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When it comes to placing wagers and collecting wagers, many people assume the sportsbooks will be fair and honor all aspects of your bet. That is essentially true for upwards of 90 percent of “regular” sports bettors.
If you are betting $5 to $500 a game, most sportsbooks will take the action and you would not incur any problems. But if you placed a bet of $500 on a 15-team parlay and somehow miraculously managed to win, that wager is scheduled for you to win $750,000. While you would expect to be paid the full amount you won, that might not be the case, especially if you didn’t read the fine print of maximum payouts when you placed your bet.
Though you made a legal bet by betting limits, you could have exceeded the payout limits by winning without your knowledge.
Understand Betting Limits
Sportsbooks or bookies have always been in business for one reason, to make money. They know and understand most bettors will lose and the numbers are in their favor. This is true for against the spread wagering, where you bet 11 to win 10 or most money line bets where the losing wagers cost more than winning ones.
Example: -150 odds for a loss and +130 odds for a win on both sides of the same bet.
Most wagers of $100,000 or more have to be approved higher up the food chain at sportsbooks. More and more sportsbooks are not even listing “limits”, instead stating that they have the sole discretion to approve or not approve any wager.
For those bettors that have the resources to place larger wagers, they know the drill at various books. But they are not the only ones facing betting limits.
Winners are Not Always Welcome
Let’s say you like to wager $200 a game and are just a regular guy who likes to bet. Let’s say over two football weekends you go 8-2 and 7-3 on consecutive weekends after opening an account. You netted a profit of $1,900 and were looking to continue your winning ways the following week.
Though your success came from hard work and studying various elements of determining winners, the next time you place a bet you find out your max bet is reduced to $47 per wager.
You inquire as to why and get an answer you are not satisfied with. Here is what you did wrong. Not only did you win, but you also wagered on contests that follow the algorithm of what is determined as “sharp” action. You winning, and who you bet on caused a – red flag – on your account because your wagers are thought to be bets that place the house at more risk.
Understand this, if someone else made the same number of wagers and won at the exact same rate, but took 15 favorites that didn’t cause alarm bells, at least for one more week, that bettor could make 10 bets at $200 a pop. Hence the term – sole discretion.
Keep in mind sportsbooks are trying to protect their interests and there are segments of sports bettors looking to bend any rules that give them an edge over the books. The sportsbooks, just like any casino, are trying to protect their business from manipulation caused by sometimes unscrupulous individuals or groups.
Payouts Limits
Like betting limits, payout limits are not entirely straightforward. If you bet $110 to win $200 and you win, you will get paid.
However, larger wagers that need approval, particularly those that have more exotic payouts that win, might be subject to negotiated payouts.
The aforementioned 15-team parlay that had a payout of $750,000 could be paid out if that customer has a track record of losing and it is the belief they just were lucky. Even then, chances are they might walk away with 75 percent of their winnings or less.
Think of it like the national lotteries where you can win all your money over 20 years of payments or take the lump sum cash amount, which is considerably less than your full amount, but it is yours to do as you please.
Before going into any agreement with a sportsbook, your purpose and theirs are only related to the game(s) you are betting on. Otherwise, this is a cat-and-mouse game in which the cat calls the shots and has advantages over the mouse in trying to win the cheese. That’s why it is called gambling.
