If you are new to betting, it could be completely overwhelming to understand exactly what is going on and what everything means. Today, we will discuss exactly what each piece means so people can be more well-informed decisions with their wagers and cash out with some extra money.
Score and odds will always affect your bets, so make sure you completely understand how and why that is.
Moneyline
The Moneyline is the most simplistic wager that a bettor can make, as that means a person is just selecting that team to win.
If you are betting on a -200 Moneyline favorite, that would mean that to win $100, a bettor needs to place a $200 wager. A negative or minus means that they are considered the favorite, and the higher the number, the more you need to wager to make a profit.
Let’s use an example to help make it clearer.
Suppose the New York Yankees face the Toronto Blue Jays with the Yankees being -125 on the Moneyline while the Blue Jays are +115. The Yankees would be considered the favorites, and a bettor would need to place $125 on the Moneyline to net $100.
If someone placed a wager for the Blue Jays to win, they would need to put a $100 wager, and if they won, that would net $115.
Spread
Different sports name this different (run line in baseball, puck line in hockey, spread in basketball and football), so be aware of what it is named when researching sports to wager on.
This is usually around -110 odds ($110 wagered to win $100), but this used to even the chances and essentially make it a 50/50 bet on the game. If a team has a minus on the spread, they would need to win by at least that number to hit on that bet as well.
Think about it this way: the New York Jets are facing off against the Houston Texans, and the Texans are 3.5 point favorites.
That means if someone bet on the Texans -3.5, a bettor would win as long as the Texans win by four points or more. If the Texans were to win by two points, that bet would lose, and whoever bet Jets +3.5 would win.
Totals
This is a bet people like to make when they have a feeling based on trends or the availability of players. The total is betting on the final score when adding both teams/competitors’ final scores and seeing if it would be higher or lower than the listed number.
Usually, these are 50/50 bets, so both sides would be listed around -110, so there would be no real lean on either side. If someone needed to see how much each team is expected to score, look at the total, divide the number by two and add the spread to the favorite or subtract from the underdog.
Let’s look at another example to understand this further.
Say the UCLA Bruins and the Arizona State Sun Devils are playing in a PAC-12 Conference men’s basketball game. The total would be sitting around 142 points, meaning the Bruins and Sun Devils would need to combine for 143 or more points for the over to hit or 141 points or fewer for the under to hit.
Conclusion
We discussed the three major aspects of sports gambling that beginners should look at before diving deeper. To be successful, we need to figure out the basics, which is what we did today.
Understanding precisely what vernacular bettors are using will help new bettors get their foot in the door and enter the world of sports betting.
