Betting on the SF Giants

The San Francisco Giants are one of the oldest baseball teams in the world, having been established in 1883. They have won 23 National League pennants and eight World Series Championships, the last being in 2014. According to Facebook’s MLB fandom map, this final title has led to the SF Giants overtaking the Los Angeles Dodgers in popularity across the country, most notably in their home state of California. 

Our guide will prepare you for when sports betting in California gets revisited and possibly approved, so you know how San Francisco Giants odds work, what types of bets you can place, and more. 

Where Can You Bet on the San Francisco Giants? 

Despite the support for Proposition 27 from the MLB and the San Francisco Giants, together with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres, the Orange Nation won’t be able to back their beloved Giants by placing bets on online sportsbooks in California. Voters rejected the sports betting bills on a Nov. 8 ballot with an overwhelming majority.

The failure of two opposing sports betting propositions in California kept potentially the largest sports betting market in America closed to legal sports wagering. Despite the most expensive ballot campaign in US history with Indian tribes and sports betting giants such as DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM mustering close to $600 million for their campaigning efforts, around 80% of all voters said no to sports betting in the Golden State. 

Online Sportsbooks

DraftKings, FanDuel, and BetMGM were among the loudest proponents of Proposition 27, but to no avail. Legal online sports betting in California didn’t get support from the voters.

The current California San Francisco Giants World Series odds are +5000 at FanDuel and BetMGM’s online sportsbooks in Arizona. These are the best odds for the San Francisco Giants you can get now in one of the closest states to California where you can legally bet on the Giants. The odds at DraftKings are considerably lower, currently fixed at +4000 for taking home the Commissioner’s Trophy. 

Nevada and Oregon are two other viable options for California’s sports bettors. Oregon has only one online sportsbook, DraftKings, which partnered with Oregon Lottery to launch a sports betting product. One of the significant advantages of betting in the Beaver State is that the legal gambling age is 18 years old and not 21, like in most other states. 

If you opt for Nevada, you’ll be betting in a state that legalized gambling and online sports betting in particular. However, the law requires you to register at a land-based casino before you can bet on sports using an app.  

Retail Sportsbooks 

A coalition of Indian tribes across California backed Proposition 26, which aimed to bring retail sports betting to the state. Despite their efforts, 66.98% of the voters on the Nov. 8 ballot chose not to support the measure. 

San Francisco Giants Schedule 2024

The 2024 MLB season, scheduled on March 30, 2024, will be the first one with an entirely new format resulting from a new collective bargaining agreement between the league and MLB Players’ Association. The number of games for the Giants and other teams will remain the same at 162, but the format will be entirely different. 

Teams will now play each other for at least one series in the new season. Also, we can expect the Giants to play 52 divisional games instead of the previous 76. The highlight of the season will be the four-game home-and-away series that the Giants will play against their natural interleague rivals Oakland Athletics in the venerated Battle of the Bay. 

The new collective bargaining agreement also brought a new format structure. The postseason will now host 12 teams instead of 10, with an additional team from each league as an extra wild card entrant. The Wild Card Game has been replaced with a best-of-three series. 

With this new format, bettors look for improved San Francisco Giants playoff odds, especially after the team missed the playoffs last season. 

Types of Bets That Can Be Placed on the San Francisco Giants

Even the best odds at California sportsbooks are products of complicated math by oddsmakers employed by betting companies to come up with San Francisco Giants odds to win the World Series or any other event. 

These oddsmakers include various factors in their calculations, including coaching and roster changes, current form, injuries, schedule, and even the weather. Once the initial odds or opening come up, there’s still work to be done. This is where odds or line movement kicks in. 

Namely, a flurry of initial bets from the public will indicate which side of the bet is most favored by the public. The oddsmakers will then shift the odds to make players bet on the other side so as not to be too exposed. For example, if the San Francisco Giants are facing the Los Angeles Dodgers with the following odds and lines: 

• San Francisco Giants -250
• LA Dodgers +200

If the bookmaker takes a lot of bets on the Giants, the odds for their win will go down to make the bet less attractive and ensure they get a profit either way. 

Your payouts are based on the odds at the time of betting and the stake. When you win a wager, you’ll receive your stake back plus the profit for winning the bet. The profit directly depends on the odds. 

When the odds are negative like with the Giants vs. Dodgers odds we saw in the previous example, the profits are calculated accordingly and will produce an amount smaller than your stake: 

• Profit = 100/Odds * Stake

When the odds are positive when betting on the underdog, you usually stand to double your money. The math for calculating the profit looks like this: 

• Profit = Odds/100 * Stake 

As a bettor, it’s vital to know that even the best San Francisco odds in California won’t be true odds, and we have the so-called vig or juice to thank for that. It’s a profit margin factored in odds calculation which guarantees that the payout to a winning wager is always less than what it would be if the odds were true. 

