Cycling Bet Types
In cycling, finishing the race first means that a rider is a winner, but it doesn’t mean the others are all losers. There are plenty of ways to claim a win in cycling racing. For example, a rider can win the green jersey for getting the most sprint points, or a rider can win the title of King of the Mountains.
All of these things make online cycling betting very interesting. There are all sorts of markets you can choose from!
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Rider Betting
Rider betting markets are the most popular of all the cycling bet types. Here are the important types to consider:
- Winner – Who will win the race? If you think you know, you can bet on the race winner, which is the most popular of all cycling bet types.
- Top 3 Finish – There are more than 150 riders competing in an average cycling race. Guessing who will win the race is not an easy task. This is why many bettors opt for a market called the top 3. How it works is that you’re placing your money that your favorite will finish the race as one of the three fastest cyclists.
- Top 10 Finish – Putting money on the favorite finishing the race among the top 10 will not bring you big profits. Instead, this is a kind of cycling betting types that’s great for underdog betting. If you think there’s a dark horse who can finish the race as one of the top 10, you can be sure you’ll get nice odds on that.
- Green Jersey – The yellow jersey is worn by the overall leader in the Tour de France, with other tours using their own choice of leader's jersey. The green jersey goes to the leader in a subsidiary competition, e.g. the winner of intermediate sprints. You can bet on the leader in each competition.
- King of the Mountains – The King of the Mountains award, as well as the polka dot jersey (Tour de France, once again), is given to the best climber of the event.
- Young Rider Classification – This is a kind of bet in which you put your money on which rider of under 23 years of age (25 in some cases) will win the most points.
Team Betting
Cyclists aren’t lone wolves, each one is a part of a pack, the team. Every cycling team is made up of several riders, each with their own specialty. A cycling team is more than the sum of its parts – one rider might be an expert in mountain cycling, another can be a fantastic sprinter. Together, they can bring their team a huge number of points. What this also means that the best individual cyclist does not necessarily need to belong to the best team. You can bet on team classification, that is, wager your money on which team will win the most points over the course of a cycling event such as Tour de France or Giro d'Italia.
Apart from betting on the entire race, you can also bet on individual stages. One of the common cycling betting types is the number of stage wins by a team. Each race has dozens of different stages. In the Tour de France, for instance, there is a total of 21 stages. You can pick which team will win most of them. You can also bet on whether a team will win more or less stages than the margin offered by the sportsbook.
Matchup Bets
Matchup bets are also among the most popular cycling betting markets. The sportsbooks come up with head-to-head rider matchups and it’s your job to pick the one who will finish with more points at the end of the event. Usually, two riders of similar abilities are pitted one against the other so that the odds on either outcome are similar.
Apart from betting on riders’ overall performances, you can also bet on how they’ll do in individual stages of the race. For example, you can put your money on the King of the Mountains head-to-head contest. Basically, you bet that one rider will collect more points in mountains than another from the matchup.
Rider matchups are not the only type of matchups you can bet on. You can also bet on cycling teams pitted against each other, e.g. who will win more points overall at Tour de France – Team Ineos or Bora–Hansgrohe.
Race Stats Betting
There are some cycling betting markets focused on the statistics of the race. For instance, you can bet on the total number of finishers. A race like the Vuelta a Espana has over 200 cyclists, but often not all of them actually get to finish the race. Some give up due to injuries, some have problems with their bikes, while some give up because they’re just too exhausted. You can bet on how many riders will not finish the race.
Another interesting type of wager is whether a record will be broken. If you think the next Giro d'Italia will see a rider setting a new record, there are some books that will let you bet on this market.
Other Special Cycling Bet Types
To make cycling betting even more exciting, some books may decide to include some more exotic types of bets, "specials", in their offer. We’re talking about bets like these:
- Is there going to be a crash at today's stage at the Tour de France?
- Will the same rider win both Stage 21 and the overall points classification?
- Will a rider from Team Dimension Data win the stage on the Mandela Day (18th July)?
- Will a rider from South America win the polka dot jersey at the next Giro d'Italia?
- Is Remco Evenepoel going to win the young rider classification by 2024?
If such bets inspire you to come up with your own betting ideas, you’ll be glad to hear that there are many top sportsbooks that are open to bettor's suggestions.
