Whether an individual chooses to participate in sports betting simply between co-workers, friends or family members as a friendly wager regarding a particular sporting event, or participates in sports betting through a bookie, there are a wide variety of betting systems in place, ranging from simple wagers like free bets to proposition bets, teasers and more.

Proposition bets are one of the most common types of bets used when participating in sports betting. At the very basic level they are nothing more than wagers made on a very specific outcome of a specific match, and can include such examples as guessing the specific number of goals the team will score in a football match or whether a certain player in an American football game will gain a certain number of total yards during that game, or whether or not a certain baseball player will hit a certain number of home runs during a specific game in the year.

A more complicated online betting system is parlay bets, which is where multiple bets are placed and successful bettors end up with a potentially larger payout. An example would be where a bettor places five different wagers on a five-team parlay, betting that all five of their bets will win. If any of their bets lose then they lose the parlay, but if all of them win the bettor will receive a substantially higher payout than if they had made those wagers separately under the proposition bet system.