How to Bet on Tennis Matches & Tourneys

Tennis Betting and the Law in Indiana

The state of Indiana legalized sports betting in 2019. However, there are limitations. First and foremost, betting is only legal with IGC-licensed sportsbooks. You must be physically located in the state to place a bet at any of the state’s online and mobile sportsbooks. Restrictions also apply to different levels of athletics, as follows.

Professional Tennis: Betting on pro tennis players, matches and tournaments is 100% legal. This include all the major tournaments, (US Open, Australian Open, French Open, and Wimbledon), as well as exhibition and circuit events.

College Tennis: The Criminal Code of Indiana places certain restrictions on college sports betting. It’s perfectly legal to bet on matches and tournaments, so long as they’re part of the NCAA Division I athletics program. Anything less (NCAA Division II and III, NAIA, and NJCAA, etc.) is off limits. To help preserve the integrity of the athletes, it’s also illegal to place live player prop bets on collegiate sports.

Youth Tennis: Generally, betting is strictly prohibited on youth sports and athletes, which are defined as any sport in which the participants are minors (under 18). However, tennis is one of those sports where it’s not uncommon to turn pro under the age of 18. Betting is legal so long as the athlete is of professional rank, and is competing in a professional-grade match or tournament.

Single Match Betting on Tennis Matches

A single-match wager is exactly what it sounds like – a single bet, placed on the outcome of a single match. You might be surprised just how many different ways there are to bet on a single tennis match. The obvious choice is the moneyline wager. It is the most basic bet on who will win the match. It’s also possible to bet on spreads, just as you would in football or basketball. We’ll examine each of these options below.

The following chart depicts sample lines in a typical 3-set match between two popular tennis stars; young Italian pro Jannik Sinner, and Greek baseliner Stefanos Tsitsipas. The contenders are listed on the left, with optional bets and odds displayed in the right columns.

Here, we see Tsitsipas is the underdog against Sinner, who could just as easily take the match in three sets as not.

1. Moneyline (a.k.a. Bet to Win)
2. Game Spread
3. Game Totals
4. Total Tie Breaks

Moneyline – Straight Bet to Win

This is the simplest, and by far the most common, betting option in tennis. It’s is a straight forward bet on who will win the match. It doesn’t matter how many games or sets it takes to get there. Someone has to win it. A moneyline wager is nothing more than a bet on who that will be. 

The above sample shows that Jannik Sinner has been given moneyline odds of -330. This tells us that he is the strong favorite, heavily projected to win. It would take a bet of $330 to win just $100. His opponent, Stefanos Tsitsipas, has a moneyline of +280. As the steep underdog, a bet of $100 would pay out $280 if he wins.

When you see opening lines that are this far apart, you can rest assured that the oddsmakers (who are generally very good at their jobs) are confident in their prediction that Sinner will win the match. However, if the opening lines in a tennis match start closer together (something like +140 / -180), and then those lines shift farther apart as the match nears, there’s a good reason for it. It can mean one of two things. Most often, it means the majority of the public’s bets are leaning towards one side, and the bookie is trying to balance out the wagers, ensuring it makes money no matter who wins. Sometimes, it means the sharps (pro bettors) are all betting one side. This is especially true when the lines shift in favor of the underdog. You can learn more about these situations here.

• Why do the Lines Keep Shifting?
• Sharp Money and Why Sportsbooks Respect It

Game / Set Spreads

In tennis, spread betting is usually based on the number of games a player will win. Spreads are used to even up the projected imbalance of moneylines, giving the underdog just as much chance of winning as the favorite. The spread represents the number of games (or sets, in Set Spreads) to be added to the underdog’s score. In our example, we see the game spread is set at:

In this case, Sinner needs to win 5 more games than Tsitsipas to win the bet. If a 3-set match ends 6-3, 6-4 Sinner, then he has covered the spread by winning a total of 12 games to Tsitsipas 7 (5 more). If the match ends 6-4, 6-5 Sinner, he has not covered his spread, thus a bet on Tsitsipas (who gets +4.5 games) would win.

Set Spreads: Some sportsbooks also offer Set Spreads, especially if there’s a heavily favored contender. These work the same way, but give or take away entire set points. The set spread is usually +/- 1.5, if offered at all.

Game / Set Totals (Over/Under)

Totals betting in tennis applies to the total number or games or sets will that occur in a match. Game totals are more common, because the number of games can vary more significantly than the number of sets. A 3-set match will have a minimum of 12 games, up to as many as 39, if each results in a tie-break. Grand Slam tournaments play best of 5 sets, which can go anywhere from 18 to 65 games in total. The sample lines below depict the total games odds in a 3-set match.

Your betting options here are whether the match will last “Over” 22.5 games, or “Under” 22.5 games. The half-point is applied to prevent ties, ensuring every bet results in either a win or loss.

Because the Over has odds of -121 (versus -105 for Under), we can assume the oddsmakers believe the match is more likely to go 23+ games before a winner is decided. It would take a $121 bet to win $100 on the over. Conversely, you would only need to bet $105 on the Under to win $100.

