Maryland sports betting enthusiasts should consider some important advice before jumping into the state’s new legal, regulated online market.
First and foremost: take advantage of every sports betting option by downloading multiple Maryland sportsbook apps.
With seven operators already live and at least three more coming, those looking to capitalize on online sports betting in Maryland stand to benefit most by fully exploring the options.
Maryland sportsbook apps offer big bonus bets & promos
Maryland sportsbooks want your business, and they’ll pay to get it with lucrative welcome bonuses. To maximize your probability of being a successful Maryland sports bettor, you should grab as many of them as possible.
In short, sign up for all the Maryland sportsbook apps.
Professional sports bettor and gambling law professor Harley Redlick explained why:
“Open up as many accounts as you can get and max the bonuses. In the ideal situation, if you’re a novice bettor, open up accounts at like six different sportsbooks. A lot of them have their opening bonus bets where they give you your bet back that you lost. Let’s say two of them, you lose your bets and then four of them, you win either your bet or your bonus bets, then you’ve got four well-funded accounts and you can start line shopping in those four accounts and go from there.”
Here’s what six of the seven live Maryland online sportsbooks are currently offering:
- DraftKings: Up to $1,050 in welcome bonuses.
- FanDuel: A “no sweat bet” up to $1,000.
- BetMGM: A “bonus” bet up to $1,000.
- Caesars: A welcome bonus up to $1,250.
- BetRivers: A second chance bonus bet worth up to $500.
- PointsBet: Five (5) second chance bonus bets worth up to $500 total.
Bettors who sample all six apps can put up to $5,300 in their sports betting accounts. Simply click the above links to sign up for each operator.
In the long term, having as many sportsbook accounts as possible is critical to each Maryland sports bettor’s success.
Line shopping at Maryland sportsbooks is essential
Before placing a bet, it’s important to find the best possible return. This is called line shopping, and it’s no different than searching the Internet or retail stores for the best prices on the product you want to buy.
Moreover, in terms of Maryland sports betting, line shopping will help you become a profitable sports bettor.
Redlick explained it as follows:
“Line shopping is essential. Say you’re opening up a bunch of sports betting accounts and say, based on your research, you want to bet a game tonight, check all your sites and see where you get the best line. You can sometimes get 5% better return on one site compared to the others.”
See for yourself. Visit PlayMaryland’s pages for the Baltimore Ravens odds and University of Maryland Terrapins football betting to check out the odds-on offer for upcoming games.
Beating the sportsbooks in the long term
Redlick’s fellow professional sports bettor Rob Pizzola said line shopping could turn a losing bettor into a winning one.
“If you’re a losing bettor, you will lose less by line shopping. And if you’re on the edge of being a winning bettor and you can’t get over the hump, just by finding the best price you’ve made yourself a winning bettor. If you already win and you’re finding the best price, then you’re going to win more.”
Pizzola explained that line shopping is one of the few ways gamblers can beat the sportsbooks long-term. It’s a simple matter of probability.
“Each sportsbook has lines set and they’re balancing their own liability, as well. That’s why line shopping is so important. One sportsbook might be heavily exposed on one side of a game. Another might be heavily exposed on the other side of the game, so they have to offer competitive lines in that space.
“If you’re betting the NFL, pretty much all sportsbooks are offering -110 spreads. Your break-even point is 52.4%. So, that means you have to win at least 52.4% to not lose money on the NFL at -110. Now if you’re line shopping and you have five, six, seven, eight types of books, you’re going to start to find the side you want to bet at, at much lower numbers, -102 or, in some cases, +100. Now you’ve gone from taking a break-even point of 52.4% and, if you’re betting into a +100 line, your break-even point is now 50%.
“That’s much more accomplishable for someone. Even if you’re a coin-flipper and you know nothing about sports and you’re just picking random games, you’re still much more likely to win when you only need to win 50% of the time rather than 52.5.”
Different apps have different specialties
There is another reason to open as many Maryland online sports betting accounts as possible. Each Maryland sportsbook app and operator excels in different areas.
For instance:
- DraftKings is best for live betting (betting on games in real time).
- FanDuel is the best for same-game parlays. Some sportsbooks restrict parlay betting to wagers placed on different games. But not FanDuel.
- BetMGM offers the most markets for betting.
- Caesars offers the best in-app odds boosts and other promos.
- BetRivers excels at offering betting tips.
- PointsBet outperforms others in terms of the performance of its app and the sheer number of bets you can place.
Other pro betting tips
Nothing can improve your experience more than winning your bet. As Pizzola explains,
“A lot of people will say, ‘Sports betting is for fun, it’s entertaining,’ but I don’t know anyone who is entertained by constantly losing their money over and over and over. The fun part of sports betting is actually winning your bets and celebrating that with your friends. It’s not losing outright. That just creates a pretty abysmal experience.”
To help achieve a positive outcome, Redlick and Pizzola had a few other tips for novice bettors:
- Bet on sports you know and like. “Find sports you’re passionate about or you think you have a feel for or you like because if you’re gonna learn more about it or research it more it’s a lot more fun if you like the sports,” Redlick said.
- Bet small amounts at first and do not bet too often. Redlick’s one exception is: “If you get a bonus bet or a bonus. If you have $100 in an account, but your first bet is a bonus refund bet, then you’ve got to bet the whole thing.”
- Avoid parlay betting in the beginning. Pizzola said it’s going to be “very, very difficult” for amateur or recreational bettors “to ever profit off parlays without getting extremely lucky… I would highly recommend avoiding them out of the get-go until you’re a more pronounced bettor and you understand some more basic concepts over time and you do a little bit more learning.”
