Dog Player Betting Term Meaning

The obvious assumption when you hear the term ‘dog player’ in a betting context is someone who bets on greyhound racing; however, that is not the case. It simply refers to a punter who frequently bets on the ‘dog’.

 

To understand the meaning of the betting term ‘dog player’, you first need to know what the ‘dog’ is. We have written a comprehensive article, Dog Betting Term Meaning, explaining this but in short, the word ‘dog’ is an abbreviation of ‘underdog’ in the betting world. 

The underdog refers to a team or participant that is not the betting favourite to win. To use an example from the English Premier League, in the match between Arsenal and Everton, Arsenal’s odds are 2.05 and Everton’s odds are 3.40. This means that Everton are the underdog, or the ‘dog’. A dog player is therefore defined as a punter who tends to always bet on the underdog.

Using the example above as a guide, Arsenal’s price of 2.05 will be attractive in itself to many punters. At just over even money, if you were to place a £20 bet on them to win, you would collect a £21 profit if they did. 

Seasoned dog players, however, know that the best value odds are very rarely on the favourite. The odds only serve to calculate the return for most dog players. If they are sure the bet will be a winner, they will happily place the wager irrespective of the odds. 

The key here is research. Successful dog players are well-informed wise guys who pick up on every little bit of information that they can. In our example, Arsenal vs Everton, betting your £20 on Everton to win would return a £48 profit. That’s much better than the £21 profit from the Arsenal bet, but of course, there is a catch; Everton have to win, and a dog player needs to be pretty sure of that outcome before they’ll place the bet. 

To be a successful dog player you have to put the time into researching both teams (or players) in the match. Many online sportsbooks will have huge statistics areas that cover every aspect of the game, and some will allow you to view head-to-head statistics from previous matches between the two opponents.

This kind of information is invaluable, but you also have to take other factors into consideration such as fixture pile-ups, suspensions, injuries, and even bad press, all of which can affect the performance of a team.