Sports betting is a pastime that enjoys enormous popularity and support across virtually every sport imaginable. From football to tennis to the Olympics, betting on the outcome of a sporting event, game or match is virtually as old as sports themselves. Unsurprisingly, considering how popular betting on the horses is that it almost stands apart from other forms of betting, motorsports boasts some of the most lucrative of all forms of sports betting.

The question though, is which motorsports should you look at if you want to put some hard-earned cash on the outcome of one of their races? 

What Are Motorsports?

First, just to get the basics out of the way, motorsports refer, very simply, to motor racing, whereby cars race around a track or along a course and whoever finishes first wins. This is obvious for most people, but what is perhaps less obvious is why motor racing is called a sport, in the first place. Driving surely has nothing to do with kicking a ball or athletic skills or physical endurance tests, surely?

It actually has plenty to do, as it so happens, with the last of these. Professional racing car drivers need to be exceptionally fit as the cars in which they ride are designed not for comfort or safety but for going as fast as humanly possible and it takes genuine physical effort to control them. The fastest cars, in fact, have a gravitational force not unlike flying a fighter jet in the military, and not everyone has the physical stamina and strength to withstand such pressure.

The Top 3 Motorsports That Are Ideal for Betting

Unsurprisingly, if you wish to make serious money on a race, you need to pick the most competitive, the most popular and the most lucrative of them all. This is true for soccer, where you would bet on UEFA or FIFA, rather than a local game, it’s true for basketball where the NBA is really where all the action is at, and it’s one-thousand percent true for betting on motorsports too. 

Which is why the top 3 motorsports to bet on are the three you’re most likely to have heard of – and may well be a gigantic fan of. These are:

• Formula 1. Home to the most famous racers in the world (think names like Michael Schumaker and Ayrton Senna), Formula 1 and its biggest event, the Grand Prix, bring in the biggest audiences, the most passionate fans and the most serious bettors to watch these high octane races that occur usually on specifically constructed race tracks, but also on closed city streets. It’s also the most international of all racing tournaments. 
• IndyCar. The Indy 500 is probably the most famous of the IndyCar events as a literal 500 mile race that has proven so popular that this quintessential American tournament was made part of the international racing of Formula 1 throughout the 1950s. IndyCar is more evenly split between road races and racing tracks than F1, but is no less competitive. 
• NASCAR. One of the most popular American sports, let alone motorsports, NASCAR has plenty in common with IndyCar and Formula 1, but has two major features that set it apart. First, it’s much more of a team sport than the others as individual drivers on a team work together to win not as individuals but as a team. Second, it is known to be much safer than either IndyCar or Formula 1 as the tracks are specifically built to provide maximum buffering against cars smashing through the track and a strict safety standard that requires all racers to wear protective gear while racing. Though quintessentially American, NASCAR proved so popular that international tournaments have followed in recent decades in countries like Canada, Mexico, even parts of Europe.          

As you can see, each of the above motorsports are incredibly popular, lucrative and very, very well established, but they each offer their own unique flavor. The good news is that actually betting on them is incredibly easy online with many betting sites offering an option to bet on one or all three of these events with the click of a mouse.