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Your return would be $340 – the original $240 stake and the $100 bet profit. If you’re new to sports betting we recommend reading our guides on how to read odds, where sports betting is legal as well as sports betting for beginners. In that case you can identify the moneyline bet as the option that displays only one number. Spread bets always have a plus (+) or minus (-) sign preceding each of the two numbers in the box, and total bets always include an O (for “over”) or a U (“under”). Needless to say, first-time bettors will have to go elsewhere for education.
The most obvious example would be parlaying the first half over with the game’s total over. Very obviously, if the first-half total comes in, the overall total has become a favorite to win. Let’s say our hero wants to get a little more aggressive this time. Three-team moneyline favorites might feel safe but this one only paid +132. Among the undefeated are the reigning Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who have taken over the top spot as the favorites to win Super Bowl LVI in Feb. 2022. Betting $100 on the draw will return $255, plus your $100 stake – a total of $355.
To achieve about a 50/50 chance of winning a bet on a lopsided game, like the Rams vs. Vikings above, the sports books have come up with the “point spread.” It does not come as a surprise to see such a low point total for tonight’s game with two pedestrian offenses. The Bears are averaging 15.4 points per game and the Steelers averaging 18.9 points per game. This season, Chicago is 2-6 when it comes to the over and the Steelers are 1-5-1, which is second worst in the league. The public wants to go with the over, but we just saw the Steelers win last week. Determining the implied probability of each bet is easier with decimal odds than it is with American odds.
For example, if the book received some high-limit action from respected accounts on Lions +290, you might log in the next day and see Lions +250. To look at some real-life examples, let’s check out some games from the 2021 NFL season. We’ll look at how the moneyline varies from three different matchups, with lines from DraftKings Sportsbook.
The simplest way to think about a moneyline is to consider a base bet of $100. A moneyline is a number larger than 100, and it is either positive or negative. A line with a positive number means that the team is the underdog. If the line, for example, was +160 then you would make a profit of $160 if you were to bet $100. Obviously, then, the team is a bigger underdog the bigger the number is – a +260 team is perceived to be less likely to win than a +160 team. The optimal situation for bookmakers is to set odds that will attract an equal amount of money on both sides, thus limiting their exposure to any one particular result.
Different sportsbooks have different odds, so when placing a parlay bet it is best to first do your research. Additionally, payouts for parlay betting are fixed at the time the bet is made. So even if the odds change throughout the season, the parlay odds will not change for or against you. For professional bettors or those looking to make some extra money, you need to be more selective about how you bet.
The website jams so many different widgets and bets that it can feel cluttered – odds boosts especially eat up a large part of the screen. If you are thinking about betting parlays, be sure to check out our complete guide to betting baseball parlays. Instead of trying to go game-by-game and determine who will win, you can place a wager on who you think will win the series. This is a popular wager when you have a pitching mismatch. If you think betting totals is something you are interested in, check out ourstrategies for betting MLB totals.
As a comparatively low scoring game, point spread betting in NHL is less common than in NFL or NBA. This affects line movement when it comes to NHL totals bets too, which are less likely to move as much as the other sports. All of the above examples are different forms of the same activity from sportsbooks.
We are here to give you an overview of the basic styles of betting odds, how you can read the different formats, and how to use them to your favor. For basketball and football, point spread bets receive a ton of attention, but there’s also moneyline betting for these two sports. A common misconception is that there’s not enough value to be found on the moneyline in comparison to the spread. When compared to a point spread, for the underdog, the benefit of a money line bet is the increased odds a handicapper receives. For the favorite, the benefit is that no handicap is given to the underdog, making it more likely their bets will win. In a 2-team game where one team has a positive money line, they are always the underdog.