Edmonton Oilers Betting Options

For Albertans, sports betting took on new meaning in 2021. For fans of the Edmonton Oilers, it suddenly became possible to place single-game bets on the team without ever leaving home.

Now, it’s important to mention that those at-home bets will all occur with PlayAlberta, the sportsbook owned by Alberta’s gaming regulator, Alberta Liquor, Gaming & Cannabis. If you want to have more of a selection, you’ll have to travel to Ontario, as it is the only province to offer an open and commercial sports betting market.

However, the main point is that Edmonton Oilers fans now have an option to wager on the team they love. Here’s all the details about how to do so.

Tonight’s Oilers puck line

Oilers Stanley Cup odds

Best Edmonton Oilers Betting Apps in Ontario

Unfortunately, this section is going to be a bit of a tease. Until Alberta sees fit to open its borders to commercial sports betting apps, a trip to Ontario will be necessary to experience any of the fine options listed below. Nevertheless, if you’re expecting to be in Ontario sometime in the near future, it’s a good idea to know what the top choices are.

Caesars Sportsbook

Caesars Sportsbook is always at the forefront of sports betting in North America. The casino giant’s sports betting wing simply doesn’t believe in missing out, and, given its land-based property in Windsor, there was no way that a launch in Ontario would not occur.

When you first log into Caesars, you may not be blown away. The app is not flashy or creative like those of its closest competitors. However, this simplicity is actually one of Caesars Sportsbook’s biggest virtues, as it is an extremely user-friendly app, particularly for beginning sports bettors.

Caesars is also a home for those who want to stay connected to the games in progress. Its live betting options are both numerous and appealing, and Caesars has one of the better streaming suites available in Ontario. If you’d like to keep your options open or, perhaps, you are a bit of a nervous bettor, Caesars might be a good choice for you.

Finally, Caesars Sportsbook is one of the biggest proponents of same game parlays in Ontario. If you want to make multi-legged wagers on the Edmonton Oilers but pull everything from the same contest, you’ll be able to do so quite well with Caesars.

BetMGM Sportsbook

BetMGM Sportsbook should be a familiar name in Ontario, even if you haven’t visited an MGM location before. The worldwide casino brand is a household name, more or less, but if it isn’t one for you, don’t worry – it will be soon enough.

For one thing, you’re probably not going to find more options for betting anywhere else. The sheer diversity of markets at BetMGM is quite stunning, even if we ignore the laundry list of options you’ll have for each Oilers game. 

You’ll also find more flexibility with your betting at BetMGM Sportsbook than you will on almost any other app. All of your open wagers are eligible for the Cash Out option, under certain conditions, but the choices don’t stop there. BetMGM’s Edit My Bet function gives you the ability to increase your wager, add legs to open bets, take legs out, or swap out the parties entirely.

Finally, BetMGM has a very strong live streaming suite for monitoring the games in progress. If you want to keep an eye on things or perhaps make bets after the first puck drop, BetMGM is a great choice.

BetRivers Sportsbook

BetRivers Sportsbook may not ring too many bells for you at first, as the brand represents a distinctly American casino company. Aside from the app itself, parent company Rush Street Interactive has confined its activities primarily to the American Northeast. However, the lack of brand recognition should not deter you from giving BetRivers a try.

The first reason that BetRivers should be part of your sportsbook portfolio is a big one – its competitive odds. While you are in Ontario, it is good practice to shop around for the best lines that you can find. However, don’t be surprised if you return to BetRivers often, as the on-app odds are usually quite favourable for the players.

Like some of the other major sportsbooks in Ontario, BetRivers also boasts an impressive live betting and live streaming function within the app. There are always going to be a host of options to bet on the Oilers once the game begins, and you’ll be able to act quickly as you monitor the game’s progress directly within the app.

Finally, your path to making clear decisions about your wagers is much simpler with BetRivers Sportsbook. BetRivers provides each customer access to a statistics hub, which lightens the workload by collecting relevant statistics for your possible wagers in a single repository. The challenge of gathering information in order to synthesize it into a decision point is a much more manageable one when you aren’t having to visit multiple sites to get your numbers together.

Bet365 Sportsbook

Bet365 Sportsbook is a European sports betting firm that has become one of the bigger names in North America in the past few years. It declared its intentions for Ontario early, and was one of the very first apps to accept Canadian players in April 2022.

To be clear, bet365 has a tremendous amount of experience backstopping its migration to the New World. You will not find any wager or many markets that are beyond the pale for bet365.

You will also not find a finer place to engage in in-game wagering than bet365 Sportsbook. Its live betting and live streaming suite is second-to-none in Ontario, if not the entire world. If you plan on live betting frequently, you would be quite foolish to ignore bet365.

The third aspect that makes bet365 stand out is a somewhat curious one: its banking options. There are few major apps that have as many reputable deposit and withdrawal choices as bet365. No matter how you want to move money into and out of your account, you’ll almost certainly have more than one way to do it.

