Ice Hockey Review

Introduction to Ice Hockey Betting

Ice Hockey is one of the four betting professional sports in North America and attracts huge television audiences. The sport is suited to betting because of the simplicity of the scoring. The teams of six players, including the goalkeeper, try to score goals by hitting the puck into a net using a hockey stick in a sport played on ice. Ice hockey is an Olympics sport, so betting increases every four years when there is a men’s and women’s tournament at the Winter Games.

Betting Events

The National Hockey (NHL) is the biggest ice hockey competition in the world. It is also one of the four main betting sports in North America, and the others are American Football, Basketball and Baseball. The NHL season runs from September to April. The season culminates in the Stanley Cup which brings together the best teams from each Conference in a best-of-seven series. There are several countries in Europe which stage matches in domestic leagues and Cup competitions. International teams meet in the annual European Championships and World Champions and the Winter Olympics, which take place every four years.

Betting Types

Ice hockey is a match sport which brings together two teams. The odds for NHL matches originate from Las Vegas, and bookmakers take those odds and trade the prices. Pre-match betting takes place for up to one week before fixtures. Ice hockey is a good in-play sport because the scoring is easy to understand and unambiguous. Bookies suspend betting after a key event such as a goal. Bettors can place wagers on the outright winner of leagues in ante-post betting.

Ice Hockey Markets

The most popular NHL markets are the match winner after regular time, handicaps and totals. These three markets are available by period and are known as the Money Line, Line and Total with US-facing bookmakers. Bookmakers offer up to 100 related betting markets for a typical ice hockey match. The three most popular betting markets can be two-ways by including overtime and expressing the line in half goals. When including the tie, these betting options are three-way markets, so there is always a definite outcome.