Legally Betting On The Mets At New York Sportsbooks
The Mets have quite the history in the City That Never Sleeps as the “other” New York City baseball club. However, being the first of the expansion teams in the major leagues, has had the negative – and mostly undeserved – side effect of causing the Mets to live in the shadow of their cross-town rivals (which we won’t name here, but suffice it to say they have their own page). Nevertheless, interest in legally betting on the Mets is well-founded, as the franchise has not only staked its claim with several World Series titles, National League Pennants, quite a few divisional titles and the ever-present threat of a Wild Card entry into the playoffs.
All that being said, New York sports fans, especially those with an interest in placing wagers on their favorite baseball team, are no doubt aware, federal sports betting laws have all but banned the practice entirely throughout much of the nation. Meanwhile, New York’s own state laws are fairly strict when it comes to most forms of betting, disallowing “line-selling” and “book-making” inside the state lines, so that rules out the possibility for New York sportsbooks, right? Wrong: legally betting on the Mets is 100 percent possible thanks to the momentous arrival of offshore sportsbook sites like BetOnline, SportsBetting and 5Dimes based in foreign countries that are regulated and licensed in their home nations but can serve New York bettors because they aren’t beholden to US legal prohibitions.
With all these exciting possibility opening up to NY fans and bettors from around the country interested in wagering on the Mets, it might be helpful to do a little (actually a lot) of reading on the subject to make sure you’re going about placing your bets the smart way. Fortunately for the prospective or first-time sports bettor or indeed the returning veteran punter, we have compiled this exhaustive (possibly, dare we say it? – definitive) guide to legally betting on the Mets and other MLB powerhouses at offshore betting shops serving New Yorkers.
The Mets, based in the borough of Queens, made their MLB debut in 1961 quite as what is, in essence, the product of necessity. Though NYC currently has two major league teams (in neighboring boroughs, no less – a fact that led to the famous “Subway Series” between the Mets and the Yankees), there were at one time in the not-so-distant past three. The Yankees are still around, of course – and much to the consternation of Mets fans, who are fiercely loyal to their club – but the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants both left the Empire State for California, eventually taking up residence in Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively.
Basically, the Mets inherited not just the role of the departed Dodgers and Giants but also absorbed their fanbases, colors and position in the New York cultural landscape when it comes to pride in the combined heritage of those baseball clubs. The Mets started off slowly, even poorly, and for several seasons never finished better than next-to-last in the league rankings until the 1969 season, when the “Miracle Mets” took to the field. Ever since, the so-called Metsies have been amazing fans and shocking analysts, and in due turn have risen to the heights of success and suffered slumps lasting years, but something no one can deny is that the Mets can’t ever be counted out.
This element of unpredictability, when combined with the never-say-die attitude of the team is what drives the ongoing interest in legally betting on the Mets, which nowadays is possible at offshore sportsbook sites such as 5Dimes, BetOnline and SportsBetting. All of these industry-leading websites can be relied upon by New York fans to have a ready supply of betting odds on the Mets throughout the spring games, throughout the regular season and into the playoffs and, hopefully onward to the World Series. But just knowing current betting odds on the Mets are offered legally by the sites we recommend for our users isn’t enough; you’ve got to understand how to read the odds as presented on the betting board too, and for that reason we’ll take a closer look in the following sections at the various types of wagers available.
Betting On The Mets Straight Up
The most basic and indeed the foundational wager type you’ll encounter when legally betting on the Mets is betting straight up, which is also known as betting on the moneyline. Betting straight up means just what you think it does: wagers are placed on whether your team wins or loses, which is why this type is referred to colloquially as the moneyline. The odds are listed in such a way that assumes a base of $100 risked or $100 won on a successful bet.
Bookies (that’s the betting jargon for the folks at the sportsbook who actually figure up and list the betting odds) will list these moneyline odds with the favorite accordingly getting the less-profitable odds because they are more likely to win. On the other hand the underdog will get odds that are more profitable in recognition of the reduced likelihood of their pulling off a W.
Betting On The Mets Point Spread
Similar to the case of the moneyline bet, wagering via the point spread method also takes into account whether a team wins or loses, but, unlike its predecessor, a successful bet when going against the spread also involves picking the team that can win by a certain margin of victory. What this kind of betting looks like on the boards is that the favorite will give up a handicap worth a certain number of runs (which is why this form of betting is known as the “runline”) to the underdog. A bet on the favorite wins if that team can come away with a victory even after giving up the handicap, which is usually but not always set at 1 ½ runs. On the other hand, a wager on the underdog wins if that team wins outright or loses by less than the runs stipulated by the bookies in the spread.
