Sports Betting Lines Explained
American odds are centered around winning or wagering $100 on a given bet. If You’re Betting a Favorite: The odds for favorites will have a minus (-) sign in front, and indicate the money you need to risk to win $100. When you see -150, +230, or any other three-digit number with a +/- in front of it, you’re dealing with American betting odds. What Do the + and – Mean in Sports Betting? The – and + on a sports betting line indicates both your prospective payout and whether you’re betting on the favorite or the underdog. Negative numbers signify the favorite on the betting line. The negative number indicates how much you’d need to bet to win $100. A betting line is a form of wagering whereby the bookmaker or sportsbook set gambling odds and determine the favorite and underdog teams in a match. This handicap creates a margin (line) between the two teams, where there are only two outcomes possible, and sets the parameters for wagering on the game.
SportsbookWire.com has beginner bettors covered. Our legal online sports betting 101 guide for new bettors explains how to bet on the moneyline, against the spread and the Over/Under. We'll also break down how to read odds in search of value on the betting odds and lines, and discuss the advantages of mobile betting when looking. Feb 03, 2021 Betting odds represent the probability of an event to happen and therefore enable you to work out how much money you will win if your bet wins. As an example, with odds of +400, for every $1 you bet, you will win $4. There is a 20% chance of this happening.
Sports betting odds are the most common ways to wager with US offshore bookmakers online or a local bookie in your state. Learning to understand the sports betting odds is very important and can lead to huge profits, especially if you are betting on college football, NFL, and college hoops. Every year the best sports betting sites online accepting USA players come out with new ways to wager on sports like the Sportsbooks with live betting. This has made betting sports online easier and more profitable for the recreational gambler.
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Different Types of Odds For Wagering On Sports
There are many different types of ways to wager on sports like the regular game odds. The game odds consist of straight bets, Pointspreads, betting the moneyline, the over/under, and the futures.
Game odds are the most common ways that Americans place real money sports wagers online. It is vitally important to understand just because you place a wager on a team and they win does not mean that you win money. There are different types of odds when betting sports online and we will cover the differences.
The pointspread and the moneyline are very profitable for people to bet on. The pointspread is when a team is listed as a favorite or listed as the underdog. For instance if the sports betting odds have the New York Jets listed as the three points favorites to win against the Seattle Seahawks, and you bet on the pointspread on the Jets they have to win by more than three points in order to you to win. This means that if they game ends 30-27 in favor of the Jets you get a push, meaning the online bookmaker and you both do not win. If the score is 31-27 you won because they covered the pointspread by one point If the game ends and the Jets beat the Seahawks 30-29 the online Sportsbook wins because they did not cover the three-point spread.
If you do not want to bet on a team based on how much or a favorite or underdog they are, you can wager on the moneyline. The Moneyline wager is a very common way for gamblers to place their bets and it simply means that you are paying a premium for a team not to cover the pointspread. For instance lets use the last example where the New York Jets beat the Seattle Seahawks 30-27. If they Jets were listed at -210 on the moneyline then you would have to wager $210 for every hundred dollars you want to win. This means that you are wagering more money to win the bet without the team having the cover the pointspread. This type of sports wager is very common and can come in very handy. There are also teasers and parlays, which is betting on several games at once.
Proposition Bets
Proposition bets are very common and can be very profitable to wager on. A proposition wager can cover a wide assortment of topics. For instance of the “prop bets” on the Superbowl was whether the game will end in a score that will be higher than the value of a Bitcoin (BTC). This is an example of a big proposition sports wager and it also involves the total points the game will end in plus what the price of the Bitcoin is. A basic proposition bet is something like “Will Lebron James score more than 20 points in tonight’s game”? You can either bet that he will or he won’t and you will win or loose based on the outcome of the game and how many points he scores. Top
Sports Betting Money Line Explained
Welcome to the Sports Betting Odds section of The Sports Geek. If you are new to sports betting and don’t understand how to read betting odds (+150, -110, +2200, etc) we will lay it all out for you and help you learn how the betting odds work.
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Sports Betting Odds Explained
Many people don’t know how to read or calculate sports betting odds, so below we have done our best on explaining how betting odds work. The most common type of sports betting odds used in North America are the American style odds which we explain below.
American Style Sports Betting Odds
Most online sportsbooks will list their odds in what is called “American Odds”. There are a couple different versions of sports betting odds, but these American Odds are the most common odds used. Reading and understanding sports betting odds can bet a little confusing to beginners, so we have provided an example below using two NFL football teams:
American Odds
- Matchup Odds
- New England Patriots +120
- Pittsburgh Steelers -140
The number shown in the bracket represents the odds. The American Odds have two components to them, the first being the positive or negative sign, and the second being the number that follows the sign.
The sign in front of the number indicates whether placing a wager on that outcome will pay out more money then you have wagered or less money then you have wagered. If the odd is negative (-) it means that outcome is more likely to happen and placing a bet on that outcome would payout less than the amount you wagered, while a positive (+) odd shows that the outcome is less likely to happen and it would pay out more than the amount you wagered.
The next step is figuring out exactly how much the bet pays out, which is where the numbers in the odds come into play.
A listed odd with a – sign in front of it, such as the -140 in our example above, shows us how much money you would need to wager in order to win $100. So using the -140, this would show us that you would need to bet $140 in order to win $100 in profits. You can easily substitute the $100 bet for a $10 bet by moving the decimal place over one spot, showing us that you would need to wager $14 in order to win $10 in profits.
Examples:
Las Vegas Sports Betting Lines
A listed odd with a + sign in front of it, such as the +120 in our example above, shows us how much money you would win on a $100 bet. Using the +120 odds, it shows us that a $100 bet on that outcome would pay out $120 in profits. Again this can easily be converted into smaller or larger size bets. A $10 bet on +120 odds would pay out $12 in profits.
Examples:
Below is an example of NFL betting odds taken from an online betting site.
In this example you can see Los Angeles is listed at +130 ($100 bet pays $130 plus of course your original wager back) and New England is listed at -150 ($150 bet pays $100).
The great thing about betting online is that the online sportsbooks will do the calculations for you before you place your bet. You can click on the outcome or team you would like to bet on, and then input the amount you wish to wager and it will show you your potential pay out before you confirm your bet.
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Decimal Style Sports Betting Odds
Decimal style odds are used mostly in Europe, and are pretty easy to understand. To calculate the decimal style odds all you will need to do is simply multiply the amount you wish to wager by the decimal odds shown and you will get your payout. For example it may look something like this:
If you wanted to place a $10 wager on the USA at 2.40 you would simply need to multiply your $10 wager by the 2.40 odds (10 x 2.40) to find out that the payout is $24. It is important to realize that with decimal style odds it includes the amount you wagered, so to find out profits you would need to subtract your wager ($24 – $10) to find out your potential payout is $14 in profits.
If you wanted to place a $10 wager on Brazil you would again just multiply $10 x 1.55 to find out that you would win $15.50 total or $5.50 in profits.
Decimal style betting odds are very simple to understand, but you won’t see them displayed in many North American sportsbooks. With that said, most online betting sites will allow you to chose the style of betting odds you want displayed, with American odds set as the default.