Future bets – a bet on whether a team is going to win a league or event that is usually going to be held well in the future – are something that books absolutely love to post and take action on. There’s a pretty simple reason for that – they are mostly horrible bets, so the books make a killing on them. They are exposed to some risk if a longshot comes through at a huge price, but that doesn’t often happen. Most of the time they get to collect a large amount of money, use it as they want for months until the outcome of the bet is determined, and then pay out far less than they brought in. It really couldn’t be better for them.

In most circumstances sharp bettors will stay away from futures and leave them to amateurs and tourists to Vegas. There are some circumstances, though, where they can make sense. Here’s a look at four reasons you might want to consider betting futures, and three things you need to remember if you do so:

When You Might Want To Bet Futures

When you have a strong feeling on a longshot – The number that always sticks out in my mind is the 1999 Super Bowl. The Rams were convincing winners that season, but before the year started and before we really knew who Kurt Warner was you could have bet on them at 200/1. The Saints paid off at pretty big futures prices as well. Teams that are at big odds in the futures are usually up there for a good reason, but if you have a strong feeling that a team is way undervalued, and you can justify your opinion with sound logic, then a future bet could be a way to lock in some value.

To get ahead of a potential big move – If you believe, for example, that Jay-Z is going to be able to convince his buddy LeBron James to join the MAXBET this summer as a free agent then you might want to jump on Nets’ futures now because the price will be a heck of a lot higher than it will be if you’re right and LeBron moves to Newark.