The guys at work I’m in the pool with think I’m stupid because I don’t understand sports spreads. I’m used to pick the winner pools, not pick the spread. Please explain. TY!
In: Mathematics
Suppose you want to gamble on a game, but one team is the heavy favorite. If you promise equal payouts to people who bet on each team, everyone will pick the better team. One way to fix this is to promise a bigger payout if the underdog wins.
The other way is to set a spread. This says that the stronger team only pays out if they beat the weaker team by X points. If the spread is 6.5 points, the stronger team needs to win by at least 7 points to pay out (spreads always have a half point to make this extra clear). If the stronger team wins by a score of 23 to 20, they still get the official W, but they didn’t “beat the spread,” so the people in your pool who bet on the weaker team still collect.
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