Sports Betting vs. Casino Gambling – Which is Best for You?

Posted by Harry Kane on Tuesday, May 3, 2022

Betting at an Online Casino

When it comes to the £5.9 billion iGaming market in the UK, it’s casino gambling and remote sports betting that continue to dominate this high-growth landscape. We’ll explore this in further detail below, but in general terms these two verticals account for more than 90% of the total online GGY in the UK.

From a bettor’s perspective, it’s also interesting to note whether remote sports betting or online casino gambling offers better value for their hard-earned bankroll. So, let’s consider this further and see which vertical is right for you

A Look at the Numbers – Casino Gambling and Remote Sports Betting

In the reporting period from April 2020 and September 2020, the total gross gaming yield (GGY) for the UK gambling industry peaked at £5.9 billion. As you can imagine, remote (or online) wagering is the largest and fastest-growing combined vertical by GGY, worth a staggering £3.1 billion and comprising 52.3% of the total marketplace during the reporting period.

If we drill deeper into these numbers, we see that online casino games continue to dominate the sector. More specifically, this generated £1.9 billion in GGY during the aforementioned six-month period, with online slots accounting for more than 70% of this total yield.

A quick calculation tells us that casino games comprise 61.2% of the remote wagering vertical on these shores. When it comes to remote sports betting, the total GGY came in at £1 billion in September 2020, creating a total market share of 32.25%. Unsurprisingly, football and horse racing betting dominated the remote wagering niche, while this particular trend shows no sign of abating anytime soon.

When combined, these two verticals combined to account for a whopping 93.45% of the £3.1 billion online gambling industry in the UK. So, the chances are that you’re likely to deploy much of your bankroll across these two niches, depending on your unique preferences, appetite for risk and how much money you have to wager with.

Introducing Sports Betting and Casino Gambling

At this stage, it’s time to take a closer look at these two distinct verticals. After all, they’re far from being created equal, both from the perspective of their diversity and the potential returns on offer.

Sports betting sees punters bet on specific matches, events and tournaments, across a broad range of disciplines including football, horse racing, tennis and boxing. Unsurprisingly, the national sport of football remains the dominant driver of remote betting revenue, accounting for some 48.4% of the total remote wagering GGY. Next up is horse racing with a 28% market share, while tennis trails in a distant third with 5% of the vertical’s total GGY.

Conversely, casino betting enables punters to wager on a diverse range of table games and disciplines, including blackjack, roulette, baccarat and online slots. Poker betting and gameplay may also be included in this niche, although this remains considerably less popular than it was during its halcyon days of the noughties.

As we’ve already touched on, it’s online slots that continue to dominate this vertical, accounting for nearly 70% of the remote casino GGY according to the most recent figures. Table games including roulette and the iconic backdrop combine to comprise some 15% of the market yield, while the GGY contribution for poker has fallen as low as 5% in recent years.

While these describe obvious difference between remote sports betting and casino gameplay, there are other considerations when comparing these different (but connected) verticals. We’ve broken these down in a little more detail below.

1. Probability and Your Chances of Winning

Ultimately, probability and the chances of winning vary from one vertical to another, while it diversifies even further when applied to individual bets and selections. In terms of sports betting, a large number of wagers may be classed as ‘even-money’ bets. This refers to matches or events where there are only two potential outcomes, which may be priced variably but make it much easier in theory to select a winner.

This is especially true in sports like tennis and rugby, where the ‘draw’ is largely eliminated as a possibility and you can wager on one participant to prevail or another. This rule changes in the case of outright betting, where you may select from several competitors to choose the winner of a particular tournament. Take the Premier League in England, for example, where you can theoretically bet on 20 different sides to lift the title at an incredible diversity of odds.

However, since the turn of the century, just six sides have won the Premier League, namely Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Leicester City and Liverpool. Of these teams, only one (Leicester) did so at extended ante-post odds, stunning the football world as 5,000-1 winners at the end of the 2015/2016 season.

This means that are likely to be only a few realistic EPL winners at the beginning of every season, once again making it relatively easier to gauge implied probability and make more informed selections. Conversely, casino games and verticals are somewhat less structured in terms of their potential outcomes.

There are also variable elements such as gameplay to get to grips with here, while odds and your probability of winning tend to be a little more remote when compared to sports betting. Let’s take slots, for example, where the average return-to-player (RTP) rate can vary from between 88% and 97% on average.

This means that you can recoup anywhere between £88 and £97 per £100 wagered when playing particular slots games, revealing a respective house edge range of between 12% and 3%. What’s more, the odds of winning a slots games’ biggest prize or jackpot payout are often incredibly extensive, but this type of reward is often key if you’re to secure a return on your bankroll within this vertical.

