“spread”, “moneyline”, “over/under”
In: 1
Let’s say we are going to bet on a game where an NFL All Star team is going to play against the #1 college team in the nation. Who would you bet would win this contest? If you/re not an idiot, you would put your money on the NFL All Star team (it’s the best players from the NFL who are from the best players in all of college). No one in their right minds would bet on the college team.
Now let’s say that a Sportsbook wants to take people’s bets on this game. Everyone is going to bet on the All Star team. This means that when they win (which they will) the Sportsbook will have to pay money to everyone. The Sportsbook loses money and goes out of business.
The Sportsbook needs people to bet on both sides of the contest so that they can pay the winners from the money they make off of the losers. They have two ways to convince people that they should bet on the team favored to lose:
1) Spread — In a spread bet, the Sportsbook picks a number that favored team must beat the other team by in order for them to have “won” the bet. In other words, the Sportsbook is spotting the unfavored team some points at the start of the game. If your bet wins then the Sportsbook will pay you $10 for every $11 that you bet. A negative number in a spread bet next to a team means that you need to subtract that number from the team’s final score to determine if you won (this team is favored). A positive number means that you add the number to the team’s final score to determine if the bet wins (this team is not the favorite). In our All Star example, the sports book might make the All Star team’s -50 point favorites. In this case if you bet on the All Star team, them must win by more than 50 points for your bet to win. With a 50 point spread you might very well decide that betting on the college team was the better bet.
2) Moneyline — In a money line bet the Sportsbook adjusts the payout to entice you to bet on one team or the other. One team will usually have a negative number next to them and the other team will have a positive number next to them (if the teams are evenly matched, they would likely both have a -110 next to them). A negative number means that the team is favored, and you need to bet that number to win $100–so if you won with a team at -550, you’d have to bet $550 to win $100. A positive number means you bet $100 to win that number in dollars–so if the team won at +550, you’d win $550 for every $100 you bet. You do not have to bet in multiples of $100, but the ratios will be the same.
3) Over/Under is just a different bet than betting on one team to win. You are instead betting that total points scored will be greater than or less than the over/under number–it doesn’t matter who wins. For example, the Bills/Chiefs game has an Over/Under of 54 points this week. You would be betting the the Bills + Chiefs final score will be over or under 54 points. If the final score is Bills 32 and Chief 27 and you bet the under, then you’d lose because 32+27=57 which is OVER 54. O/U bets pay -110 (you win $100 for every $110 you bet).
Latest Answers