Legal online cricket betting is available in more than 30 states via licensed sportsbooks. Although cricket isn’t the most popular sport in the United States, its massive international following makes it a staple market among all licensed online sportsbooks.
The best cricket betting sites cover matches big and small, major tournaments like the ODI World Cup, the Ashes, T20 World Cup in expansive detail. BettingUSA’s recommended cricket betting apps also stand tall among the field for offering better odds, promotions, and welcome bonuses.
On this page, we discuss where it’s legal to bet on cricket online in the USA, explain the types of bets fans can place with licensed sportsbooks, and much more in detail. Read on for BettingUSA’s official and up-to-date online cricket betting guide.
Legal Cricket Betting Sites
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States With Legal Cricket Betting
Readers can see the following map for an overview of where it’s legal to bet on cricket online or in-person in the United States. We list the best cricket betting apps below, but readers can also see BettingUSA’s state sports betting guides for recommended sportsbooks in every state.
States with Legal Sports Betting
Map Key
- Blue: States where online sports betting is legal.
- Red: States with retail sportsbooks only.
In states where sports betting isn’t legal, the next best alternative is fantasy pick’em competitions via apps like PrizePicks. Fantasy pick’em contests for cricket allow fans to make over/under predictions on athlete stats for cash payouts. Fantasy pick’em cricket contests are a lot like player proposition parlays, except they’re legal in most of the states that don’t yet have legal online sports betting.
Best Cricket Betting Apps
The best cricket betting apps offer numerous advantages over the rest, particularly in these key areas:
- In-play betting
- The quality of their cricket betting odds
- Cricket tournament coverage
- Market diversity (types of cricket wagers available)
That said, bettors can get 80% of the way there by sticking with licensed cricket betting sites exclusively.
Most importantly, state regulators (like the NJ Division of Gaming Enforcement, Arizona Department of Gaming, etc.) require licensed online sportsbooks to comply with minimum standards of conduct regarding consumer protection, data integrity, and sporting integrity. At a minimum, states require licensed cricket betting sites to:
- Honor withdrawal requests in a timely manner
- Protect customers’ private information
- Promote responsible gambling
- Provide mechanism to resolve disputes between customers and operators
- Protect the integrity of sports
Offshore betting sites do not provide the same protections. Even if they possess a flimsy license from a lax jurisdiction overseas, they still operate outside the confines of US state and federal laws. That means bettors have no recourse if they are cheated, treated poorly, or are unable to resolve a dispute.
Therefore, bettors who place wagers via legal cricket betting apps are already at an advantage compared to those who use offshore sportsbooks. However, not all legal sportsbooks are equal. Below are BettingUSA’s rankings of the best cricket betting sites based on the aforementioned factors. Our editors have used the following betting sites extensively, tested their customer service teams, interviewed industry insiders, and run the numbers to arrive at these rankings.
In short, these are the best online cricket betting apps:
FanDuel Cricket Betting
FanDuel Sportsbook is owned by Flutter Entertainment, a global sports betting brand with a powerful presence in European betting markets.
Other Flutter-owned brands like Betfair have offered cricket betting for decades, and this experience passes through to FanDuel, which takes bets on a vast array of cricket matches.
Coverage includes high-profile international events like The Ashes, the ICC World Twenty20, and the ICC World Cup, as well as everyday Test Matches. Cricket moneylines, 3-way moneylines, and futures are the main bet types FanDuel offers.
If there’s one weakness, it’s props. Not only does FanDuel offer fewer props than some other sportsbooks, but its prop pricing is often poor. However, this weakness is offset by its industry-best cricket moneyline odds, with an average house edge of just 4.5%.
BetMGM Cricket Betting
BetMGM Sportsbook offers a limited number of cricket betting markets. Minor events typically receive minimal coverage or none at all, while major series may feature about a dozen props.
There are two reasons why BetMGM makes the list. The first is that it sometimes takes unique positions, meaning that its cricket betting odds tend to deviate from industry norms. For example, if most sites are offering a -625/+400 spread, BetMGM might offer -500/+333, providing enormous value to bettors who like the favorite.
