What Is a Futures Bet? A Simple Guide for Sports Bettors

Winning a futures bet on an unlikely team will yield a higher payout. If you’re looking for a chance to try your luck with potential long-term outcomes, futures betting could be a good option for you. Comparing moneylines can help bettors choose the right sportsbook to place their futures’ bets with. While a lot of lines can have similar benefits, some sportsbooks list the same team under very different odds. Specifically, in regards to futures betting, lines typically vary pretty widely from sportsbook to sportsbook.

Future bets, as the name suggests, are wagers placed on events or outcomes that will occur in the future, typically in the medium to long term. Unlike traditional bets that focus on a online casino license curacao single game or match, Future bets allow bettors to speculate on the performance of teams or individuals over an extended period or even an entire season. Common futures bets often involve online sportsbooks setting odds to win for individual conferences. In futures betting, people usually bet on who they think will win the whole tournament or event.

You’ll be able to pick the outright winner for a range of competitions, as well as other futures options that are based on performances over a season. When it comes to live sport futures, the seasons will already be in progress. Changes in odds prices could be related to serious player injuries or long-losing streaks that make an ultimate victory seem unlikely.

Soccer has such a big presence in so many countries that there are endless futures bets available at the start of every season. You could bet on the winner of the Premier League in England, Serie A in Italy, La Liga in Spain, the Bundesliga in Italy or MLS in the US. This time, the Golden State Warriors are such big favorites that they have negative odds. Here, if you bet $162.50 on the Warriors, you will take home $100 in profit if they win. If you bet $100 on the Celtics, you will win $700 ($600 in profit + your original $100 bet). Because the Warriors are such heavy favourites, there is not much value in them, even though this example could be available at the beginning of the season.

The odds are great, and the season-long engagement makes futures betting fun and potentially lucrative for all bettors. Futures are a unique sports wager that allows bettors to predict who will win a championship, conference, or division. Teams usually have bigger odds before the season begins because nothing is known about how they perform during the season. If a team is a big underdog but wins some games early, its odds will shrink, and you will lose value.

This is because the Super Bowl is the final game of the NFL’s regular season and so it takes all season to resolve the bet. Conference and division markets focus on narrower fields—AFC, NFC, or specific four-team divisions—offering higher implied probabilities and lower payouts. These bets reward accurate assessments of intra-conference strength and divisional tiebreaker potentials. Users on BettorEdge can propose odds for each division, and other community members can take the opposite side, creating a true peer-to-peer market. Whether you’re a casual viewer or an devoted fan, futures betting can definitely elevate your sports-watching experience.

• Although some online sportsbooks do not allow future bets to be parlayed, others will but the parlays cannot be correlated.
• Whether you’re a casual viewer or an devoted fan, futures betting can definitely elevate your sports-watching experience.
• As you can see, because there is a long season ahead with many variables, there is plenty of value in predicting who will win.
• All bets in that market will be voided as though they were never placed.

Betting on MVP, Offensive/Defensive Player of the Year, and Rookie of the Year prizes hinges on projecting individual performance and team success. Early favorites often include quarterbacks on playoff contenders, while dark-horse value emerges in breakout candidates. BettorEdge’s community analytics surface trends in vote-share projections and seasonal statistics, refining your award market entries.

Sports betting has become so vast that there is something for every bettor. You can bet on everything from the first play to the first inning and, of course, the full game. If your bet doesn’t come through, it will be graded as a loss, and you’ll receive no payout.

In this instance, we would choose to do business with the site that is offering Los Angeles at +500 because that is the best price we can find. The shorter the odds a favored team has, the less value there is to bet on that team because of all the things that could go wrong during a long season. What if quarterback Jalen Hurts or running back Saquon Barkley gets injured? The Philadelphia Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2025 and are favored in the 2026 Super Bowl odds in the +650 range. Meanwhile, the Cowboys didn’t make the playoffs in 2025 and have not made any major moves in the offseason, so their odds are around +6000.

Even though this is not the final result of the NBA season, it is still considered a futures bet. It may not be the last determining game of the season, but all the results of the Raptors still determine it throughout the season. For example, imagine you are sure the Golden State Warriors will scoop another NBA championship at the start of the season.

NFL Season Predictions: 2025 NFL Futures & Betting Guide – All Our Best Bets & Picks in One Place!

However, if you’re correct, the team futures odds on these bets can pay big dividends. If you’ve got a good feeling about a team to make a run at the championship, jumping on the futures odds for them can be a great way to maximize your value. Futures betting odds can offer great opportunities to bettors, but you have to know what to look for. Considering factors such as team and player performance, strength of schedule, and market odds is important when choosing a futures bet.

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Sportsbooks will adjust futures odds during a particular season based on these factors. For instance, top-ranked welterweight challenger Shavkat Rahmonov was priced as a -150 to be the division champion by the end of next year. This price could provide value if you believe Rahmonov will win the title and likely make one successful defense during 2025.

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So, in this case, the bettor would risk $100 to win $450 if the Bills won the Super Bowl. Stick to a plan with small bets from trusted sportsbooks to test your predictions. Before you place any wager, you must know the team and players you are betting on. For example, the Cleveland Browns have +25000 (250-to-1) odds to win the 2026 Super Bowl. If you bet $10 on the Browns to win the Super Bowl and they win, you will receive a $2,500 payout. If Ohio State reaches the semifinals of the College Football Playoff, DraftKings Sportsbook may offer you $40 to cash out before the game.

By offering extended timelines, futures markets reflect season-wide factors—roster moves, injuries, and emergent play-styles—rather than single-game variance. BettorEdge users propose odds and match stakes peer-to-peer, fostering transparent pricing based on collective sentiment. This structure lets bettors benefit from shifting probabilities and build positions that pay out only once an entire season’s narrative unfolds. Betting markets come in many forms but the futures market is one that has increased in popularity as sports betting becomes more and more mainstream. Futures lines can be found at all of the best online sportsbooks and, simply put, they are the odds on a team or player in any sport to win a championship or an award. Generally speaking, the most lucrative odds for futures wagers on teams or players can be found in the time window furthest away from the outcome becoming decided.