Betting On The Mets Over/Under
The final part of the trio of primary wager types available for legally betting on the Mets is wagering on the total, also called betting on the over/under. Quite unlike the other two types of wagers we’ve already spilt ink diving into, betting on the Mets over/under involves placing wagers upon whether the final combined score of both teams is greater than (over) or less than (under) the numerical value predicted by the bookies. This means that the margin of victory or even winning and losing itself are not a consideration for bettors making a wager of this kind.
Betting on the over/under is considered by many successful long-term bettors to be an effective means of “hedging the bet” against an upset since it doesn’t involve predicting the winner in the event – basically, if you’re wrong about which side wins the ballgame you can still cash out your ticket. Totals is betting in another way in that it is possible for there to be no winning or losing bets at all. Such an outcome is referred to as a “push,” in which case the bookies will refund all the money wagered on the betting line if the actual combined final score of both teams exactly matches the predicted number of total runs.
Prop bets are among the most enduringly popular of all the betting types offered at legal New York-friendly sportsbooks, and the reason for this is rather simple: Mets fans love to keep up with the exploits of their players and baseball fans generally are really, really into statistics. Making prop bets is what that’s all about – placing wagers on the individual statistical performances of certain players or on the team as a whole. The difference between prop bets (that’s short for “propositions,” indicative of the yes/no-style questions they ask) is that these wagers do not consider whether the team for which a given player plays wins the game in which the conditions of the prop take place.
That may sound a little confusing at first, but if you consider the two types of prop bets available at sportsbook sites like SportsBetting, BetOnline and 5Dimes – those being player prop bets and team prop bets – the situation should become clearer. In the next few sections, you’ll see below some samples of common prop bets that can be placed on the Mets at all the leading legal offshore sports betting sites we recommend for our readers. The astute reader will note that each prop bet carries with it its own separate moneyline indicative of the amount to be paid to the bettor upon making a successful wager.
Mets Player Prop Examples
Starting Pitcher Total Strikeouts Vs. New York Yankees In Subway Series
- Over 10 (+300)
- Under (-600)
Will The Lead-Off Batter Strike Out Vs. New York Yankees In Subway Series?
- Yes (+400)
- No (-200)
Mets Team Prop Examples
Will The Mets Win The National League Pennant?
- Yes (+900)
- No (-11,000)
Margin Of Victory Vs. Atlanta Braves
- Mets By 1-2 Runs (-160)
- Braves By 1-2 Runs (-120)
- Mets By 3-4 Runs (-130)
- Braves By 3-4 Runs (+100)
- Mets By 5-6 Runs (+200)
There are other ways to bet on the Mets that we haven’t already looked at, but they are definitely still worth mentioning, especially since legally betting on the Mets is only possible for New York bettors at offshore sportsbooks like SportsBetting, BetOnline and 5Dimes. Sites like these three have more betting lines available at any given time than their competitors can hope to match, and some of these alternative betting types are merely the natural progression of traditional sports betting into the modern era dominated by smartphones. Others are entirely novel means of betting such as live in-game betting, in which the odds or even entire betting lines are subject to revision throughout a game as it is being played in real time, opening up whole new vistas for savvy bettors to cash out huge tickets.
Still other means of wagering on the Mets include futures bets and specials, the former of which can often coincide with team prop bets as discussed in the sections above, and the latter of which are unique betting lines usually unrelated to the action taking place on the field. Futures are often of the “which team will win the World Series?” variety (which is also known as an “outright” bet), while specials could involve stakes on the identity of New York’s new general manager or the actions of the team’s wacky basketball-headed Mr. Mets mascot during the seventh-inning stretch. There are also parlay bets to consider, in which bettors have to pick the winners of several games in an all-or-nothing fashion for the potential to win a monstrously huge payout for not much money at stake.
Is Sports Betting Legal For New York Residents?
Throughout this guide to legally betting on the Mets we’ve more or less assumed you are at least partially aware that sports betting is widely considered to be illegal at face value unless you’re in Las Vegas at a casino. For more than 50 years that way of thinking was partially true unless you lived in one of four states, of which New York isn’t one. That meant that Empire State sports fans had to either take their chances with a shady local bookie and risk running into trouble with the law or else hop a flight to Sin City if they wanted to bet legally on the Mets.
However, times are different now. That’s despite bans on interstate transmission of sports betting information (courtesy of the Federal Wire Act of 1961), prohibitions of regulated wagering on sports placed on 46 states (thanks to the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, or PASPA, or 1992) and penalties against US financial institutions if they process electronic payments related to gambling online (due to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act – UGIEA – of 2006). Nowadays, legal offshore sports betting sites like BetOnline, 5Dimes and SportsBetting offer more betting odds and far superior security measures than any illegal operator all while being based outside the US, and accordingly outside the reach of these federal bans.
