A chilly game with a warm appeal, hockey is among Americans favorite pastimes. Perhaps not as popular as other more acclimatised sporting titles, hockey has its staunch supporters, and as it turns – avid bettors. The game has an international appeal with places such as Russia, Canada, and the good old Scandinavian countries fielding their brawny squads to compete against one another. The NHL is of course a showpiece with every US-friendly bookmaker, too! Still, most hockey betting markets are an amalgamation of all leagues and champions around the globe, so don’t be surprised if you see Dynamo Moscow pop as an available betting option.
Let’s take a look at what legal hockey betting in the United States looks like, but before that – a quick looksie at the most exciting features of betting itself. Freebies, bundle promotions and cashing out the currency we have earned, courtesy of our understanding of the game.
Fancy a Bet on the NHL? Find out about the Promos!
Hockey betting in the US and elsewhere is contingent upon good bookmakers. Good bookmakers often set the standards while the bad apples just rot away. With this in mind, it’s hard to pass up on an operator who has prepared a rewarding offer known as the welcome bonus. And while the bonuses are not exclusive to hockey, they do offer great added value to your sports betting forays.
Hockey Betting on the Go
The Privos of Every Bet You Take
Even then, overindulgence with sports betting is counter-productive. You will always have to check out the terms and conditions of every separate offer to make sure that you are complying with the conditions there. Failing to do so has rather pernicious consequences, most common of which, is the fact that your bonus is devoided and any winnings thereafter may not be cashed out.
Picking a US-friendly Bookmaker for Hockey Betting
Our own offer is quite complete when it comes to picking the top-notch bookmakers out there. After meticulously collating data, we have come up with a number of websites that offer sterling hockey lines, with fairly-calculated odds and a fair number of markets and events. These bookmakers may be mostly located offshore, but we have diligently dug into the reams of available online reviews to seek any prove of foul play insofar as personal information is concerned. We couldn’t find any.
Naturally, there have been a few spats with irate customers over devoided bonuses or delayed cashouts, but those things occur in the normal course of running any operator, and they get settled as soon as they are reported.
About the NHL in 2018 – What are the Odds?
With the Stanley Cup FInals upon us, and 32 teams have been through the fray, with only a pair making it to the very finals. Vegas Vikings and Washington Capitals have panned out to be the finalists, and not unexpectedly. At the time of reviewing the Stanley Cup, the Capitals were ahead two games with a fourth one to be played.
Getting the odds straight is difficult, especially if you rely on future betting. The Capitals and Vikings making it all throughout the race is definitely not much of a surprise, although the Nashville Predators seemed quite well-poised to progress as well, but didn’t make the cut in the end along with last year’s champions, the Pittsburg Penguins.
OUR ADVICE: Your best option is to cram the numbers and see what are the top teams in terms of betting odds. Running your numbers across several bookmakers, such as Bovada, Spotbet.com, and Mybookie.ag is a great start to shop around for the best possible numbers! Remember that bookies want to score a profit off your wager. By comparing the odds, you can reduce their advantage.
It’s difficult to call the outcome of NHL events, mostly because teams seem to have their good and bad spells. And while this can be applied to virtually every game, hockey has certainly enjoyed some of the most wowing outcomes in recorded historyLet’s have a look at how things look from a legal standpoint.
A Brief Note on the Odds
If you are new to hockey betting, then you will need to be able to read the types of bets there are. Most commonly, in US-friendly bookies, you will find (-) and (+) symbols followed by a given value. If you have (-125) for example, it signifies that you need to stake $125 in order to win $100, bringing your total proceedings to $225.
Conversely, if you are given (+125), you will simply need to lay down $100 to notch up a $125. The (+) type of is, of course, not as common. Beyond that, there are several main types of bets you need to differentiate between:
Spread – Covering the ‘spread’ is a common type of bet. In it, each team is assigned a value of either (-) or (+) with a given score. The score is the goals/points that are detracted or added to the final score. For instance, we have Tampa Bay (+4.5) play Boston (-4.5). The score finishes with TB 20 and Boston 24. At this point, we add 4.5 to TB and detract 4.5 from Boston, with the final result now yielding TB 24.5 and 19.5 for Boston. In other words, Tampa Bay has covered the spread.
Moneyline – Moneylines bet we just explained in the introductory section. You see the (-) and (+) symbols followed by 125, which means that you either need to stake $125 to win $100, or you need to stake $100 (in the case of a plus), to win $125.
Total – Totals are also known as under-over betting scenarios. Put simply, you bet whether the points that both team score will exceed a given number or if the final score will remain under that number.
Betting on Hockey in the US
Legally speaking, NHL betting is still not allowed in the United States. It’s not allowed not because of any sort of a federal ban. Quite on the contrary. The hurdles have been cleared out and you would not need to worry about actually breaking the law. A piece of legislation that got in the way of sports betting, known as PASPA, has now been defeated. Another one known as UIEGA targets online operations specifically, but now it’s up to every single state to dictate the rules of its own betting venus. It will be a while, but sports betting is taking off across the States. In the meanwhile, you can wager at US-friendly bookies who will gladly accept your wagers.
