What is Bad Beat in Betting? Bad Beat Betting Explained in 2 minutes

A bad beat is something to avoid at all costs – it is the term used when a player suddenly goes from a winning position to a losing one.

Bad beat is most associated with poker, but has become a term synonymous with any form of betting, especially in sports.

It is all about being in a position of power when an unexpected turn in the game occurs to leave the player with a losing bet against the run of play. It is often known as ‘lucking out’ due to the unlikelihood of the probability of losing.

The term is more often associated with the loss of a bet involving a large sum of money as the unexpected loss is harder to take.

How is Bad Beat used in Sports Betting?

As Bad Beat is a phrase used to describe a negative outcome, therefore there are no such sports betting markets available.

However, an example of a bad beat would be a four-fold accumulator in football in which the bettor has all four results in a winning position, only for a late change in one of the matches that sees the bettor go instantly into a losing position.

Another example would be when a punter is considering cashing out a bet for a profit, only to hold and see the opposing team score and cause the bet to go from profit to loss immediately.

Did you know…

In 2014, unlucky punter Joe McGuire was just a length away from scooping up close to £10million in a bookmaker’s special Scoop6 jackpot in which punters had to predict the winners of six chosen horse races each Saturday.

With the jackpot rolling over, McGuire had correctly predicted the first five winners and in the sixth and final race, his horse, Escape to Glory, was a head in front heading into the final furlong before fading at the finish to end the race in second and deny McGuire a whopping pay-out.

See also

Bad beat jackpot

Losing bet