Facts about sportsbetting

Betting is probably one of the oldest habits of mankind and has always been an aspect of sporting events, horse racing in particular. The sportsbet became much more popular in the wake of the development of the ball games of the 19th and 20th century, focusing mainly on football. Today the majority of sportsbets, disregarding the still widely popular horse bets, are placed on football matches both domestic and international.

Everyday more people discover sports betting as a unique way of combining fun and the thrill of the prospect of spectacular winnings.

It's a simple process - select an event, e.g. a football match, predict the outcome of it, decide how much you want to bet - and if your prediction is correct you can win several times the amount of your stake. Usually a bookmaker - for example, a company like JAXX - accepts the bet and in a way is betting on a different outcome of the event than you did.

JAXX offers you a wide selection of different sports events to bet on. We have all the major ball games such as football, basketball, rugby, tennis and many more. You can also choose Formula 1, boxing, snooker or darts as your field of betting activity.

The odds define the amount you can win by placing a bet. Fractional odds displayed as X/Y mean you can win the amount of X pounds by risking Y pounds. Example: You have £4 and bet this on a home victory of Aston Villa over Chelsea. The odds are 7/2, so your possible winnings for £2 are £7, betting £4 will leave you £14 richer if you predicted the outcome correctly.

The size of the odds depends a lot upon the expectations of the punters/bettors. In our example it is estimated that most bettors would expect Chelsea to win and will place their bets accordingly - hence the odds are only 4/5, making Chelsea the favourite. Victory of Aston Villa is deemed less likely and the odds for this outcome are considerably higher. (In that case, Aston Villa are the "Underdogs".)

Betting at JAXX is really easy - all you need are a few mouse clicks! How to place your first bet:

1. To place a bet, please log in with your user name and password.

2. Select the navigation tab Sports Betting. Now you can choose the sport you want to bet on in the left column:

3. After you have selected the sport, you can now choose between different groups of events (leagues, tournaments and so on). Click on a group of events (e.g. "Premier League") to list the corresponding events (e.g. Premier League matches) in the central area of the page.

First you will find a list of all available bet types for the selected group of events. Please select your desired bet type unless it is already shown below. If you want to bet that the halftime score at Aston Villa v Chelsea FC is 1-1, select the corresponding field "halftime score" and then Show Selection. Further explanation of several bet types can be found in the Glossary (see in the right column at "Info Links"). For our example we stay with the standard three way bet (Victory Team A : Draw (= X) : Victory Team B).

4. Now click on the outcome of the event you want to bet on. You can see the starting time of the event (generally, JAXX will accept no bets on this event after that time) and the odds. If you place a £10 bet on a victory of the Wolves and the odds are 5/2, and your prediction is correct you will receive £25 winnings (and of course your £10 stakes will be returned)!

5. You can now place your bet by clicking the corresponding button Place Bet in the right column.

You think you have not just one, but several safe selections for upcoming matches or events and want to go for maximum winnings? In that case your bet of choice should be the accumulator (acca), where you bet on two or more events simultaneously. To win this type of bet all predictions made have to be correct. But it's often worth the risk, because in calculating your winnings the odds for the events included are multplied with each other.

Example: You bet on a home victory for Hull, an away win for Everton (odds 6/4 each) and a draw between Birmingham and Sunderland (9/4):

If you place a £4 accumulator bet and all your predictions are correct, you will win remarkable £77.24 (total odds 309/16)