DraftKings Sportsbook

DraftKings Sportsbook is often at the top of the list in any jurisdiction, and for good reason. It is one of the finest sportsbooks to open its virtual doors in recent years, and it is available to any eligible players in Ontario.

One of the first things to notice about DraftKings Sportsbook is its unusually strong engagement with the social side of things. For one thing, the app actually has its own social media platform, DraftKings Social, which allows you to converse and interact with other bettors. DraftKings also offers free betting pools to all players, in which players select from the same pool of choices and are placed on a leaderboard. It is one of the few times in sports betting where you are actively competing against other bettors, rather than the book itself.

DraftKings is also home to a wide range of betting options. You’ll have no shortage of wagers on the Edmonton Oilers, of course, but you can also explore sports taking place in other parts of the country and other parts of the world. If there’s an off-the-beaten-path sport that you love, DK might just have something for you.

Finally, if you want to take a shot at a big score with the Oilers, you can make use of DraftKings’ same game parlay options. Instead of having to choose legs from different games and sports, you can find choices within a single Oilers game. Thus, you won’t have to wait beyond the end of a single game to find out if you have hit it big or, more likely, come up a bit short.

PlayAlberta and the Edmonton Oilers

While we’d love to report that an open sports betting industry is in the offing for Albertans, we’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about the option you have available to you in the province. Whether you are home in Edmonton or travelling for business to Calgary, your only outlet is PlayAlberta, the app offered by Alberta Liquor, Gaming & Cannabis. 

First, the bad news. If you are used to the wide varieties of betting markets found in Ontario or in the States, you are likely going to be quite disappointed. PlayAlberta simply isn’t there yet, although you’ll find plenty of choices to bet on the Oilers. The app could also stand to allow a few more ways to bank, too, as limiting the options to Visa, Mastercard, and Interac is simply not enough for a top flight sportsbook.

However, the nice thing is that PlayAlberta’s operators do not appear to be resting on their laurels and not bothering to offer a quality product. Despite the lack of competition, there are still plenty of bonus offers from the app, and the number of sports on offer is respectable. There is even the possibility of Cash Out eligibility, which is nice.

The long and short of it is that PlayAlberta is not the top of the industry, but it could be quite a bit worse. Don’t expect great odds or features, but if you want a convenient option to bet on the Oilers, you have one at your fingertips.

Edmonton Oilers betting 

No matter where you choose to wager, you are going to find several different types of bets that you can make. Thankfully, the types of wagers are mostly universal, and your option close to home (PlayAlberta) only has one way to bet that might qualify as unusual. So, here are the ways to bet on the Edmonton Oilers:

  • Puck line – The puck line is hockey’s answer to the traditional point spread. Because so many NHL games end with 1-goal margins of victory, it’s quite dodgy both to set and to bet on the spread like basketball or football. So, oddsmakers set the line at a standard 1.5 goals and vary the payouts more dramatically than usual.
  • Moneyline – The moneyline is the easiest bet to understand and the hardest to figure out. It is nothing more than a bet on the winner of the game, regardless of the situation. However, its three-digit payouts that serve as its listings can be confusing to new sports bettors. 
  • Three-way moneyline – A lesser-known variant of the moneyline takes the possibility of a tie into account. Because NHL games cannot end in ties any more, this wager focuses entirely on what occurs in regulation, no matter what happens in overtime or a shootout.
  • Totals – Totals are better known as the over/under bet. You are wagering about the combined point total that the two teams will score in their upcoming game. The bet is whether the actual total will be over or under the estimate.
  • Futures – Futures wagers are the kinds of bets where you bet that the Oilers will win the Stanley Cup, or that one of the players will take home the Vezina Trophy or the Art Ross Trophy. In other words, you are betting on the outcome of an entire season of play. You may also see futures bets attached to discrete tournament events – like PGA Tour events – but those will be rarer for the NHL.
  • Propositions – Propositions, or prop bets, are wagers about smaller portions of the game. Usually, you’ll see prop bets regarding whether the Oilers or an Oilers player will achieve a statistical milestone during the game. Many prop bets are, more or less, yes/no questions, and you wager according to what you think the answer will be. You may also get to answer to the degree of statistical achievement, such as betting on the number of goals the Oilers will score, or the number of power plays the game will feature.
  • Live wagers – Live wagers, aka in-game betting, are a subset of propositions that take place only after the game is underway. They are focused on many of the same types of questions as all props are, but they are necessarily confined to shorter timeframes. Live bets often appear as opportunities for the outcome of individual plays or other microevents during the game. Be prepared to act quickly, as they come and go rapidly.
  • Parlays – Finally, parlays are wagers that are made of other wagers. You choose the different bets that make up your parlay, and enter it as one bet. Each individual wager in a parlay is known as a “leg.” Parlays often come with a massive payout potential. However, the catch is that every single one of your legs must be correctly chosen. Even one mistake in a sea of predictions is enough to lose your entire stake.

