Legally Betting On The Yankees
The New York Yankees are one of the world’s most famous sports teams, and they’ve been the marquee club of Major League Baseball for more than a century. Naturally, the Yankees are also one of the most bet-on teams anywhere. Curiously, as the darlings of a city famous for flouting laws and generally living it up, the Pinstripes have somehow never been involved in any New York sports betting scandals or other significant controversies of any kind (albeit Derek Jeter used to stay out pretty late some nights).
Whether or not that means the Yankees have never been involved in sports gambling remains unknown, but one thing is certain: their fans sure have. Fortunately for them, betting on the Yankees is completely legal, and with legal online sportsbooks, it’s never been easier to find a bookie for Big Apple baseball.
It’s a great time to get started betting on the Yankees. After a stellar run to close out the 1990s, the Bronx Bombers have been in a bit of a lull, only winning a single World Series over the last generation. However, with a strong farm team and the undying support of its New York fan base, the team is looking up. A new crop of superstars is breaking out, too, and the era of the “Baby Bombers” seems like it’s just getting started.
To put action on the New York Yankees, all you really need is an Internet connection, a smartphone or computer, and a few dollars to spend. Legal online sportsbooks like BetOnline, SportsBetting, and 5Dimes are your best bets, though other sites like BookMaker and BetDSI are good, too. All of these services offer free memberships and bonuses to start you off on the right foot, and you can sign up at as many different online sportsbooks as you wish.
Before signing up at a legal online sportsbook, though, you’ll need to make sure you understand the basics of legal New York Yankees betting. (Plus, with so many different leagues and teams in the area, New York sports betting fans may well branch out from only betting on the Yankees. The wagering types and strategies that apply to the Yankees, of course, will apply to most other New York teams, too.)
Legal Yankees sportsbooks allow their members a number of ways to deposit money into their accounts. The fastest way to deposit money into your account at BetOnline, SportsBetting, and/or 5Dimes is to use a credit or debit card. Visa and Mastercard are the standard choices, as most online betting sites do not accept American Express. Card deposits are more or less instantaneous, and they’ll usually come with a small processing fee.
However, you can also go old-school and deposit via check, wire transfer, money order, and so on. These methods can take anywhere from one to two weeks, however, so if you want to put action on tomorrow’s Yankees doubleheader and you need to put more money into your account, you’ll have to use a different deposit type.
Aside from the traditional ways to load up your legal New York Yankees betting account, there’s also cryptocurrency to consider. All major sportsbooks take Bitcoin, which offers far better encryption, security, and anonymity than any other deposit type. Bitcoin transfers quickly and doesn’t generally have any processing fees attached. Plus, if your online privacy is important to you, Bitcoin is leaps and bounds above the competition. There is a learning curve to using Bitcoin to bet on the Yankees, but it’s a very hittable pitch. Heck, it’s a gopher ball.
When most folks talk about the “odds” of a New York Yankees game (or, really, any sports contest), they’re not talking about win-loss probabilities for the club. Instead, they’re talking about the wager-to-payout ratio for a given Yankees bet. This is called the moneyline, and it’s the key to understanding the uniquely American model of sports gambling (which, incidentally, was popularized in the New York area all the way back in the 1800s).
The moneyline shows sports gamblers how much they must wager for a given payout, and it is based on the number 100. An underdog will usually be shown with a positive number, signifying the amount of money won on a $100 bet. A favorite, on the other hand, will almost always have a negative moneyline, which indicates the amount of money one must spend in order to win $100. These amounts are not required to be wagered by bettors – they simply demonstrate a bet’s applicable payout rate. Moneylines are always included as part of any sports wager (usually in parentheses), as they’re basically the bet’s “price tag.”
The most common New York sports betting variety is the point spread, and when most folks bet on the Yankees, this is what they’re playing. The point spread (usually called the “run line” in baseball) is a handicapping method used to “give” points to a perceived lesser team while “taking” points from the stronger club. This “head start” makes betting on that lesser team less of a risk, increasing action on the bet. Also, since it’d often be too easy for folks to simply pick a winner (especially if they’re betting on the Yankees), sportsbooks use spreads to balance out the action on both sides of a given wager. Here’s what a typical New York Yankees run line bet looks like:
- New York Yankees -1.5 (-110)
- vs.
- Boston Red Sox +1.5 (-110)
Here, the Yankees are 1.5-point favorites to beat Boston. That means that to win the bet, the Yankees actually have to beat the Red Sox by two or more runs. (Sportsbooks usually use half-point increments to make sure a “push” scenario doesn’t occur, which often results in costly refunds.) The numbers in parentheses are the moneylines for the bet, so a $100 bet on NY at this rate would pay out $90. Ditto for the Sox. The sportsbook keeps the extra $10 as the house take (a.k.a. “juice” or “vig”).
