So how come you’re not betting on baseball every day? (And I know you’re probably not.) Perhaps for many of the same reasons you’re not betting regularly on hockey, another sport with great value for gamblers. Believe me, I’ve heard all the excuses. “Baseball and hockey are boring.” “I can’t get with any sport in which a 2-1 score reflects a great game.” “I can’t watch a pro baseball without falling asleep.” “I’ve never even seen a pro hockey game.” 

My question to you is, Are you betting for entertainment or to make money? 

Granted, most U.S. gamblers aren’t nearly as familiar with hockey as they are with the 3 other major American sports: football, basketball and baseball. And, admittedly, baseball lags far behind football and basketball in mass appeal. But both baseball and hockey have traditionally provided great values for savvy gamblers. Not only that, their seasons span virtually the entire year, with Major League Baseball’s first pitch overlapping neatly with the push toward the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup playoffs. 

Most important, both baseball and hockey differ from football and basketball in that the most common form of betting is on the moneyline (which team is going to win, straight up), not against the run-line or puck-line (in other words, the point spread, almost always 1.5 runs or goals). This provides an opportunity for great values when you follow the sports closely. 

Baseball features another unique dynamic in that even though it’s a team sport, it’s really about a single player, the pitcher, against another individual player, the batter. In the age of the Internet, it isn’t hard to determine how a particular pitcher does against a specific lineup, or at a particular ballpark. Hockey’s sort of the same way, only it’s the goalie against the opponent’s entire offense, more or less 1 man at a time. No wonder bookies hate hockey and baseball -- the latter of which is the only game going in the dead of summer. 

At the Desert Inn sportsbook, in fact, we felt fortunate to finish pro baseball season with 1% or less in losses on the books. When do you think we made up those millions of dollars? On “losers” blowing their yearly bankrolls in 17 quick weeks of pro football, and 1 long weekend of Final Four basketball, that’s when. 

So start “betting wise.”, and don’t take a gambling vacation during baseball and hockey seasons -- it could be costing you thousands of dollars a year.