Sports And Casino Betting For LA Football Fans
The 2020 NFL season has been a long time coming due to the pandemic lockdown. But it’s currently set to start in September, and LA fans of the Chargers and Rams will be eager to see if they’re in for a better season than 2019.
Online Casino Betting
Sports betting can be a lot of fun but does have the downside of needing, well, sport. Even when it’s on the calendar only so much happens at once, and there’s always the small but real risk of outside events causing disruption to the schedule (as we’ve all seen very recently). The upside of online casinos is that the doors are always open. Here’s a great link for anyone interested in giving the world of top online casinos a look. New players should be sure to check for promotions, which are commonly offered to either augment your account when you make a deposit (match bonuses) or to allow you to play for real cash prizes without actually depositing anything (no deposit bonuses). And while US laws around gambling are stricter than elsewhere, offshore casinos, such as those in Canada, provide a viable alternative.
New slots are released all the time, and many of them have familiar sports themes. Even table game classics like blackjack and roulette have interesting variations, and some casinos also offer virtual sports. It’s worth noting that online casinos sometimes have sports betting sections, catering to sports and slots fans under the same umbrella.
But if you’re an LA Chargers or Rams fan and want to focus your betting on the NFL, we’ve got some tips, suggestions, and info below that might be more to your taste.
Chargers And Rams Predictions
It’s been over a decade since the Chargers were champion of a division, although their last playoff appearance was as recent as 2018. The Rams have had better recent seasons, with 2017 and 2018 both seeing them champions of NFC West and making playoff appearances (narrowly losing Super Bowl LIII). A great thing about sport is its unpredictability, which can make the betting side something of a challenge. Here are some pointers to get you going.
Hedging
The Chargers may be facing an easier first half of the season than second half, so if hedge betting is your style it could make sense to back them early on to be division champions. Then, once the ‘easy’ part of the season is banked with success, bet against them with an exchange to finish green either way. The upside of hedging is that it locks in profit, at the cost of reducing your overall winnings.
Betting Pairs
The 49ers versus Rams will be critical for success for either team. The 49ers are favorites to win which means a pair of related bets could be wise. This would be backing the 49ers to top NFC West, whilst putting money on the Rams to beat the 49ers. It’s worth noting bets on related matters can be risky, there’s always an outside chance both fail, but it does mitigate the potential loss most of the time whilst increasing the chance of finishing ahead, if by a smaller margin.
A similar approach can be taken with the Kansas City Chiefs and the Chargers (although it must be said that the Chargers have lost the vast majority of recent games against the Chiefs so getting the odds to line up may be tricky).
Rams To Bounce Back?
The Rams had a great 2018 but their performance dropped off big time in 2019 after failing at the last hurdle in Super Bowl LIII. A major question mark is whether or not they’ll recover in 2020. There’s every chance they will, and this could make them a decent shot at topping the NFC West division, which is one of the most competitive (only the Cardinals being seen as significant outsiders).
Value Betting
Favorites often have money heaped on them, driving down the odds and making underdogs good value outsiders. For those unaware ‘value’ in betting terms refers to when the odds of an event are shorter than those offered by a bookie. So if a team has a 1 in 3 chance of winning a game but their odds are 5/1 then they’re worth backing even though they have only a 33% chance of winning. Sounds nuts backing something that’s likely to fail, but over the course of 3 such bets the wager should come off once, meaning you lose 2 stakes, but make back fivefold your wager on the third, putting you up by 3 stakes overall, even though every time you backed something that was unlikely to happen. Remember, odds aren’t just the chance of something happening, they vary according to weight of money. If you have a coin toss market and 99% of people put money on heads, the odds on tails could be 80/1.
Betting Online In California
Currently, sportsbooks have not been legalized in California but this could be set to change as there’s a general trend of expanding access to online sportsbooks in the United States. In 2019, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, New York, and Oregon all legalized online sports betting, with debates expected in 2020 in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and other states.
In California, a ballot measure has been put forward by a group of Native American tribes, but this does not include online bets. And even if online betting is legalized in California in the near future, how it works is unclear as different states take significantly different approaches. Some require in-person registration at casinos, whereas others are happy for online betting to happen so long as you’re within the state’s borders.
VPNs And Offshore Betting
There is an alternative, however. Using a VPN and accessing offshore sportsbooks allows LA residents to indulge in sports betting, whether that’s at Canadian or European betting sites.
One pro of betting at offshore sportsbooks is that Canadian sites often have great markets for North American sports generally, so if you like detailed, secondary markets you can find the bet you’re after. The plus side of sportsbooks elsewhere, such as the United Kingdom, is that markets are offered but the bookies tend to have less specialist knowledge so you may be able to find surprisingly good prices. On that note, sportsbooks will sometimes create a market for you if it doesn’t exist already.
There’s a lot of uncertainty ahead for the Rams and Chargers in 2020. It’s unknown whether a second coronavirus spike might cause further lockdowns, whether partial or total. The Rams might recover from their sharp 2019 drop off in offensive prowess and Goff might bounce back but we’ll have to wait and see. There’s always the online casino if regular sports go on hiatus again. But one thing is sure: there’s never been a time when fans were quite so keen for the season to finally start.