A straight bet is the simplest kind of sports wager, as it only requires players to pick a winner. (Straight bets are also called straight up bets or straight moneyline bets.) This type of wager is presented as a moneyline which shows how much cash is won for correctly picking a given team. The New York straight bet will look like this at most legal online sportsbooks:
- New York Yankees (-160)
- vs.
- Tampa Bay Rays (+125)
Here, a wager on the Yankees to win will pay out $100 for every $160 wagered. Meanwhile, a bet on the Rays to win will pay out $125 for a $100 wager. In a straight bet, the payout is always better for the underdog than for the favorite.
The third major bet type you’ll come across when betting on the Yankees is the over/under, which is also called the “totals” wager. With over/under betting, the victor doesn’t matter. NY can win or lose a given matchup, but that won’t determine whether you’re able to cash in on your totals bet or not. Instead, what matters here is the total runs scored between both teams. The following is an example of a Yankees over/under bet:
- New York Yankees
- vs.
- Oakland Athletics
- O/U 8 (-115)
In the above, if the Yankees vs. A’s game ends with a final score of 6-4, the over wins, because 10 is more than 8. However, if the score is 5-2, the under wins, as 7 is less than 8. If the game ends 4-4, though, that’s a push, and most legal online sportsbooks will refund all the action on the bet.
While the point spread, straight moneyline, and over/under are the three main New York Yankees bet types, almost all legal online sportsbooks offer dozens of other kinds of wagers for each ballgame. These include player prop bets, team props, alternate lines, futures, parlays, and more. The most common of these are the prop bets, which can be on things like which player will hit the first home run, how many strikeouts a pitcher will get, how many errors a team will commit, etc. Usually, player and team props will be posted at online sportsbooks a few hours before a given game, so you’ll want to check back at your legal New York Yankees betting site early and often on every gameday.
Since you can enjoy legal New York Yankees betting right from your iPhone, Android phone, or tablet, you’re probably going to want a mobile sports betting app. Unfortunately, none of the major online sportsbooks offers one, as the App Store and Google Play don’t allow real-money gambling products in their marketplaces.
Fortunately, you can bet on the Yankees on the go without an official sports betting app. That’s because all the best legal online sportsbooks have mobile-optimized versions of their desktop sites. These mobile betting web-apps are designed to fit smaller displays and offer more efficient, quicker browsing and wagering for end users. BetOnline and SportsBetting have very basic – but very refined and responsive – mobile interfaces, and 5Dimes makes their crowded boards easy to navigate on the small screen. Best of all, mobile sports gambling offers even greater levels of security and encryption for your New York sports betting transactions.
One of the huge benefits of mobile sports betting is the proliferation of live betting. Live betting, a.k.a. in-game betting, is a relatively recent phenomenon at all the best legal online sportsbooks, and its accessibility has been bolstered by the fact that, in the 21st century, pretty much everyone has an Internet connection and a smartphone of some kind.
Live betting requires a constant Internet connection because it’s a dynamic, quick type of sports gambling that allows users to put action on all kinds of in-game contingencies. Will the Yankees take the lead this inning? Will their old ace strike out the current batter? Will their young slugger go yard in his next at-bat? You can put money on all kinds of bets like this with live betting, but you’ve got to act fast. Sometimes, a wager will only be up for a few seconds before it closes, so you should probably keep your eyes glued to the game – and your legal online sportsbook – if you’re going to be live betting on Yankees baseball.
Although you can probably find a local bookie (or 50) in NY, if you’re going to be betting on the Yankees, you probably don’t want to violate federal sports gambling laws just for the heck of it. Between the Wire Act, PASPA, and the UIGEA, there are plenty of ways to run afoul of the government’s New York sports betting bans, and – whether it’s likely or not – it’s probably not worth taking the risks. Having to post bail would probably wipe out your winnings, after all.
Luckily, you can legally bet on the Yankees by using an online sportsbook. Since these services are located overseas and outside of US jurisdiction, they can legally accept your sports wagers. However, bear in mind that, as with any financial transaction on the Internet, you need to make sure to only use a reputable and reliable service provider.
By choosing a legal online sportsbook like BetOnline, SportsBetting, or 5Dimes for legal New York betting, you can be sure that there’s no safer place on the Internet to enjoy legal New York Yankees betting. These are the oldest online sportsbooks out there, and they’ve all established themselves as the cream of the crop when it comes to customer service, comprehensive betting lines, and support for New York sports betting fans. NY residents can wager at these sportsbooks with confidence. You know, exactly the same way they wager on the Yankees.