How to bet on hockey

Hockey is one of the quickest paced and most exciting sports on the entire planet. With with a huge amount of games taking place around the world each year, there are plenty of opportunities for you to make money by betting on the sport.

While hockey is certainly very popular across the world, especially in Central Europe, Eastern Europe  and Scandinavia, the best known and most popular hockey division in the world is the NHL, the National Hockey League, which takes place in the United States. 

The NHL is where bettors will find the most in-depth hockey markets and it will also be the one that is the most easily accessible to watch. 

The NHL season takes place between October and April, with the Stanley Cup tournament taking place  in May and June. 

The NHL hosts over 1,200 games each season, with every team in the division playing a total of 82 games each, presenting bettors with plenty of opportunities to place a bet. 

Most of Europe’s main league follow a similar structure to the NHL, with the most notable divisions being the KHL (Russia), SEL (Sweden) and the Czech Extraliga (Czech Republic).

In terms of international tournaments, the IHF World Championships take place annually in a different host country throughout the month of May.

This is a simple bet on what you believe the result will be at the end of the game. This goes down to three options- home team, away team, or draw.

It is worth remembering however that hockey does go into overtime if the game ends in a draw at full-time, so it may be worth checking if the sportsbook you are betting with takes this into account when considering the full-time result. 

Handicap Betting: A handicap bet is a type of bet used to level up the odds and make games that may otherwise have a clear favourite a little bit more interesting. 

A handicap bet basically presents a hypothetical scenario when one of the team starts the game with plus or minus points. 

For example, if you bet on a favourite with a handicap of minus two, then they would have to win by a minimum of three goals to win the game overall. 

This can be an excellent way of evening the odds and finding some excellent value in a game that may well have otherwise been a foregone conclusion. 

Over/Under: A staple of team sport betting markets are Over/Under markets.  

Over/Under bets are when you predict whether or not you believe there will be over or under a designated amount of goals scored in a match. 

Over/Under markets are typically for the combined total of goals scored in a game, however, you can usually find odds being offered on whether a team will score over or under a set amount as well. 

Other markets are available, although the choice depends on the betting site you are using.

Betting specials will often include enhanced odds on a particular game.. 

You will also find that sportsbooks will tend to have much bigger markets available during the annual Stanley Cup due to the increased interest around that time period. 

Given the huge number of hockey games that take place each year, researching the sport can be very time consuming if you don’t know what you are looking for. 

In general, paying attention to a team’s form, their goal stats and their penalty success rate are eseential. Penalties are incredibly frequent in hockey so studying up on them can help you win some extra cash, while goals per game is also a very important stat to keep an eye on. 

Keeping an eye out for good value bets is also very important as there are often some good odds to be found away from the NHL.