Niche Doesn’t Mean Boring – Betting Value on the Smaller Sports

Now that sports betting has been legal in the US for a while (slowly catching up to the rest of the world), most people at least know that every time they turn on a game, or an event like the Super Bowl comes around they can wager a bit of money and hope to come out with some extra cash.

But it’s not just the major sports like the NBA, Soccer, and Football that you can bet on, and some sports you may have never considered or even heard of might have a lot of extra value. These niche sports certainly don’t get the same attention and betting traffic that huge, global sports do, but that’s not a bad thing – odds tend to fluctuate a bit more so you can find ways to maximize your wager across a number of the best betting sites, and take advantage of the various promotional offers they may have.

So what are some of these niche sports, and how do you find value in betting on smaller leagues?

We’re talking about sports like darts, eSports, and handball, but it doesn’t really need to be just focused on small sports – you can even look at smaller leagues to find events that may offer better value odds than the top global leagues. Generally, some of these niche sports don’t have the same betting volume as major leagues or March Madness level tournaments, which usually works out in favor of the bettor since the odds across various sportsbooks might not be similar.

Take darts as an example – FanDuel and Draftkings are two of the biggest and best-betting sites around, and for most of their major events the odds are nearly identical, but when you look into smaller sports and leagues, there is a lot more variation. Just looking at a recent possible wager on Premier League Darts between Michael van Gerwen and James Wade (two heavy-hitter darts champions), FanDuel listed their Moneyline odds at +174 and -215, but DraftKings had the same wager at +160 and -200. Sure, this may not seem like a massive difference, but when you consider larger sports, the variation may only be a tenth of this, if there is any at all!

We could go on with dozens more examples of how odds vary the further you stray from mainstream and US-centric sports, but basically, it doesn’t hurt to have a look at leagues you may have never considered as a way to cash in a little extra. Plus, many of these smaller sports (especially darts) have pretty intense cult followings, which make their matches wild to watch if you can catch a stream, which might be possible on a few sports betting sites.

New sports, new sportsbooks

Another thing to consider if you want to branch out your betting and dive into some niche sports or learn about totally new leagues is that you may have to be particular about where you go to bet. eSports is a rapidly growing event to bet on, but it hasn’t caught on everywhere, which is both good and bad. It’s great because you can get an edge while odds and probabilities are still fresh for sportsbooks, but the bad news is you may have to hunt a little more for a betting site that lists eSports as something to bet on.

But once again – if you take a little time and do some research on these smaller sports, you’d be surprised with how much information is out there, and those small differences in odds might just be enough to leverage some bigger wins and pad out your wallet.

To summarize, don’t be afraid of taking a look at sports you’ve never considered betting on – you may be surprised and find your new favorite event, and if not you might just want to work the odds and try to win big. Niche isn’t boring, and we think it sometimes means the best value betting.