Different types of sportsbook bonuses

Sportsbooks offer bonuses to players in order to attract and retain them as customers. However, they are much more common in competitive markets where sportsbook apps know the competition is a second away at all times. Although you do not have competitive options for sports betting in Alberta at this time, there are still some bonus opportunities on PlayAlberta, and any trip to Ontario will provide plenty of options. So, you’ll need to know how to recognize the different types of sportsbook bonuses.

  • No deposit – A no deposit bonus rewards you with site credits or free bets without requiring you to advance any of your own money. Usually, no deposit bonuses are available as compensation for creating a new account, and are used to let you try out the app for free. Because they are so commonly reserved for new players, they may be called “welcome” bonuses – although doing so is a bit of a misnomer, since any initial offer is a welcome bonus.
  • Deposit – A sportsbook offering a deposit bonus is agreeing to match all or a portion of your deposit amount with a share of its own money. The exact percentage will vary according to the offer, and every offer will have a limit to the total amount of bonus money you can acquire. Because of their mechanism of action, these bonuses are sometimes called “match” bonuses. Additionally, a sportsbook might offer you a “reload” bonus, but just be aware that these are functionally identical to deposit bonuses.
  • Risk-free bet – A risk-free bet provides you with some cover for the inevitable losses that you will incur as you bet on sports. You place a wager as you normally do, then receive a refund if the bet or the bets during a specified period show a net loss. The refund, like a deposit bonus, will be all or a percentage of your lost amount and will only go to a certain fixed maximum amount. These bonuses are sometimes called “insurance” or “refund” bonuses – for obvious reasons. However, please take care not to confuse these bonuses with free bets – free bets are simply vouchers that you can use to place wagers in a predetermined denomination.
  • Odds boosts – Odds boosts behave exactly as their name implies. The sportsbook raises the payout potential on certain wagers each day in order to promote them and draw more action. Usually, the boost is around 20% of the original payout, but it can go higher, depending on the bet. Needless to say, each day brings a new set of odds boost offers.
  • Rewards programs – Rewards programs yield points to you for every dollar that you wager on an app. Your accumulated points serve as your placement within the program’s prestige system. Each time you ascend to a new tier, you are eligible for a new set of benefits. Common benefits include free bets, comps, or exclusive offers at the land-based partners of your chosen sportsbook. These programs are sometimes called “loyalty” programs.

How to Maximize your Edmonton Oilers Betting

While it is true that there are professional sports bettors, the reality is that most of us are hobbyists. So, we don’t have the same tools, techniques, and experience that the pros use in order to make their wagers. However, the fact that we don’t have a battle-tested algorithm 20 years in the making doesn’t mean that we cannot bet on the Edmonton Oilers successfully or prudently. So, here are some tips about how to approach your sports betting in Alberta (or elsewhere).

  • Become an expert on both betting and the Edmonton Oilers. Take the time to do your research and study on both sports betting itself and the current incarnation of the Oilers team. Look for hockey bets that are more popular than others, and find out why they are so desirable. If you know any professional sports bettors, pick their brains about their systems and how they would approach betting the Edmonton Oilers. Make sure that you synthesize as many of the available statistics about the Oilers as you can.
  • Do some mock bets. After you do some study and feel confident, go onto PlayAlberta and pick out some Oilers bets that you would like to make. Don’t place any wagers just yet – instead, imagine how you would’ve bet it. Then, watch the game, and see how your wager would’ve turned out. Make more than one wager, if you can, and gain some confidence or some constructive criticism about your approach. If possible, run several practice games so you can rule out any fluke results.
  • Avoid complexity. Stick with the basic bets if you are a beginner. Even wagers like futures and propositions may be too tricky at the outset. Parlays are not even worth discussing, to be honest. See if you can master the puck line, the moneyline, or the over/under before diving into the heavier stuff.
  • Do not bet with money you need. There is no reason that you should ever use money for sports betting that is earmarked for any other use – including other diversions or discretionary spending. Sports betting money should be at the very bottom of the list every single time. The last thing you should ever do is need to win a bet on the Oilers.

How do Vegas odds compare with Alberta odds?

They tend to start the same, but end differently.

You may have heard people discussing the Vegas odds on a particular game or wager before. The reason for the discussion is the fact that, despite the diaspora of sports betting in the United States, the main sports betting intelligentsia still call the desert city home, and most of the odds in North America originate there. However, you may wonder how the odds you see with PlayAlberta stack up with those beamed in from Las Vegas.

For the most part, both Alberta and Vegas odds begin in the same place. Although there are some oddsmakers with varying opinions, the era of computers and algorithms means that most bets are going to begin in the same place.

The divergence will occur as the lines change and the game approaches. There are two groups in Alberta that are far less numerous in Vegas: those with intimate knowledge of the Edmonton Oilers, and those who are huge fans of the Oilers. The first group might be able to spot value opportunities and bet accordingly. The latter group might simply hammer any outcome that favours an Oilers victory.

In either case, the odds on PlayAlberta are much more likely to vary from their initial marks than the Vegas odds. There are simply too many people with vested interests – one way or another – in the Edmonton team’s outcome.

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