Why Cricket Betting Is Huge

Betting on cricket is now one of the biggest betting industries in the world, it's absolutely huge. Whether it be trading cricket on a betting exchange, or having a bet with your favourite bookmaker, the cricket betting industry is now huge.

What Makes Cricket Betting So Popular?

But just what is it that makes betting on cricket such a popular pastime? Well, I believe there are a number of factors. Here are some of the reasons….

  • Different Formats, T20, 50 Over, Test Matches
  • Cricket is Played Nearly 12 Months of the Year
  • Option to Trade or Bet outright

Different Formats for Cricket Betting

Taking a look at the different formats, and with T20 you have plenty of different markets for cricket betting.

Most popular is the Match Winner market, where you simply bet on who wins the match. In the IPL and World T20, this market opens up a whole new bunch of options.

For example, to steal a march on rival bookmakers, some firms will offer excellent money back specials. These can be money back as a free bet if your bet loses, but your team scored over 200 runs.

These might not be offers that will make you rich, but they do represent good value if you’re already having a bet on the match.

50 Over matches are a less popular betting option, unless it’s a World Cup year. Like with the football world up, the 50 Over cricket world cup only comes around every 4 years.

As a result, you have less betting interest in 50 Over competitions.

Test cricket is the third cricket format you can bet on. Again, cricket betting on a Test match is far less prevalent than that of a T20 match.

If you like to trade cricket matches though, Test matches can be ideal. I'll go into that more later in the article.

Cricket is played nearly all year round

If you live in India or the UK and like betting on cricket, you will be aware that the sport is seasonable based. So in the UK for example, outside of the warmest 5 months of the year, there is no cricket.

The good thing is that due to the countries that participate in cricket, it’s a sport that is played all year round.

In the UK, you will get international cricket from May to September, domestic slightly longer. While Down Under in Australia, you will get cricket played from early October until February.

Sandwiched in between are international bilateral series, and domestic events like the IPL, the Caribbean Premier League, along with all the other smaller leagues starting up all over the globe.

If there is a 2 week window anywhere in the cricket calendar, rest assured someone will fill it.

It won't be a competition as popular as the IPL (Indian Premier League) for example, but it will still be an event.

And these are all huge markets cricket betting punters will want to bet on.

The ability to Trade or Bet on Cricket

Not only can you bet on someone to win a particular cricket match, you can also trade a match while its in-play.

What this means is you can place a bet on one team and then lay it off for a profit, no matter what the outcome of the match. It’s a bit like buying shares for 1 dollar, and then selling them when they are worth 1 dollar, and 20 cents.

Obviously, those trades can go in the opposite direction and cost you money.

Where trading cricket is especially low risk, is in a Test match. With teams having 2 innings each, and matches lasting up to 5 days, it is fairly simple to trade a Test match for profit.

Trading a T20 can be more profitable, but it can be significantly more risky. The whole price of a match can change on one ball at times, and can leave you well out of pocket, if you’re on the wrong side of the price swing.

Using Test matches to trade is far more sensible, especially if you are new to cricket betting.

Think of a Test match. An Over with absolutely nothing happening in it gets bowled, and the draw will slightly shorten.

You can be assured that if there is a slow passage of play, the draw odds will come in. Once bowlers start tiring, and/or a batter gets themselves in and is feeling confident, and the runs then start to come, the draw drifts again.

Also, whenever a batter gets out, the draw can drift, as the game is moving on.

Cricket's popularity continues to Grow with the IPL

Although cricket comes behind football in the UK when it comes to the popularity stakes, it’s not the same around the world.

Take India for example, yes, they love English Premier League football there, but not as much as they love their very own IPL.

The IPL is a cricket franchise tournament played in the T20 format. It has 8 franchises, and every year these teams attract the best players from all over the world.

The tournament is played from around mid April, until the end of May. It is just 6 weeks of endless cricket, and endless cricket betting.

The IPL is the stand out domestic and franchise tournament in the cricketing world. It is arguably the biggest tournament of all, even when you compare it to international tournaments.

There are other huge T20 franchise competitions, such as the Big Bash in Australia, and the Caribbean Premier League.

All these tournaments are played at different times of the year, but they also all compete with each other for popularity. If the IPL sees the Big Bash doing well, they want to do even better.

And it’s competitions like this that facilitate the continual growth we now see in cricket, and help to keep taking the sport to new levels.

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