Total Sets: You’re likely to find bets available on the total number of sets, as well. In a “best of 3” match, the Total Sets will always be +2.5 vs. -2.5, since the match can only go 2 or 3 sets. In a “best of 5” match, the lines could be +/- 3.5 or 4.5, depending on just how favored the favorite really is.

Total Number of Tie Breakers (Over/Under)

This is a pretty common-sense wager on the number of tie-breakers that will be played in a match. A tie breaker only occurs when a set is tied at 6-6. The winner of the tie breaker wins the set (7-6). Ties generally only happen in matches where the two contenders are closely aligned in skill. If the two are closely seeded, such as #1 vs. #2, ties are to be expected. When the ranks are farther apart, such as #3 versus #28, ties are far less common.

Based on these sample lines, it’s safe to assume that the oddsmakers are not expecting any tie-breakers in this match. If there are no ties to break, it would take a $435 bet to win just $100. If there is at least one tie, however, a $100 bet on that outcome would pay a handsome $310.

Multi-Game Bets on Tennis

A multi-game bet is a single bet on the outcome of more than one tennis match. Maybe there are three matches happening on the same day that you feel confident in betting on. Instead of placing single bets on each match, you have the option to place one bet on all three matches. There are pros and cons to doing so. The benefit is that the payout multiplies substantially for a multi-match tennis bet. The disadvantage is that the risk is equally – if not disproportionately – multiplied against you.

Parlays (a.k.a. Accumulators) are the only way to place multi-pick bets in tennis. Unlike traditional, high-scoring team sports (football, basketball, etc.), teasers and pleasers are not an option.

Parlay Bets / Accumulators

As described above, a parlay is a single wager on multiple outcomes. There are certain rules to placing parlay bets. You must choose at least two results, or “picks”, and every pick must be correct to win the bet. If you make 6 picks and only 5 are correct, you lose (hence the amplified risk). The more picks you make, the greater the payout for a win.

Payouts are meticulously calculated by the sportsbook, which takes into consideration the single-bet lines for each pick, and the number of total picks in the parlay.  With balanced lines of -110 per pick, a 4-leg parlay would pay +1000; at 7 legs (picks), the payout rises to +7500. As you can see, the longer the odds, the higher the payout rises. Most sportsbooks cap the maximum picks at 12, while others allow as many as 15.

Above, we talked about all the types of bets you can place on a tennis match – moneylines, game/set spreads, game/set totals and tie-breaks. All of these are available as picks on a parlay bet slip. However, you can only choose one pick per match. For example, you can pick a winner or a spread bet in the Sinner/Tsitsipas match, but you can’t pick one player to win, and one to cover their spread.

There’s much more to learn about parlay betting. I won’t delve any deeper into it, because we’ve already written an entire guide on the subject. We also provide a tutorial on parlay system bets. You can read more about them here:

• Ultimate Guide to Parlay Betting
• Parlay System Bets

Partial Match Betting on Individual Sets

Another way to wager on Tennis is to place bets on individual sets, rather than entire matches. These bets aren’t as popular in tennis as they are in other sports, but they do exist, and can be quite lucrative for those who keep up with player stats.

For example, you may find that some players, even the brightest stars, may perform better under pressure. Maybe a player is prone to losing his or her first set, before coming back to win the next 2 sets. Thus you could bet on them to lose the first set, and/or to win the third set.

Types of partial match bets to look for include:

• Winner of Set # (1, 2, 3, 4, or 5)
• Total Games in a Specific Set (6-13)

Picking the winner of a set is self-explanatory. Picking the total number of games in a set is an over/under wager. The minimum number of games a set can have is 6 (i.e. 6-0), while the max is 13 (if it goes to a tie, resulting in 7-6). The line for the O/U game total will be determined by the difference in player rank.

It’s also possible to place bets on a tennis match as it’s happening. However, these bets fall into the category of live, in-play betting. You can learn more about that here:

• Live Betting: How to Bet on Sports as it Happens

Tennis Futures Betting

Futures betting in tennis refers to who will go on to achieve some special goal, such as winning the US Open, or Wimbledon, or any other Grand Slam event. These bets must be placed before the start of a tournament, and therefore can come with very long odds. The best players in the world will pay less, while the lowest ranked pros could pay at or above +10,000. We’ll take a closer look at some of the trophy bets most commonly found on the betting market.

Grand Slam Champion

A “Grand Slam” event is any one of the four major tennis tournaments – Australian Open, French Open, US Open, and Wimbledon. Thus, you could place a bet on who will go on to win one of these individual tournaments. Some sportsbooks will offer additional odds on an event’s finalists (top 2) and semi-finalists (top 4). There are separate Men’s and Women’s divisions in each Grand Slam event, as well as Singles and Doubles matches. Thus, the range of Grand Slam betting options over the course of a year would look like this:

• Football
• Baseball
• Basketball

• Hockey
• Soccer
• UFC / Boxing