Best tours to bet on when it comes to cycling

As one of the most popular ways to stay active, professional cycling taps into the highest end of endurance and pushes the top professionals to their limit. But if you prefer to sit back and watch rather than test yourself on these grueling courses, you might also be partial to a bet or two.

Today, we will glide through the Grand Tours as we delve into the best cycling tours to bet on and how to supplement your viewing with a wager or two.

While professional cycling has an international appeal, the existence of sports betting markets helps to inject more interest, especially for a casual audience. In any sports betting market, many analysts will seek out what the odds are set at to try and get a general idea of how the race could shape up.

Of course, sportsbooks don’t always get it right, but they are a good measuring standard for upcoming markets, not just in cycling but throughout the sports world. As the market is such a competitive environment, different niches within it help specific platforms rise above the rest – some might home in on the cycling betting markets, while others focus on the speed of a payout.

The fastest payout sportsbooks aim to channel into all types of sports betting markets, including cycling. Although there are other considerations and factors to weigh up when you sign up for a new sportsbook, the speed of a payout is often up there as one of the most crucial characteristics for those looking to find a new platform.

Betting on cycling really boils down to the three Grand Tours – especially if you are a casual fan. For those who are more ardent and have a much more significant interest in the sport, there are other races you can find on some prominent sports betting sites.

Still, given that betting on cycling is a derivative of an already niche market, finding any market that caters to anything other than the three main Grand Tours can be challenging.

The Tour of Italy is the first of the Grand Tours on the cycling calendar. For cycling fans looking at the market, there’s always a keen focus on the Giro d’Italia. It helps to set the scene for how the other Grand Tours may play out, and is second only to the Tour de France as the world’s most important stage race.

Bettors can access many markets for the Giro d’Italia. Over the last decade, especially with the rise of mobile betting and in-play markets, these markets have swelled to include in-play events, each-way betting and accumulator bets that allow cycling fans to place bets that can include the other two races within the Grand Tour, too.

While this might sound like an obvious choice, the best tour to be on, in our opinion, is the Tour de France. It’s the most prominent of all the professional cycling races, and it attracts the largest TV audience. With this audience, it opens up the potential market to some value.

Now, this isn’t always the case as the bookies rarely let their guard down, but with the Tour de France, you can bet on the individual outcome of the race as well as each stage, often extensively covered in the media.

Last year, the Tour de France was the only Grand Tour with extensive markets, and this is down to the much larger TV audience than those we see in the other two Grand Tours. So, while the other races are great markets to bet on, the Tour de France remains the pick of the bunch.

The Vuelta a España, or the Tour of Spain, is the third of the three Grand Tour races. While it might not enjoy the same betting market as the other two Grand Tour races, it still piques the interests of cycling bettors more than any other professional race on the calendar.

Again, the most popular markets for this race include each way bets or outright winners. The Tour of Spain takes place at a great time of year for sports bettors, the domestic football leagues in Europe are under way again, and alongside the two other Grand Tours, it’s one of the most scenic races to watch on TV. Late August and early September are an excellent time of year for any betting market, and if you combine it with a little holiday abroad to see one of the Grand Tours live, I’d strongly recommend the Vuelta a España.

As with any sports betting market, you should only ever bet with money you can afford to lose, and should never view gambling as a source of income. Suppose you fall into either of these categories or start spending too much time or money on betting – in that case, it’s time to log off, speak to somebody from a problem gambling charity who can assist, and nip the problem in the bud before it reaches an unmanageable level.

Advertorial: Due to the scale of professional cycling, it has become a market of interest for casual sports bettors – the sport doesn’t involve short bursts and markets as is often the case in popular sports like football or basketball. When we look at markets like the Tour de France, where you can bet on the individual stages over several weeks, this opens up the potential market to a range of sports bettors who might prefer betting over a more extended period, such as cricket bettors who explore markets on five-day Test matches, or football bettors who combine accumulator options across the course of the weekend.

While professional cycling still has a niche market and those who bet on the sport are passionate, the international sports betting market and the changing dynamics have helped open this up to a whole new casual market worldwide.

With this added interest, the number of markets will continue to expand. It’s an intriguing time to be a part of it, and it’ll be fascinating to see if some of these markets are rolled out to the smaller events on the calendar over the next few years.