How to bet on cricket
Cricket is three different sports wearing the same clothes. A Test match lasts up to five days and can end in a draw, a one-day game lasts a day, and a T20 is over in an evening. Before you bet a cricket match, know which one you are betting, because the markets, the prices and the risks all change with the format.
Three formats, three bets
A Test is the long game: each side bats twice, play runs over as many as five days, and if time runs out before either side has won, the match is drawn. That makes the match bet a three-way market, the same shape as a soccer moneyline. A one-day international gives each side 50 overs, and a T20 gives each side 20. Neither of those can be drawn in the ordinary way. A tie is possible but rare, and most short-format games settle it on the field with a tiebreak, so the match bet is two-way.
I'll be straight with you: cricket is not the sport I know best, and I never booked much of it. What I can tell you is how the book prices it, and that part is the same in every sport.
Here is a Test match three-way line, the way a book might hang it:
| Result | Price | Implied chance |
|---|---|---|
| Home side | +100 | 50.0% |
| Draw | +250 | 28.6% |
| Away side | +275 | 26.7% |
Add up the last column and you get 105.2 percent. The extra 5.2 points is the book's cut, spread across three outcomes instead of two. The three-way moneylines page shows how to take that cut back out and see the fair price.
The draw is where Test betting gets interesting. Its chance isn't fixed when the match starts. It moves with the weather, the pitch and how fast the runs come, and a day lost to rain can turn it from an outsider into the favorite. If you bet a Test before the first ball, you are betting the forecast as much as the teams.
The toss and the pitch
Before every match the captains toss a coin, and the winner chooses whether to bat or bowl first. In most sports the coin toss is a ritual. In cricket it can matter, because the pitch changes as the match goes on. A pitch that is good for batting on the first morning can break up and help the spinners by the last day, and a side batting last in a Test can be batting on the worst of it.
That is why prices move after the toss, and why I'd wait for it if I could. A pre-match price is the book's guess at both possible tosses. After the toss you know which one happened, and so does everybody else, so the edge is in reading the pitch and the conditions, not in the coin.
Top batsman and the dead heat
Cricket's best-loved side bet is the top batsman: which player in a team scores the most runs. Books offer it on the match or on one innings, and there are usually eleven names on the list, though the bottom few rarely bat long enough to matter.
The rule to read first is the dead heat. If two batsmen tie for top score, most books pay a dead heat: your stake is split by the number of winners, and you are paid at full odds on your share. Say you have $20 on a batsman at 6-1 and he ties with one other. Half your stake, $10, is paid at 6-1, which returns $70 with the $10 back. The other $10 is lost. You end the day up $50 instead of $120. The same rule shows up in golf, and how to bet on golf has another worked example.
Read the rule on players who don't bat, too. In a short game a batsman low in the order may never get to the crease, and books differ on whether that bet is lost or void.
Rain and the shortened game
Rain stops cricket, and the rules for a shortened game are part of every bet. In the one-day formats, when overs are lost, the target is reset by a published formula, the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method, which works out what a fair target is for the overs left. A match decided that way still counts as a result for most bets.
Where it gets messy is the bets on totals and players. If the overs are cut, a runs total set for a full game can be settled, voided or adjusted, depending on the book's rules. I'd read them before you bet a total in a season or a country where rain is likely. The house rules page covers what most books do with games that don't run their full length.
Betting it live
Cricket is built for live betting. There is a pause after every ball, the state of the game is easy to read from the scoreboard, and a match can swing on one wicket. Books offer the next over's runs, the fall of the next wicket, the innings total and the match result, all repriced ball by ball.
The trouble with that, as in any live market, is speed. The broadcast you watch is usually behind the ground, and the book's feed is usually ahead of your broadcast. A ball that looks like a chance to you has often been priced already. If you bet cricket live, I'd stick to the slower markets, the innings total or the match, and leave the next-ball bets to people sitting in the stands. The live betting page explains the delay and what it costs.
Where to start
Start with one format and one competition you can follow. The short games are easier to learn on, because a T20 is settled in an evening and you can watch the whole thing. The long game rewards people who understand pitches and weather, and that takes seasons to learn.
Whether you can bet cricket at a regulated book where you live, and which markets it offers, varies by place. Cricket betting sites covers where the markets are. Wherever you bet, keep each stake to 1 or 2 percent of your bankroll. A five-day match is a long time to sweat a bet you can't afford.