BetMGM is also one of the few sportsbooks that offer cricket odds boosts. These special promotional wagers offer inflated odds. Just because a bet is “boosted” doesn’t mean it’s a good bet, but it at least has the potential to be one.
DraftKings Cricket Betting
DraftKings Sportsbook covers most major cricket events and isn’t afraid to take action on props.
As an example, for the most recent Ashes series between England and Australia, DraftKings took bets on several dozen match and player props and offered multiple cricket futures.
DraftKings loses points when it comes to pricing. The vigorish on basic moneyline wagers usually exceeds 6%, and prop bettors are charged even higher margins.
However, some of the house’s edge can be offset by DraftKings’ new customer bonus, which offers significantly more value than standard online cricket betting promotions.
BetRivers Cricket Betting
BetRivers Sportsbook offers the industry’s most extensive online cricket betting menu, with individual matches or series often featuring dozens of bets. Bet types range from standard moneylines to exotics like Player of the Match, Top Wicket Taker, and Team to Lead after an inning.
BetRivers’ cricket prop pricing isn’t great, but it’s at least reasonable, with most over/under props priced at around -115/-115. Moneyline vigorish hovers right around 5.5%, which is decent relative to the market.
It would be nice if BetRivers were more consistent, as some major cricket events feature upwards of 75 bet types, while others support just a few. Beyond that minor complaint, BetRivers holds its weight among the best cricket betting sites.
Cricket Betting Bonuses
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All prominent online cricket betting sites offer welcome bonuses to new customers who sign up for accounts and place their first wagers.
Cricket betting bonuses can take many forms, but common themes include:
- Cricket deposit bonuses: New users receive site credit or bonus bets based on the size of their first deposit
- First bet refunds: Also known as second chance bets, these cricket sportsbook promos refund customers who place first bets that lose
- Bet-and-get offers: The details vary, but these offers propose something along the lines of “bet $5+ on any sport to get $150 in bonus bets”
- No-deposit cricket bonuses: Occasionally, US cricket betting sites issue real-money bonuses to customers who sign up for accounts, with no deposit necessary
Cricket betting bonuses offered by licensed online sportsbooks are invariably legit due to local consumer protection regulations, but it is critical that fans read the terms and conditions of every offer before they claim it.
Even at the best cricket betting sites, welcome bonuses have terms and conditions that can significantly alter the equation for fans choosing between two or more online sportsbooks.
For example, two equally reputable cricket betting apps can offer welcome bonuses with vastly different wagering requirements. Similarly, fans who aren’t in the habit of reading the terms and conditions may be surprised to learn most so-called “no-deposit bonuses” actually require at least one real-money deposit before they can cash out any winnings they earn with their bonus funds.
Cricket Betting Promotions for Existing Customers
Other types of cricket betting promotions, such as odds boosts and reload bonuses, are exceedingly rare due to cricket’s relatively low profile in the USA. Online sportsbooks focus the majority of their efforts on the major pro and college sports in the US, leaving little in their promotional reserves for cricket bettors.
However, the lack of cricket betting promotions doesn’t mean fans are entirely out of luck.
Online sportsbooks often launch all-sport promotions that benefit customers no matter which sports they follow. For example, online sportsbooks occasionally host promotions that awards odds boost tokens that customers can apply to any wager on any sport, including cricket.
Fans who bet on cricket often can also earn site credit bonuses and other perks through sports betting loyalty programs. For example, BetMGM Rewards members earn points for every dollar they bet on sports to earn bonuses, access to exclusive promotions, VIP tickets to in-person events, comped hotel rooms, and more.
How Does Cricket Betting Work?
For those unfamiliar with cricket, the rules can be confusing. If you’re new to cricket betting and need to review the basics of how the sport works, here’s your refresher.
The main thing to keep in mind is that the cricket basics are really no more confounding than those of a similar sport, baseball.
