Sports to Bet On

You can bet on football and the racing all week, and the list runs a long way past them: tennis and darts most days, the American leagues overnight, the fight nights, a race weekend a fortnight and esports in a section of its own.

Some of it runs every day of the week, and some comes round once a year and is over by Sunday evening.

Football and the racing

Football starts with the Premier League and the divisions below it, and carries on through the Scottish leagues, La Liga, the Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1, the European cups and the international game, with the domestic cups threaded through the middle of the season.

It takes up more of the book than anything else, by some distance.

The horses and the greyhounds run every day of the week, with UK and Irish tracks through the afternoon and the dogs taking it on into the evening, priced race by race. One from us, because it catches people out: the racing opens from its own section of the sportsbook, not from the sports list.

Everything else you can back

• Tennis, darts, snooker and table tennis. Between them they cover most days of the year, which is why a wet Tuesday in February is rarely a quiet night.
• The American leagues. American football, basketball and ice hockey run week after week through the winter.
• Cricket, rugby and golf. Each has its own season, from the tours and the internationals to the tournaments people clear a weekend for.
• The fight nights. Boxing and MMA are priced ahead of the card and while the fights are on.
• Formula 1. Each race weekend is priced as it comes, with the season as a whole alongside it.
• Esports. It sits in a section of its own on the sportsbook, apart from the ball games.

Before you back anything

Pick a sport to see its competitions, the markets in plain words, what changes once the event is live, and a short list of things worth checking first.

How bets settle, and what happens when an event never finishes, is set out in the Sports Betting Rules. Worth reading once, before it matters rather than after.