phrases have become common because of online betting, like Matched Betting, Rollover Requirement, Arbitrage Betting and In-Play betting. It highlights how things change and just how much online sportsbooks have altered the industry.
