Build Your Bankroll in the Dog Days of Summer

Discouraged because the NBA Finals are coming up putting an end to what you thought was the betting season? Fret no more. You can still build your bankroll by betting in the summer months. Too many sports bettors think the summer is a lull in the sports betting calendar. Not anymore. The summer offers plenty of betting opportunities. 

Build Your Bankroll with Baseball

On any given day during the summer, there are 10 to 15 MLB games on the schedule. There are numerous markets with baseball, including the ever-popular player props. When you add it all up, there are thousands and thousands of bets on baseball available every day of the week during the summer.

There is money to be made too. Sportsbooks and oddsmakers aren’t as concerned about baseball as they are football and basketball, their money-making sports. Savvy bettors can find their niche and find value.

Your niche might be First Five Innings bets or maybe it’s MLB player props. Whatever it is, you’ll have over 2,400 games to bet on during the summer. And, that doesn’t include the postseason.

Take Advantage of Golf

If you have never bet on golf, you need to start. There is an event almost every weekend. Like other sports, golf offers a variety of markets. The most popular bet, of course, is on a tournament winner.

Betting golf tournament winners can be fun and lucrative. It’s common to find a tournament favorite given +800 odds or higher in the week leading up to the event. 

Other golf markets include head-to-head bets where bettors wager on one golfer to finish better than another. It’s possible to bet on winners of a certain round and there are actually golf player prop bets too.

Like baseball, bettors can take advantage of looser lines when betting on golf. 

Tennis Anyone?

Tennis is another niche sport with tournaments nearly every weekend of the year. Like golf, bettors will find tournament favorites with large plus-money odds leading up to the event. 

There are other betting markets like head-to-head wagering and there are even point spread bets in tennis. 

Tennis bettors find a ton of opportunities when the Grand Slam events are held. Wimbledon and the French Open, for example, will last for two weeks and bettors can scour the betting boards for opportunity.

Summer Football

Yes, Virginia, you can place a football bet in the summer. The USFL is back, but its season ends near the end of June. The Canadian Football, or CFL, begins play at the beginning of June. The season stretches across the summer and ends around Thanksgiving.

Bettors won’t find the wide variety of wagers on the CFL, but it is a chance to bet on football before the NFL and college football start back up in August.

NASCAR

The NASCAR season starts every February and runs through November. Each weekend of the summer, there is a race somewhere. 

Essentially, the same bets you can make in golf are available for NASCAR. There is the race winner, top-5, top-10, top-20 and more wagers available for bettors. 

Also like golf and tennis, bettors have a slight advantage when betting NASCAR. Sportsbooks and oddsmakers are busy preparing for the next football and basketball seasons. That leaves some opportunity for racing bettors.

Triple Crown

The annual Run for the Roses, the Kentucky Derby, serves as the opening leg of the Triple Crown of horse racing. It’s a bit before summer, but the rest of the Triple Crown happens in June.

Both the Preakness and Belmont Stakes generate a lot of betting interest. When a horse has a chance to win the Triple Crown, these races are immensely popular. 

The thing most bettors don’t realize is the amount of races at tracks in the United States and other countries. If you like betting horses, set yourself up with a quality racebook and take advantage of the action during the summer.

See the Horse with Longest Odds Ever To Win a Triple Crown Race

Other Summer Sports 

The NBA holds its well-known draft at the end of June, right after the NBA Finals are over. The first player picked, second player picked, and many other possibilities are available to bettors.

Nathan’s Hot Dogs sponsors an annual Hot Dog Eating Competition every July 4th. The event is covered by ESPN every summer. You can wager on the winner, which has been Joey Chestnut for a while. In addition, you can bet on the winner’s consumption of hot dogs, and more.

The Other Football 

We bet on the real football in the US, but soccer is played around the world. There are several leagues around the world that begin play in the late summer. These include the English Premier League and Bundesliga in Germany.

The MLS, or Major League Soccer, starts its annual season in March and it runs through the entire summer. The MLS Cup is played in October. Teams play 34 regular season games and give bettors plenty of opportunities.