If you look at games like roulette, there are multiple types of wager that carry variable odds and implied probability values. For example, so-called “inside” bets provide the longest odds and biggest prospective payouts, from wagering on a single number to land (at a price of 37/1) to street bets that cover three numbers in a horizontal line (such as 10, 11 and 12).

Conversely, “outside” bets offer far greater coverage of the board and an improved implied probability value, although the potential returns lower as a result. For example, betting on red, black, odd or even numbers are even money bets that pay out at a rate of 1:1, while backing a number between 1 and 18 or 19 and 36 provides a similar prospect for punters.

Interestingly, the house edge values associated with American and European roulette are 5.2% and 2.7% respectively, so online casinos once again hold a considerable advantage within this vertical. However, you can use a combination of the above bet types of optimise wheel coverage and boost your chances of winning accordingly, while deploying a betting strategy to help manage your starting bankroll.

The takeaway here is clear, with sports betting generally offering a more straightforward proposition, favourable odds and higher implied probability values when compared with online casino games. This is particularly true when compared with casino games like slots and roulette, which comprise various bets and limits and tend to feature less than favourable house edge values.

2. Chance vs. Skill – How Knowledge Helps to Shapes Sports Bets

Interestingly, the casino table game blackjack bucks the trends described above, with some iterations of this popular discipline boasting house edge values that are as low as 0.4%. Another interesting distinction here is that blackjack combines unique elements of chance and skill, with a keen numerical ability and strategic mind capable of affording you a competitive advantage over your rivals.

This is unlike most casino games, which are ostensibly games of chance and deliver completely random outcomes that cannot be pre-empted or leveraged to your advantage. But what about sports betting? Well, while virtually no sports bet offers a guarantee of success, it’s at least possible to leverage a bank of knowledge and statistics to help inform your wagers and increase your chances of being successful.

The most important factor here is that history and past performance can be insightful when predicting the outcome of future sporting events. If we once again use the Premier League as an example, we see that Manchester City have won four of the last five titles dating back to 2018, while Liverpool prevailed on the other occasion and have twice finished second during the last four years.

So, when betting on the likely EPL winner in 2022/23, these two will start as the clear favourites and are incredibly likely to compete for the title. This type of insight and advantage is completely absent from casino-based games of chance, so casino gamblers are starting behind sports betting enthusiasts in this respect.

In fact, the key for sports bettors is to identify the right datasets and sources of information when building their bet slips. Certainly, data pertaining to past performance can be very telling, and may include previous tournament winners and head-to-head records for individual match betting.

Form can be another key indicator in the field of sports betting. This is especially relevant in league competitions, where sides can enter matches following a string of successive wins or defeats and see their odds impacted accordingly.

In team sports such as football or rugby, sides may also be particularly strong at home, or reserve their very best form for on the road. In this case, you may be able to identify additional value in listed sportsbook prices, helping you to place astute wagers that are built on knowledge and information.

3. Bonuses and Matched Betting

Earlier, we said that virtually no sports bet is capable of delivering a return. The obvious exception to this rule lies in the form of matched betting, which is a wagering technique that enables you to generate a direct profit from the free bet promotions regularly ran by betting brands.

But how does this work? Well, operators will often provide free bet welcome offers to new customers, which usually reward you with a fixed-value free wager when you place a qualifying bet of the same amount.

At this stage, you’ll place a ‘back’ bet on a particular sporting outcome, such as Liverpool to win their upcoming open EPL game against Fulham at Craven Cottage. Your back bet will be at the odds provided by bookmakers, who will pay out at this ratio if you’re right and the wager comes in.

This is a standard interaction with your chosen betting brand. However, with matched betting, the next step requires you to ‘lay’ a wager against the same outcome occurring. In the case of the example above, the lay bet will be successful if Fulham win or the match ends in a draw, ensuring full coverage of all potential outcomes pertaining to the game.

Ultimately, this type of matched bet cancels out the risk associated with the original back wager, while the deployment of a free bet offer enables you to achieve this objective and improved coverage without increasing your stake or initial commitment.

No identical alternative exists in the world of casino gambling, although you can increase your chances of winning and potential returns with a solid betting strategy when playing games such as roulette.

Of course, this also highlights the role that bonuses play in sports betting and casino wagering. While sports betting promotions tend to offer free bets of a fixed value to new customers, for example, online casinos typically create deposit match offers and free spins that pertain to specific slot game titles.

Understanding these bonuses and their associated wagering requirements can help you to identify the best promotions and use these to your advantage, both from the perspective of your bankroll and chosen betting strategy.

The Last Word

Ultimately, the choice of how you deploy your gambling bankroll is up to you, whether you’re an avid or knowledgeable sports fan or someone who enjoys the unique thrilling of online casino gaming.

However, there are clear practical advantages to remote sports betting when compared to wagering at an online casino, especially when you consider factors such as implied probability and the application of skill or knowledge to pre-empt particular outcomes.