Back
Grand Salami Betting: Complete Guide | LeoVegas

Grand Salami Betting Guide

Sausage. It’s the currency of dogs and a tasty treat for humans. In this case, the food made of who-knows-what is also a type of bet you can make at LeoVegas. The Grand Salami is a bet on the outcome of a series of games, more specifically, on how many points are scored by both teams.

Table of Content:

Football (soccer) fans will recognize Grand Salami as an over/under bet. There are differences between the two, however, which we’ll come to later in this guide. Overall, Grand Salami is a popular bet with LeoVegas fans despite its niche quality - it’s only possible to place this bet on hockey and baseball.

Place any kind of bet by visiting our Sports section at the top of this page and clicking through to the league or sport of your choice. We have all your favourite markets, including Hits and Stolen Bases in baseball and Total Goals in hockey.

For now, let’s introduce you to the sumptuous Grand Salami. Mind the grease.

What is Grand Salami in Sports Betting

Definition of Grand Salami Betting

Grand Salami is an over/under bet with a few alterations. Forget about betting on the points total of a single game.

With the Grand Salami bet, you’re betting on the total score of all games played in an entire evening’s sport.

The bookmaker will post a plus (+) or minus (-) figure ahead of the games in question. This is how many points or runs the bookmaker expects all teams to score on the night, added together. This makes Grand Salami a prop bet, as it’s made in advance.

The punter must then decide whether they think the points total will be higher or lower than the bookmaker’s estimate. There will often be limits to how much over or under the final figure you can go, set by the operators themselves.

For instance, at LeoVegas, in an MLB game between Cleveland Guardians and New York Mets, the Total Runs for Inning 1 can be Over or Under 0.5 or Over or Under 1.5. This is for a standard over/under bet.

Magnify those figures when dealing with a Grand Salami. They'll usually crest the one-hundred mark.

History and Evolution

The history of the Grand Salami bet isn't the easiest piece of pork to find. It's something that entered baseball parlance and stuck around, its origins partially lost to wear.

Techopedia claims that the name Grand Salami comes from Dave Niehaus, a Seattle Mariners broadcaster who provided play-by-play coverage until his sad death in 2010. Niehaus used it as a joke term for Grand Slam, i.e. a home run with bases loaded. It gained fame throughout the 1990s as an 'easier' bet than a parlay and a less expensive bet than a round robin. In any case, it was a distinctly American thing to do until the internet helped introduce it to Europe and beyond.

Basics of Grand Salami Betting

How Grand Salami Betting Works

Grand Salami bets are common on North American-serving sportsbooks. Most bookmakers will put them on each game night. Let's look at a few example games and assemble our Grand Salami using the over figure.

The over number in the Grand Salami is calculated by adding all the predicted over scores from each game, as follows.

  • White Sox vs. Blue Jays - +9.5
  • Mets vs. Guardians - +7
  • Brewers vs. Marlins - +8.5
  • Twins vs. Nationals - +9

This gives us a figure of +34. However, the bookmaker may adjust this number due to conditions including the teams in action, weather, injuries, and other variables. We'll see later how operators change their odds according to different criteria.

Let’s say the bookmaker picks +40.

All that remains is the final runs total of each game. If they come in 12-21, 8-7, 6-11, and 12-26,you'll end up with a score of +103, which is way over the bookmaker’s figure. You’ll win the over bet, in this case.

Types of Sports Where Grand Salami Betting is Common

The Grand Salami bet appears almost exclusively for ice hockey (NHL) and baseball (MLB) games. Exceptions may be made for special events in other major American sports like football (NFL) and basketball (NBA) but they’re about as rare as Bigfoot’s socks.

Conceivably, any sport that uses a points-based scoring system, which is almost all, suits a Grand Salami bet. Those with scored innings or rounds, i.e. cricket, tennis, or boxing, might seem destined for the option in the future.

How To Place a Grand Salami Bet

To place a Grand Salami bet at LeoVegas, navigate to our Sportsbook using the orange bar at the top of this page. Then, choose the night's delicatessen, baseball or ice hockey. When available, this is where you’ll find our Grand Salamis.

Alternatively, you can click Live Now or Starting Soon to get involved immediately. You'll find our active markets on each game's main page. Of course, you’ll need to sign up and make a deposit first. You can do this in the top-right corner.

Grand Salami Betting Across Different Sports

Baseball Grand Salami Betting

We’ve touched on Grand Salami betting in baseball already, but to reinforce one important point, remember that the line moves. The over/under figure on a Grand Salami is guided more by supply and demand than simple mathematics. For example, a figure of +7 might become +6 if the market isn't very popular with punters. Ideally, both the under and over bets will be attractive, so keep an eye out for shifting odds, especially as game night approaches.

Ice Hockey Grand Salami Betting

Grand Salamis in ice hockey usually have a spread of -120 to +120 and you can often make home and/or visitor Grand Salami bets if you're hungry. Note that like basketball, NHL scheduling doesn't favour player rest, so bet outcomes can be unpredictable. More on that next.

Grand Salami Betting Tips and Tricks

Grand Salamis are a battle between the punter and bookmaker’s knowledge, mysterious algorithms, and the unpredictability of the natural world. Rain and wind can scupper even the most nailed-on Salami, just as a player can by tripping over their own feet.

Study

Like an accumulator in soccer, the Grand Salami benefits from prior knowledge of each event. Weather and injuries/rest are two things you’ll want to read up on (postponed games usually result in a cancelled bet), but known qualities including home/away status, defensive and offensive history, and team/player head-to-head statistics should inform your Grand Salami order.

Inevitably, the usefulness of certain information is sport-dependent. The goalkeeper is the linchpin in NHL teams so you’ll want to begin your search with the starting tender (are they effective on the road? Are they the first-choice keeper or a stand-in?). For baseball, the starting pitcher can be the most influential person on the field.

Understand Grand Salami Bets

Hopefully, by this point in our guide, you’ll be well on your way to understanding Grand Salami bets. Practice makes perfect, however. It’s good advice to get used to betting on standard markets like outrights before tackling more complex bets. Of course, that’s up to you.

Check Odds

Knowing whether to bet over or under is the product of your research. Ultimately, you’re betting on whether the night will be a high-scoring one or a low-scoring one - but the bookmakers may force the spread one way or another depending on how much volume a market is experiencing.

Put another way, if it’s a schedule of highly defensive teams fighting some unpleasant outcome (like non-qualification or relegation), it’s almost guaranteed to be a quiet night. Oddsmakers may seek to make the over markets more attractive in this case, with better odds.

Ironically, Cup finals often go this way too, with soccer teams in particular risking a penalty shootout to avoid a late catastrophe.

That's all there is for our guide to Grand Salami betting. Play at LeoVegas for the most varied selection of markets on the web. You can also find the answers to our most Frequently Asked Questions below. Have fun with your Grand Salami betting.

Grand Salami FAQ

What is a Grand Salami?

A Grand Salami is a) the biggest sausage in New York and b) a type of prop bet. In the latter case, it’s a bet on the total runs or goals scored over a night of baseball or ice hockey. It’s a variant of the classic over/under bet.

What is the Grand Salami in hockey?

The Grand Salami in hockey is a bet on the number of goals scored by two teams in every game played in one night.

Can beginners try Grand Salami Betting?

Anyone can try the Grand Salami bet, although newbies may note it’s considered one of the more difficult bets to win.

Learn more about sports betting in our guides: