Finding Hidden Gems: Betting on Unpopular Sports

[albert0bsd]

I want open this thread just to get some ideas from regular and experienced users

For the short time I've been exploring the Gambling Discussion Board, I've noticed that most conversations revolve around betting on popular sports like football soccer and NFL, NBA, tennis, cricket, and occasionally boxing. These sports dominate the discussions and, understandably, the betting markets due to their massive fan bases and consistent events. However, this has also led me to wonder:

Are there less popular sports where betting odds might be less precise, potentially providing opportunities for bettors to exploit inefficiencies?

Why Unpopular Sports?

In highly popular sports, bookmakers invest heavily in algorithms, historical data, and experts to fine-tune odds. The margins for error are minimal, making it harder for bettors to find favorable odds. In contrast, less popular sports might not receive the same level of analytical scrutiny. Bookmakers may lack sufficient data, expertise, or incentive to optimize their odds, especially for niche events or leagues.

What Are These Niche Sports?

And finally What are your experience on this unpopular sports and gambling?

[Julien_Olynpic]

I don't think that unpopular sports should be used for possible earnings. Perhaps the author of the topic does not fully understand all the disadvantages of unpopular sports.
If you allow me, I will try to list the disadvantages that are obvious to me:
1. If the sport is unpopular, then few people will bet on it, which means it is unprofitable for the bookmaker. Some kayaking and canoeing competitions will attract the attention of a few, but the bookmaker will not be able to make money on this. And bookmaking is a business. The bookmaker makes money, and does not engage in charity.
2. Yes, the bookmaker's analytics for unpopular sports may be insufficient. But as a rule, this is compensated by high bookmaker commissions. As a result, this is unlikely to be of interest to the player.
3. The bookmaker's line will have few matches and competitions for this sport. Your games will be rare.

[viljy]

I found such information on the distribution of sports betting in 2019:
Football - 38%
Tennis — 25%.
Hockey — 10%.
Other sports — 9%.
Basketball — 8%.
Volleyball — 5%.
Table tennis — 5%.

I would like to note some peculiarities of betting on unpopular sports. Firstly, there is much less money being drawn there, because there is a smaller audience of fans. Secondly, due to the low attention paid by bookmakers to the study of these competitions, betting there will be more like a gambling game.
From the point of view of the player himself, he should be interested in this sport in order to study athletes, teams, in order to bet more confidently. For example, even for the sake of betting, I will not explore something that is not interesting to me. Here it is necessary to decide what is primary - an interest in a particular sport or just a desire to bet for the sake of winning.

[_act_]

What Are These Niche Sports?

And finally What are your experience on this unpopular sports and gambling?

You will not likely be seeing unpopular sports in bookie sites. Bookies will prefer to provide the sports that their customers are betting on very frequently. The sport betting sites know these sports and these are the sports that they can only go for. It is good not to make a mistake, thinking that there are ways to make money from the bookies. If they provide a service, they provide it in a way to make money and not for people to win more than they will gain.

[Davidvictorson]

And finally What are your experience on this unpopular sports and gambling?

My experience with gambling has always revolved around popular sports such as slots, football. Some unpopular sports that I have heard so much about and may likely try my hands on in the future are curling, E-sports, Japanese baseball, Eurohoops. Another not so legal sports I will like to bet on is cock fighting. The latter is just for the thrill and curiosity of it.
On the other hand, I think that unpopular sports may be relative. As a local online casino may have those sports and their odds would be high but as they move farther away from the region it becomes unpopular.

[Ziskinberg]

Are there less popular sports where betting odds might be less precise, potentially providing opportunities for bettors to exploit inefficiencies?

Look for local leagues, like in our country, where we have the PBA (there’s a thread about it here). I’ve noticed that the betting line can move significantly, which implies that there’s not enough money coming in from public bets. That’s likely why sharps are able to move the line. With that in mind, it means they’ve spotted an opportunity, and the best strategy to win might be to follow their lead. However, determining if the movement was really caused by sharps is another challenge, but it’s something we can research.

[danherbias07]

Table Tennis is one. Unpopular sport but there's an event almost every day and the games could sometimes go as much as 20 games in one day. I can say because I've tried to make a parlay in those games and I ended up winning something like x50 and then I cashed out without even letting my parlay ticket end.
They are not hidden gems because what I did was blindly betting only. Most of my bets on that ticket are favorites and I am just lucky it ended as how I predicted it even without the knowledge about the sport.

[Russlenat]

Are there less popular sports where betting odds might be less precise, potentially providing opportunities for bettors to exploit inefficiencies?

Look for local leagues, like in our country, where we have the PBA (there’s a thread about it here). I’ve noticed that the betting line can move significantly, which implies that there’s not enough money coming in from public bets. That’s likely why sharps are able to move the line. With that in mind, it means they’ve spotted an opportunity, and the best strategy to win might be to follow their lead. However, determining if the movement was really caused by sharps is another challenge, but it’s something we can research.

I agree with that, but my problem is I’m not good at figuring out which side is influenced by sharp bets and which side I should bet on. It’s really challenging and takes a lot of time to research. I’ve tried, but I haven’t had much success applying it in practice. I can’t lie as I’m not profitable, so that pretty much concludes that even if we have these kinds of hints, not knowing how to take advantage of them won’t help us. One thing I’ve noticed is that in a league that’s not very popular, it’s pretty common to see frequent line movements. However, it still depends on how bettors analyze those changes.

[Solosanz]

But, there's a chance if the casino void your bets even you won in these unpopular sports.

I think there's not many difference, usually in unpopular sports which already dominated by a player or team, the player or team is a heavy favorite. Why you not bet on women sports though? most of the time women sports are unpredictable, so the odds is higher.

[Frankolala]

Your local casino can solve your problem because they are the ones that will have unpopular sports. However, you should know that winning is mainly on luck and even if you bet on those unpopular sports, if you are not lucky, you will not win. Casinos prefer popular sports for their customers because that's how they will make good profits when they have more bets and few winners.

[Peanutswar]

Ive never seen a unpopular games or sports existed because of course if someone knew the game its not already unpopular because its created already a noise to the people that these games are good also we know that most of the casino right now always bring what does the players want and if you are the casino do you want to bring a food to the table that people doesn't want to eat?, I guess no so I guess these unpopular games are base on the community games that does only exist in the local community or country only.

[bangjoe]

I will say that it might be there and the OP has a way to find it, but on the contrary sometimes unpopular sports have a freedom of manipulation that can happen right? I saw this in an e-sport match and I thought it also entered into an unpopular bet and there I took seriously there were a number of matches that were manipulated by certain parties, even though they were not dealers but the teams.

But yes, all forms of betting both well -known or not have the risks, the size of the risk depends on yourself in the understanding of every condition in the sport.

[Fiatless]

And finally What are your experience on this unpopular sports and gambling?

If you consider gambling as entertainment, your priority will be to bet on the games you enjoy. There is no need to bet on games you don't understand or have an interest in because it will be boring. I don't also think that unpopular sports will be easy to win because casino owners give all games the same attention to avoid losses. If winning unpopular games was easy, most gamblers would have discovered the loopholes and taken advantage of them. I have not considered betting on these unpopular sports because most betting platforms don't offer them. I suspect that the low patronage might be the reason for the scarcity of these obscure sports.   

[Odusko]

I would like to note some peculiarities of betting on unpopular sports. Firstly, there is much less money being drawn there, because there is a smaller audience of fans. Secondly, due to the low attention paid by bookmakers to the study of these competitions, betting there will be more like a gambling game.

It is nothing other than gambling and the probability of winning big there will be very minimal even though the risk there is also high and they won’t get anything big from there. Bookmakers are sceptical in their business and won’t want a situation they don’t make money due to low turnout of their customers. The popular sports have already won the attention of many, so going to focus on other places where the results are not marketable for the customers is not reasonable, you’re only going there to risk your money more and may probably not get any good result from it. Football still remains the most popular sport betting game, I don’t even think any other sports can surpass it and this is due to large number of audience interested in it and putting lots of money in them because of their popularity and use case often.

[EarnOnVictor]

Are there less popular sports where betting odds might be less precise, potentially providing opportunities for bettors to exploit inefficiencies?

sposrtbooks.
My experience shows that unpopular sports do not give the bettor any advantage over the popular ones, but on the contrary, the popular ones give the bettor the advantage of better availability with sportsbooks.

Why Unpopular Sports?

The only reason I can think of for going for an unpopular sport for betting is if I have a natural like for it and love to watch it often and even bet my money on it.

And finally What are your experience on this unpopular sports and gambling?

Nothing astonishing to make me always want to bet on them, and not even the offered odds.

[DubemIfedigbo001]

And finally What are your experience on this unpopular sports and gambling?

I've no personal experience with it, although I bet on them when a familiar person places the games and send me booking codes, else I don't have interest in it and only go for what I understand and an comfortable with which is sports betting and some few casino games.

I enjoy sports betting a lot and that's where I cast most of my stakes. I don't find it fun learning and staking on games I cannot discuss with my friends and we cannot gamble collectively on since they've no interest in exploring it. Seems to me like doing something weird. It's not a thing for me

[mindrust]

There was another thread where people were discussing horse racing. I think horse racing is exactly what you are describing in your post. It is not popular in many parts of the world but everybody knows what horse racing is. It is like football too. Instead of studying the players, coaches, referees etc; you need to study horses, their riders, the surface of the track, the weather etc… It gets quite complicated quite fast when you get into it. Addictive too. I know many people who are obsessed with horse racing. Give it a try.

[Gozie51]

In highly popular sports, bookmakers invest heavily in algorithms, historical data, and experts to fine-tune odds. The margins for error are minimal, making it harder for bettors to find favorable odds. In contrast, less popular sports might not receive the same level of analytical scrutiny. Bookmakers may lack sufficient data, expertise, or incentive to optimize their odds, especially for niche events or leagues.

Sports is majorly for business and investment with fun attached to it and so both the fan base and the bookmakers are all going for the Mark base. The bookmakers reach out to sports that they can regain investment plus profit while gambling profer to bet on sports that they can easily access both visually and physical like football. You can easily watch your favorite team on the television while getting the benefit of gambling also. Unpopular games by contrast are difficult to follow because they lack fan base and marketing/investment.

For example, unpopular sports like chess boxing or underwater hockey are hardly followed, thus bookmakers are less interested because of poor investment potential from them.

[Popkon6]

When gamblers bet, they are basically experts in the subject and the sport they are familiar with and they choose the team from every angle and they bet on that team. Because every gambler bets to win, that is why they bet more on football, cricket, basketball, boxing because these games are constantly becoming popular with people. That is why every gambler is popular. I have seen more bets on football matches, because every bet is attracting gamblers towards football matches.
The reason why unique games are also popular is that the games are not known and the amount of bets in front of gamblers is low, that is why those games are slowly becoming unpopular.

[rdluffy]

I follow and enjoy surfing a lot, and it was very difficult to find a place to bet on the world championship and when I did, I managed to win a few good bets
But it's a very unpopular sport in the betting world

I even understand that the options are more limited, since in soccer, for example, you have many variants to bet on other than just winning, and in other sports the options are generally very limited

Has anyone here ever bet on sports like surfing or skateboarding, for example?