The NHL Stanley Cup is the culmination of the National Hockey League season, and builds anticipation and excitement for the championship series between the top two teams in the league. Early in the season, fans and sports bettors begin to try to predict the winner of the upcoming Stanley Cup, and it makes for an exciting season to say the least.
When it comes to betting on the Stanley Cup, there are plenty of options available. You can bet on futures, which we just discussed – which is betting on and trying to accurately predict the Stanley Cup champions months in advance, or you can bet on Stanley Cup series games, which allow you to bet on a huge selection of options, ranging from simple betting options that you’d see year round, to special NHL prop bets and NHL odds you wouldn’t find on normal regular season games.
The NHL has 32 teams to start with, and one by one, they are whittled down to division champions, conference champions and finally, we have the competition that crowns the Stanley Cup champion for that season. The best part about NHL hockey is that all playoff games are played as a part of a best of seven series, so if your favorite team makes the playoffs, and ultimately the Stanley Cup Final, you have so many more games to watch in the run of a season.
How To Bet on Stanley Cup Futures
These futures wagers allow you to bet on the winner of the Stanley Cup as we mentioned, but they also are worth a whole lot more if you accurately predict the winner. You could bet on every game in the regular season and win less than you could possibly win by betting on a futures wager. Usually these NHL odds are inflated because you essentially have a 1/32 chance of being correct. And if you pick a huge underdog that ends up surprising everyone in the regular season, you could win a huge jackpot.
The most recent Stanley Cup futures jackpot was in 2019, when the St. Louis Blues started the season as +4000 underdogs, who then plummeted to +6900 around the halfway point in the season. They ended up coming back and defying the odds, and a lucky bettor won over $100,000 on a $400 wager.
How To Bet on Stanley Cup Finals
You can bet on the Stanley Cup Playoff series after the regular season, but betting on the Stanley Cup Finals is where you’ll find the most value and most betting options. It’s not like the Super Bowl, where it’s a one-and-done game. You get a best of seven series where you have up to seven different evenings to bet on Championship hockey (if the series makes it that far).
At BetUS Sportsbook, you will have the usual totals, outright moneyline wagers and point spreads, as well as betting each period, player prop bets, exact scores, team props, if there will be a fight, or a hat trick, many many more options! Sometimes the hardest part isn’t figuring out who you want to bet on, but which bet you want to place.
With so much variety, we recommend learning how to bet on the NHL in general. There, you will have a better understanding of how each betting option works, and how you can make smart betting strategies for the 2-3 weeks that the Stanley Cup Finals run through. When it comes to the options that are only available for the championship series, they are simple props usually, and very easy to pick up if you know the usual moneyline, totals and spreads betting options.
Betting on the NHL Stanley Cup is an exciting way to close off a hockey season of sports betting – we recommend getting your practice in all season long by betting on the NHL regular season so you will be primed and ready to go when it comes to betting on the Stanley Cup Finals!