Weird Sports You Didn’t Know Existed, Available for Betting Fun

In late June, we published an article on niche sports that you can bet on, which gained some traction. Given that we got decent feedback for it, we decided to explore this topic more, and we thought it would be fun to run a similar guide on sports few people know are out there, and ones that some bookies allow wagering on, or on which betting entertainment will be inevitable in the near future. So, let’s check out these athletic competitions that appear as novelties at first sight but have been around for longer than most readers would anticipate.

Quidditch

Fans of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter fantasy book series or movie franchise know what Quidditch is and how it gets played. For everyone else, what follows is a brief explanation of this fictional sport first depicted in 1997’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the series debuting book. Quidditch is a sport played by wizards and witches who fly around on broomsticks inside an oval pitch with ring-shaped goals, three apiece on each side, set at different heights. Two teams comprised of seven players compete in a match. The player roles in Quidditch are divided into seeker, keeper, two beaters, and three chasers. The chasers and keeper are responsible for scoring and defending. Chasers keep possession of a leather ball named – Quaffle that gets passed between chasers, who try to score goals. One is worth ten points. The Seeker’s task is to find/capture the Golden Snitch. Doing that awards a hundred and fifty points, effectively ending the match. It is all a bit convoluted for non-Potter lovers.

Now, since there are no flying broom-sticks in real life, Quidditch has been modified so that it can be enjoyed by muggles, individuals with no magical abilities. It got created at Vermont’s Middlebury College in Middlebury in 2005, now officially known as Quadball. The interesting thing about this sport is that teams must be gender-balanced, meaning each one may only have a maximum of four same-gender players on the field at the same time. Its rules get governed by the IQA, or the International Quadball Association, and some bookmakers accept wagering on Quadball/Quidditch matches. But it is not easy to find ones that do.

Competitive Cheerleading

Everyone knows about cheerleading, especially if one lives in the United States, where this activity is a staple at sporting events starting from the high school level. Cheerleaders dance, cheer, and perform impressive physical feats, such as flips, entertaining the audience and motivating their team. The US is the birthplace of this entertainment form, and what many do not know about it – is that it originated as an all-male activity.

Another thing most people are unaware of is that cheerleading competitions are things where squads perform routines in a designated timeframe. These get judged by expert panels who rate them based on execution difficulty. One of the most renowned contests of this type is events held by the All-Star Cheerleading Federation in the US, which entail two-and-a-half-minute routine rounds. Some sportsbooks have experimented with taking wagers on people over eighteen performing in these events. Now, there are rumblings that cheerleading may become an NCAA sport in the US and an Olympic one, opening the doors for bookmakers worldwide to start accepting betting action on these contests.  

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Okay, so is – Rock, Paper, Scissors actually a sport? Moreover, is it a game of chance or skill? It gets classified as a zero-sum game, meaning gains or losses get balanced precisely by the losses or gains of other participants. Most would say Rock, Paper, Scissors is a game of chance. Nevertheless, undoubtedly, it can also feature elements of skill, as players employ psychological tactics to influence their opponents’ decision-making, and they can be more proficient in spotting how the other party plans to play a round.

There is a World Rock, Paper, Scissor Association, which holds annual championship-level RPS tournaments in Canada, the United States, and Europe under the core rules of this game that everyone knows. We do not remember ever seeing sportsbooks featuring these events. Yet, online providers like BetGames have live dealer variations of Rock, Paper, and Scissors for wagering fun.

Wife Carrying

Here is something we have seen people bet on over the Internet, as wife-carrying is a fairly established competitive activity (believe it or not) in Finland, Estonia, Australia, and Ireland. According to most, this sport in modern times got introduced in Finland in 1992, and it now has multiple disciplines, such as fireman’s carry, Estonian-style, and classic piggyback.

Of course, the objective here is for a male to carry a female to a finish line, usually passing various obstacles set in his way. The fastest course time wins on an official track length of 253.5 meters or 832 feet.

Underwater Hockey

Grass hockey, also called field hockey, is a legit betting option at many popular Internet sportsbooks, and it has even been an Olympic sport since 1928. The underwater version of hockey first got played in 1954 in Portsmouth, England, and it bears the name Octopush in the UK. Competitors wear snorkeling gear and fins, pushing a lead puck the same size as an ice hockey one around the bottom of a pool with gloves on. The goals here are three meters wide at different ends of the pool.

Naturally, this is not spectator-friendly, as the action is super hard to follow from the stands. Still, that has not stopped underwater hockey from finding its niche, as the world championship for this sport has been held since 1980, happening every two years, with a female competition side getting included in 1982. There is even an European Championship that started in 1985. ESPN has run a story on the world of underwater hockey, and allegedly, Asian bookies have accepted bets on tournaments like the Southeast Asian Games. We doubt that this sport will gain massive popularity globally, given its nature and difficulty level, but apparently, there are people out there who like it and some who are open to bet on it.

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