This is only possible because New York’s own state laws, which explicitly ban “line-selling” and “book-making” (though not punishing individual bettors) don’t contain any mention of online wagering whatsoever. This is enough of a gray area or loophole for our top-rated legal online sportsbooks to comfortably offer a platform for wagering to New York Mets fans eager to stake some money on their favorite team.
Is Betting On The Mets Unethical?
Now that we’ve firmly established that, yes, betting on sports using an offshore sportsbook is legal for New York residents, we really should address the question of whether doing so is ethical in the first place. While there are many of the more puritanical mindset (despite the fact that the Puritans actually have a strong tradition of lotteries) who might argue that betting on sporting events in some violates the sanctity of the sport itself, there is really very little reason to fear. That’s because the sites we recommend for our readers are models of professionalism and security, with no trace of illegal involvement from bad actors like criminals or even shady folks involved in the sports industry who might like to try and take advantage of the possibility for a big payout if they throw or fix a match.
Whether or not you personally believe that it’s wrong to bet on sports or is against the ethics of baseball is a call you’ll have to make for yourself. However, consider that not too many people raise similar concerns about paying athletes to play a game that was basically concocted hundreds of years ago as a diversion for children. If paying professional baseball players doesn’t bother you, then neither should risking and possibly winning some money for guessing which team wins.
Will New York Sportsbook Keep My Financial Information Safe?
Absolutely one of the best reasons we can recommend you use offshore sportsbook sites like BetOnline, 5Dimes and SportsBetting if you’re interested in legally betting on the Mets is the way they look after their users’ security. Seriously, these sites have security measures in place that would make a bank blush, and that’s not a joke. Multi-layer encryption software, offsite record storage, wiped down servers – you name it, our top-rated sites do it, and it’s all part of doing right by their loyal customers who have enough to worry about just by having to figure out if betting online is for them.
This emphasis on security for users’ personal and financial information is part and parcel of the licensure application process the sites we think are best have to go through according to the regulatory procedure their national gaming authorities impose. What all this means for the average New York Mets betting enthusiast is that the preferred legal means of placing wagers in the Empire State are all backed up by some of the strictest rules on gambling and are therefore 100 percent legal options. If it’s just concerns over security at offshore betting shops that has kept you still on the fence, then we can only encourage you to give them a try and find out for yourself just how safe betting on your favorite team can be.
Can I Use My Smartphone To Bet On The Mets?
Let’s face it, in this day and time you can do just about anything on your cell phone, whether that’s buying home insurance, buying a car or buying your groceries, so naturally placing wagers on your favorite sports team online via cell phone is included in this phenomenon. In fact, all the leading legal offshore sportsbooks have invested considerable sums of money and untold hours of research and development creating what have become the industry’s top sports betting apps. Probably the best parts about these apps (other than the fact that they retain all the great user interface features and security measures of the desktop versions they’re associate with) is that they are completely free and that they have been designed to work with mobile devices running Apple’s iOS and the Android operating system.
Each and every one of our highest recommended sites – those being BetOnline, SportsBetting and 5Dimes – has one of these class-leading apps, but they are only available via direct download through the site that developed them. Google and Apple app store policy doesn’t allow gambling apps to downloaded through their service, but that’s really not so inconvenient when you consider what you’re getting. And that’s the most portable, the safest, the fastest and the best take-it-anywhere betting platform yet devised for the smartphone era.
What Is The Best Deposit Method At New York Sportsbooks?
Another of the new technology-driven solutions to the seemingly age old question of how best to bankroll your betting account is to take advantage of the surge in interest surrounding BitCoin and use it for making deposits at one of (if not all of) our top rated sportsbook sites. Bitcoin, for those not aware of its significance in the modern e-commerce landscape, is the leader among the so-called “cryptocurrencies” – currencies that exist solely online and entirely outside the regulation of any government and utterly free from control by any financial regulatory body.
What this means in practice for users of our highest recommended legal New York-friendly sportsbooks is this: if you buy some Bitcoin at any of the leading crypto-exchanges (a quick search will show you the best ones to use) then you can use your money for what you want. Believe it or not, if you use fiat currency or even a credit card issued through your bank, you’re actually not going to have the easiest time making deposits even at legal wagering sites like SportsBetting, BetOnline and 5Dimes because of federal sports betting laws like the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA). However, using Bitcoin to make deposits (and collect your winnings when you cash your ticket) avoids the prohibitions of that law and is therefore the safest, fastest and overall best way to do so when you start legally betting on the Mets.