Therefore it’s probably best to discuss the fundamentals of cricket in relation to the Great American Pastime:
- Games are played in a “pitch”, which is a grass field that typically has about a 200-meter circumstance. Although just like baseball stadiums, sizes vary.
- Cricket games may consist of one or two innings. Like in baseball, an inning is complete when both teams have had their turns to bat.
- Each team consists of 11 players and each player can assume one or more roles: batsmen, bowlers, fielders, and wicketkeepers.
- At the center of the pitch is a long rectangular space called the wicket. On each side of the wicket, a set of three stumps is placed. The set of stumps must be 22 yards apart and are manned by the wicketkeeper. Think of the wicketkeeper as a catcher in baseball.
- The bowler, which is equivalent to a pitcher in baseball, will bowl the cricket ball to a batsman, who will try and hit it. This dynamic should sound very familiar to baseball fans, except in cricket there are two batsmen on the field at once, one on each side of the wicket.
Types of Cricket Bets
How Cricket Moneylines Work
The main format for online cricket betting is the moneyline. In cricket and other team sports, this is simply a wager on who will win the game.
Cricket moneylines are presented in American odds, with the favorite usually denoted by a negative three-digit number, and the underdog by a positive three-digit number. An example would look like this:
- England: -200
- Australia: +160
Negative odds show bettors how much they’d have to wager to win $100. In this scenario, a bettor who wagers $200 on England would win $100, for a total payout of $300. The win amount is less than the stake because the team has greater than 50% implied odds to win.
For positive odds, the number shows how much the bettor would win if they wagered $100. Since positive odds have implied odds less than 50%, the winnings are always more than the stake. A $100 bet on Australia would win $160, and return $260 (stake + winnings).
In limited over cricket games, there is a definite winner and a loser. However, in Test Matches there can be draws. For these matches, sportsbooks use what’s called 3-way moneylines, which take the prospect of a draw into account:
For example:
- England: +160
- Australia: +120
- Draw: +320
The reason both England and Australia are listed at positive odds (underdogs), is because the draw is likely enough to occur that neither team has implied odds greater than 50%. Here, Australia is the favorite because its positive odds are lower than England’s.
Remember that draws work differently in cricket betting than in other sports. They occur primarily when a match cannot reasonably be finished in the allotted time.
Cricket Draw No Bet
A Draw No Bet is an alternative moneyline wager that eliminates the draw option. Bettors can only wager on Team A or Team B, and if the game ends in a draw, all bets are refunded.
Betting on cricket Test Matches can be especially frustrating because a draw can be called even when a bettor’s team is way ahead. A Draw No Bet wager alleviates some of the pain.
The downside is that winning wagers pay out less. How much less is determined by the likelihood of a draw. If a draw is very likely, then the odds will shift drastically. If the Draw odds are +5000, the Draw No Bet odds on Team A/B will barely move at all.
Cricket Futures
As cricket has increased in popularity, so has the number of high-profile tournaments. This opens the door for sportsbooks to offer cricket futures on who is going to win these events.
As the name implies, a futures wager is a bet on a distant outcome. Cricket betting futures vary from straight bets in that they are not wagers on single matches and do not resolve in a day. Sometimes they don’t resolve for months.
A common futures bet in cricket is selecting the winning of the ICC World Cup, which like the World Cup in soccer, occurs every four years and pits the very best teams against one another.
Cricket Prop Bets
High-scoring team sports like cricket are tailor-made for props. Typically, sportsbooks offer two categories of props, one focused on individual players, and the other on in-match events.
Cricket player prop bets include:
- To score a century: Odds of a single batsman scoring 100 or more runs in an inning or match
- Total runs: Bet on whether a certain player will score X number of runs
- Players of the Match: Bet on the match MVP
Cricket match props might include:
- The fall of the 1st wicket
- Total runs in an inning
- Highest opening partnership
Many Cricket prop bets are Yes/No over/under bets, and bettors may notice that the vigorish on these wagers is high. Be wary of betting Yes/No props where the odds are shorter than -115 on each side.