To do this, bookmakers calculate the implied probability of an event using the formula (Stake/100)*Odds for negative odds or (100/Odds)* Stake for positive odds. If we go back to our Giants vs. Dodgers matchup, we can see that the implied probability of the Giants winning it is 71.43%, as opposed to the 33.33% probability of the Dodgers escaping with a win. These implied probabilities are 104.76%, exceeding the supposed 100% maximum. That excess of 4.76% represents the bookie’s profits for taking the bets, no matter which team wins. 

San Francisco Giants Moneylines Odds 

Betting on the moneyline implies betting on the team you think will win the game. For example, if the moneyline has the Giants at +220 and their opponents (Diamondbacks at -190), the Diamondbacks are favorites, and you’d need to wager $190 to win $100. If you back the Giants, your $100 wager can result in $220 in profits. 

San Francisco Giants Point Spread

A point spread in baseball betting is known as a baseball run line. Run lines are based on a 1.5 spread. For example, if you have the Giants at -1.5 runs at -110 against the Colorado Rockies (who are at +1.5 runs at +140), your $110 wager would lead to $100 in profits should the Giants win by 1.5 or more runs. On the other hand, if you back the Rockies, they need to win or lose by one run for you to get $140 in profits for a $100 wager. 

San Francisco Giants Futures Odds

If you take advantage of San Francisco Giants draft odds, you’re effectively betting on futures (sporting events that haven’t taken place yet). Besides the winner of the World Series, you can bet on the winner of the National or the American League, which pitcher will take home the Cy Young Award, and other similar outcomes. Futures odds are made available well in advance and adjusted as the season unfolds. 

San Francisco Giants Prop Bets

Game props in baseball are wagers that have nothing to do with the outcome but rather the individual player and team performances. Team props involve betting on a particular element of a team’s performance (for example: which team will score first or if there will be a run in the first inning). 

On the other hand, player props revolve around the statistical performance of a given player, such as will John Brebbia throw more than 7.5 strikeouts or will Joc Pederson score the next home run? 

Prop wagers can be specific to a single game but can also be series-long or season-long props. Let’s take Joc Pederson as an example again. He had 23 home runs last season. Bookmakers may allow you to bet on whether he will score more or fewer than 25 home runs this year. 

San Francisco Giants Totals Bets

Total bets refer to the total number of runs scored in a game. As a bettor, your job is to choose whether the total number of runs will be Over or Under the limit set by the sportsbook. In a game between the Giants and the Padres, the Over/Under limit can be set to 9.5. If you bet Over, you win if there are more than 10 runs in the game at the end. If you bet on Under and the final result is 5-4, you win the bet. 

San Francisco Giants Live Betting

Live betting on the San Francisco Giants involves placing a bet on a game in progress. The odds shift to reflect the action on the pitch, so timing is critical with live bets. You can bet on which team will score next or whether the next batter will strike out. 

How to Bet on the World Series in California

The MLB’s World Series offers a wide variety of betting opportunities. You can find good San Francisco Giants odds of making the playoffs or winning the championship, along with odds for seasonal and performance proposition bets such as who will take the Rookie of the Year award in the American League. 

The opportunities are endless but as a Californian, you must travel to Arizona, Nevada, or Oregon to bet on the Giants. 

Northern Californians who travel to Oregon can bet on the DraftKings app and capitalize on the current +4000 odds on the Giants to take the World Series. At the same time, those who go to Arizona can opt for the same bet at FanDuel at even better odds of +5000. 

You can also bet on other futures, such as the winner of the National League and the NL West division, and find many other appealing San Francisco Giants odds.   

How to Bet on the San Francisco Giants in California

Sports betting propositions didn’t get support from the voters, so there’s still no legal sports betting in California. However, as an example, we’ll take you through the simple registration and bet-making process at online sportsbooks in Arizona so that you know what to expect if and when CA online sportsbooks go live. 

1. Go to the sportsbook’s website or download the designated mobile app. 
2. Select California from the list of available states. 
3. Sign up using personal information such as your full name, email, home address, date of birth, last four digits of your SSN, and similar. 
4. Make a deposit and claim California sports betting bonuses if it’s being offered to new customers.
5. Navigate to the MLB page in the betting menu and locate San Francisco Giants’ matchups. 
6. Browse the betting market and click on the bet you wish to make, and it’ll be automatically added to your betslip.
7. Insert the stake amount in the betslip and select “Place Bet.” Potential winnings will be automatically displayed on the betslip. 

San Francisco Giants Stadium

Oracle Park is one of the most iconic ballparks in the country. It was the first privately financed ballpark since 1962 and cost $357 million to build. The stadium opened to the public on  April 11, 2000, two and a half years after it broke ground. It’s located in the SoMA neighborhood, between China Basin and King Street in downtown San Francisco providing great views of the Bay Area. 

Name: Oracle Park

Address: 24 Willie Mays Plaza, San Francisco, CA 94107, United States

Capacity: 42,300 seats

Opened: 2000

Main tenants: San Francisco Giants

San Francisco Giants Odds FAQ