Thousands of people across the US place bets daily on popular sporting events, although there are some more unusual sports that you can bet on.
With the new betting landscape in the United States that allows punters to wager on sports in seven different states, novel forms of betting have established themselves. While most people bet on the more conventional sports like baseball, basketball, and soccer, there are some other less common sports that you can bet on.
Here’s the list of the lesser-known betting sports:
WWE Professional Wrestling
We know. Professional wrestling is more acting than actual sport. Nonetheless, people love betting on it because they enjoy staking on an outcome of a theatrical performance and enjoy squaring off between heroes and villains. There is also some competition going on between wrestlers.
For example, a wrestler deemed to be the good guy must get cheers and applause from the crowd to remain a top performer. The bad character is expected to be booed by the spectators. If wrestlers cannot funnel the crowd’s attention, they will lose their airtime. The wrestlers also need to be in good physical condition, or they will quickly wiggle themselves out of a job.
While it may often seem that wrestling is just theatrics, it also presents an opportunity to make some big money on wagers. People who follow all the fan forums in wrestling appear to have the edge over those who simply bet for the fun of it.
Cow Chip Tossing
We wish this were a joke—but it’s not! Cow chip tossing is a thing, and people bet on the outcome. People throw cow chips, or petrified cow turds, to see who can toss these the farthest. There are even guidelines on how long and wide a proper cow chip can be for tossing.
There are wagers for the farthest toss and on how far the three furthest tosses will go. Punters also wager on the tossers themselves. At the annual state fair in Wisconsin, bets are taken in a bingo format depending on where a chip lands on the grid.
Arm-Wrestling
Astonishingly, arm-wrestling is a sport. Many people enjoy watching arm-wrestling live, as evidenced by the furore that erupted when a few NFL players participated in an arm-wrestling tournament in Las Vegas in 2017. All the winnings went to a charity of the players’ choice. However, side betting on who was expected to win infuriated the NFL, resulting in the players being fined by the league.
Arm-wrestling tournaments are staged live globally, and bets on who will come on top represent a sizeable sum of money. Although the sport itself is not the most dramatic, and the pace of the tournaments makes it challenging to cover via TV, it has found a loyal following inside the betting world.
Curling
Until the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, not a whole lot of Americans knew about curling. It’s not the most exhilarating sport to watch, but it does tend to grow on you, especially when the Americans won their first curling gold medal during the Olympics.
Curling consists of sweepers, ice, teams, and big rocks. The objective of curling is to get as many stones as possible into the circle at the other end of the lane. Knocking other teams’ stones out of competition is also fun.
During the 2018 Winter Olympics, punters were drawn to the brother and sister duo, the Hamiltons. Many bets were placed on the Hamiltons to win a medal, especially since they routed Russia during their first match. However, their dominance did not last, and they flopped to seventh place out of eight teams. Naturally, Vegas cleaned up nicely on those wagers.
However, at the curling men’s event, the US foursome beat the odds, winning gold for the first time. The casinos that raked in the money with the mixed doubles curling event lost money to those punters who were clever enough to bet on the US male team.