Cricket Parlay Bets
As is the case with most sports, cricket bets can be parlayed together to form bigger bets.
These larger multi-leg wagers will pay out more than their individual components, but the odds can be substantially longer. This is because parlays only cash if bettors get each leg correct.
Note: Same game parlays on cricket are generally not permitted by US sportsbooks, at least not yet.
So bettors looking to parlay cricket games will have to select no more than one bet per game. This is probably for the best, as the vigorish on regular parlays is already high enough. On SGPs, the juice can be astronomical.
In-Play Cricket Betting Apps
Every major US sportsbook permits in-play cricket betting. In-play wagering begins as soon as a cricket match gets underway and typically lasts until the game nears its conclusion.
Live cricket betting is exciting but can also be stressful for new bettors because the score, and subsequently the odds, are changing constantly. However, due to this extreme pacing, there are often opportunities to snipe stale or overly aggressive cricket lines.
Generally speaking, US sportsbooks don’t offer a whole lot of in-play cricket wagers. The most common one is the moneyline. Beyond that, sportsbooks may offer a few in-play prop bets.
It’s also worth noting that live cricket betting is available for a much longer span than most other sports because some games aren’t decided for a full day, or even multiple days.
Major Cricket Betting Events
Cricket supports a number of prestigious tournaments and events throughout the year. When these events occur, expect to see far more cricket bets and promotions than usual:
- ICC Cricket World Cup: The most prestigious cricket event only takes place every four years.
- ICC Champions Trophy: Also held once every four years, the ICC Champions Tournament is one of the biggest One-Day Internationals in cricket.
- ICC World Twenty20: This event follows the popular 20 overs format, and is typically held once a year, with men and women alternating.
- The Ashes: A semi-regular mega-series between old-time rivals England and Australia that dates back to 1883, The Ashes consists of a whopping five test matches spread out over a month or more.
- Indian Premier League: This is a men’s Twenty20 league (20 overs) that runs from March to May annually.
- England – Vitality T20 Blast: The T20 Blast is another limited overs league (20 overs) that consists of 18 teams. Group games run from late May to early July, and Finals Day is typically around mid-July.
- The Hundred: This event showcases cricket at its fastest. Eight men’s and women’s teams from England and Wales compete in a 100-ball cricket tourney.
Cricket Betting Tips
Despite its nuanced set of rules, cricket is a relatively easy sport to bet on. On the other hand, becoming a winning cricket bettor takes a lot more legwork.
Here are a few basic cricket betting strategies to get you started:
- Understand the rules: Bettors that eventually hope to beat cricket through modeling will first need to thoroughly understand how cricket works. This point should be obvious but is often painfully overlooked. Watch games, take notes, read the , and know the idiosyncrasies of each format.
- Realize that cricket is a major market: Cricket may seem like a small, one-off market to Americans, but it’s one of the world’s most heavily consumed (and bet) sports. That means that cricket lines on sportsbooks in Europe and other nations are sharp. Since US sportsbooks mostly just copy lines from market makers across the ocean, their lines will be fairly sharp too.
- Line shop, always: A bettor with just one betting app is a losing bettor, guaranteed. Download at least three or four apps and always compare the betting lines between them. Just because most US sportsbooks copy lines, it doesn’t mean the lines are exactly the same from one online sportsbook to the next.
- Follow useful cricket media: There is plenty of cricket media to consume, but the most useful to bettors focuses on injury reports and game conditions. Avoid the noise like “expert cricket picks”.
- Take advantage of promotions: US sportsbooks don’t offer a ton of cricket betting promotions, but a few do. For instance, BetMGM often offers odds boosts on select props. Cricket promos are more prevalent when a major event, such as the ICC World Cup, is approaching or underway. Bettors can also take advantage of non-sport-specific promos, like sportsbook welcome bonuses that refund a bettor’s first wager if it loses.
Cricket Betting FAQ
Robert Dellafave is an expert sports bettor, professional gambler, and advocate for the fair treatment of sports bettors.