What is Outright Betting?
Outright betting is the most straightforward type of bet you can place as you are simply backing a team to win outright in a competition. There is no fine print or hidden clauses because you are simply betting on who will be the overall winner of a particular competition. It’s all in the name and it is refreshingly simple. However, that doesn’t mean some prior knowledge won’t help you before making your selection.
It is always a safe practice to research as much as possible before deciding who to back in any outright market. But more on that later, let’s first look at a few different examples of what outright betting is.
Football Outright Betting
Outright football betting is the most popular outright market out there given that football is the most played game in the world, so without any further ado, let’s dive straight into it. If you were placing an outright bet on football, you would be backing a team to win the league or cup.
In most cases, outright football bets are placed before a ball has been kicked in the competition because the odds are always better at this stage. This is primarily down to the fact that we don’t know what’s going to happen even if we have a very good indication of who will eventually end up winning the title. Sport is, after all, unpredictable by its very nature.
You only need to look back on Leicester City’s title-winning season during their 2015/2016 campaign to understand this. Before the season started, the Foxes were priced at 5000/1 in the outright market to win the Premier League, which prompted Leicester City fan, Leigh Herbert, to put a fiver on them to do just that. Herbert is a devout Leicester fan so you can imagine the bet was placed as much out of a sense of duty than anything else. Just nine months later, however, Herbert was celebrating an extraordinary win as Claudio Ranieri’s men lifted the Premier League trophy.
That is undoubtedly the most famous example of an outright winning bet before the league started but it’s worth pointing out that you can also bet on an outright winner even while the season is ongoing. Depending on which stage the season is at will dictate the value in odds you get. In this instance, let’s say you were perusing the latest Premier League outright markets at the start of December, you would see Man City, Liverpool, and Chelsea being tipped as the outright favourites at value-packed odds out given that there is a bottleneck at the top of the table. But you can imagine a scenario quite easily where City or Liverpool run away with the league from the start as they have done in past seasons, which would reduce any outright winner value quite dramatically.
In the past, outright winner markets were only available on landmark events like the World Cup or Champions League. But today, your options are quite literally endless given that you can bet on most leagues around Europe with the latest odds readily available from the seemingly most obscure leagues like the Swedish top flight, the Allsvenskan.
Outright Betting in The World of Sport
If you’re not a football fan but enjoy the idea of outright betting, good news! Outright betting isn’t just limited to football and can be found across the world of sport as can be seen on our site. Indeed, you may ask what does outright betting mean in horse racing and the answer would be that it is exactly the same as football, only you are betting on horses and not footballers.
So, if the Grand National is coming up, you would be given a list of outright winners for the event from which you can choose a horse that you think will win the race. These odds will naturally vary from the favourites to the longshots. Interestingly, on five different occasions over the Grand National’s history, horses priced at 100/1 outright winners odds did win, with the most recent example coming in 2009 when Mon Mome won by an astonishing 12 lengths at Aintree.
From horse racing to the IPL, NFL, Rugby Union World Cup, darts, and even Formula One outright betting, the outright betting definition doesn’t change and the concept stays the same as you try and pick an outright champion. But what is the best way to succeed?
Outright Betting Tips
When it comes to outright betting and increasing your chances of winning, there really is no substitute for research. If you’re just learning the ropes then informative blog posts such as ones that provide football outright betting tips will help you get the expert’s opinion on who is likely to be an outright champion. Indeed, tapping into the wealth of knowledge that these tips provide will increase your chances of winning as opposed to, say, having a hunch that Burnley will win the Premier League because you ran into a confident-looking Sean Dyche during pre-season.
It’s important to play the long game when it comes to any outright market, especially in football as a season can last for nine months. So let’s say a team like Norwich gets off to a fast start by winning their opening five games, the chances are that the likes of Man City and Liverpool will still haul them in and finish above them so it doesn’t make sense to put the house on the Canaries winning the Premier League outright just yet. Indeed, don’t become impulsive when the minnows fly out the traps, even if Delia Smith is already cooking up a celebratory Toad in the Hole for her troops.
In essence, take heed of what the latest outright tips are suggesting, hold your nerve and concentrate on the long game and you’ll be well placed when it comes to outright bets.