Betting 101: Understanding how to bet on totals

We have utilized three different types of betting totals with our Tennis Bets picks: game totals, set totals and individual player totals.

We’ve already done a deep dive into what it means to bet the spread, but how about betting the total? This is one of the best ways to bet a tennis match, as it doesn’t require you to make a hard stance on which player will win. Instead, you can decide whether you think the match will be close.

Easy enough, right? Let’s get into it.

Game Total

One of the ways to bet a match is by taking the Over/Under on a game total. If you think a match will be lengthy, you’ll generally want to bet the Over. If you think it’ll be quick, you’ll want to bet the Under.

Using an example, a best-of-three match between Rafael Nadal and Daniil Medvedev might have a total of 22.5 games. So, if you want to bet the Over, that means you think there will be at least 23 games played over the course of the match. That would mean that the match would either need to go to a deciding set, or just be tightly contested through two—in this specific example, a 7-6, 6-4 win for one of the players would satisfy the Over.

One of the beauties of having an Over on the game total is that you find out whether you’re on good pace early on. That’s especially true in a best-of-five match, where you might have an Over of something like 36.5 games and the underdog unexpectedly wins a set—which guarantees at least another 12 games (assuming both players stay healthy). Sure, betting the total will probably result in you constantly doing math in your head throughout a match, but you always feel like you have a chance when you’re specifically on an Over. Betting the Under is a little more stressful, as it almost feels like you need everything to go to plan.

We should point out that the total is an especially interesting bet to make when you have matchups between two big servers, like John Isner and Reilly Opelka. That’s a match in which it’s hard to figure out who will win, as tiebreakers can be a little random. But you do feel confident that both players will force those ‘breakers, making the Over a play that’s a little easier to justify than a side. Tiebreakers are golden tickets for Over bettors.