Future Bets

In Vegas sports books and online you can make a “future bet" or engage in "future betting" or bet on "futures". It all amounts to the same thing, making a bet on a distant event.

The common example is placing a bet on the Super Bowl months before the game takes place. This same approach is possible in the race book with certain events. For instance, it is November, and a horse that has just run in the Breeders Cup Juvenile championship (the class race for two-year-olds) has impressed everyone. He shows promise as a possible Derby winner (for three-year-olds) in the following May. The race book may have a “line” on this colt’s prospects to win the derby. This is called a future bet.

Many experienced handicappers call these sucker bets. Since handicapping is mostly about races rather than an individual horse, and since any futures proposition is invariably linked to a race in which the field is unknown at the time, horse players leave futures for the squares, the people who knowingly risk money against a negative edge or bet without concern as to whether they have an edge at all.

In the example provided, it is not only true that betting on the likely winner of the Kentucky Derby requires knowing who will run it, but there is no guarantee that this horse will even be in the race at all, let alone win it. Most horses who run the Breeder Cup Juvenile championship do not even go to the Derby, and since the race has been running (1984) no BCJ champion has ever won. Maybe this will be the year. Who knows? A small bet on this colt might be fun for sentimental reasons, but there's no rational justification for taking the bet.

Las Vegas is notorious for setting lines on future events well in advance of the date. The most well-known of such props is on the Super Bowl, where betting commences just as the NFL season opens. Lots of futures are offered for tournaments, league championships and the like, in all sports. They are also offered on political elections and uncertain outcomes of all kinds.

The terms of the futures bets may be very attractive for anyone with strong opinions about which teams will survive until the end of a season or tourney. Futures attract a great deal of action. In addition to the Super Bowl, one can have action on NFC and AFC champions, any number of major golf and tennis tournaments, baseball games, basketball and any sort of tournament, like the NCAA's, the Stanley Cup, World Cup or World Series.

The player who works analytically rather than viscerally usually shuns futures.

There are really two obstacles to making a "sharp" wager in the futures context.

First, there is the time value of money. The amount of the bet is held without interest by the sports book from the time it is made until the time the outcome is determined. This could be many months. The monetary cost of this time should be figured into the cost of the bet, requiring the minimum acceptable edge to be somewhat higher. Also one has to consider the inconvenience of having a portion of the bankroll tied up for several months where it can not be put to work on other wagers.

Second, the analytical bettor will not make a wager if there is insufficient information on which to form a rational prediction of the outcome. By their very nature, futures bets can not be made in light of a complete set of facts. It is almost always preferable to hold on to the bankroll, putting it to work instead on propositions that can be handicapped intelligently.

It may be a mistake to dismiss futures bets totally out of hand, but it is fair to be very skeptical of them. If the payoff is high enough, it may be possible, even with very fragmented information, to conclude that the bet has some value. Most futures will not fit this profile, however, and we recommend avoiding them.