How Does The Moneyline Work In Sports Betting
When betting on the favorite, you take less risk, and thus earn less. When betting on a favorite, the moneyline is the amount of money you need to spend to make $100 profit. In the previous example, in order to make $100 of profit betting for the Cowboys, you would need to spend $135. Like positive odds, you earn back your bet when winning. The Odds Associated With the Moneyline. If you wanted to make a moneyline bet with a bookie rather than your persistent coworker who claims Jared Goff is a good quarterback, you’re not going to receive the same 1:1 odds. Depending on the teams that are playing each other, there are three terms associated with the moneyline.
In every sporting event, there can be a wide degree of difference from one outcome occurring compared to another. Betting odds are the interpretations of these chances in numerical form. Of course, since the bookmakers charge vigorish, the odds won’t reflect the true probability of an outcome but more on that later.
Depending on what part of the world you’re betting from, you’re likely to become accustomed to one form of betting odds or another. Online sportsbooks these days will offer their customers odds in several formats, but it’s important to understand each odds format.
Also known as moneyline odds, American odds are used primarily by those based in the United States. American odds are simple to understand. The odds are based off the amount that must be bet for the bettor to win $100.
Sports like baseball are bet solely with moneyline odds because there is no point spread. However, traditional point-spread wagering will also have American odds attached. The standard bookmaker’s vigorish is -110, which will be the standard juice attached to sides and totals.
Here’s a basic example using an MLB baseball game:
In terms of moneyline wagers, like all baseball contests, the favorite will be signified with a – negative symbol and the underdog with a + positive symbol. In the above example, the Reds are the favorite, and the Cubs are the underdog.
Bettors would need to wager a stake of $130 to win $100 if wagering on the Reds. For the Cubs, a $100 bet would return $120.
Here’s an example of American odds attached to an NFL point spread.
The moneyline odds attached to each side of the point spread are -110. To bet either side, NFL bettors will need to bet $110 to win $100. For Americans, this 10 percent vigorish is standard. However, bookmakers often change the attached vig on point-spread markets. This is another way for them to move the line without coming off certain numbers.
Decimal odds are the most commonly used odds type by online bookmakers. They are the favorites of most Europeans, excluding the United Kingdom, and by Australians. Decimal odds follow a simple and basic formula.
Here is an example of a wager placed on the favorite in an English Premier League soccer match:
Fractional odds are predominantly used throughout the UK and Ireland. They are also known in the UK as UK Odds. First appearing in horse racing, they are the oldest form of odds in sports betting.
We all learned fractions as kids in school, and using fractional odds is no different. When using fractional odds, the second number to the right is the denominator, and it signifies the amount of the stake. The first number and number to the left is the amount that your stake will yield (not including the original stake) if the wager is a winner.
Here’s yet another example using English soccer:
Here is another example, this time with an odds-against underdog:
Many bettors will want to convert fractional odds to moneyline odds or decimal odds to American odds, etc. This can be done using some basic math, but in today’s bookmaking age, it’s not necessary.
Most sportsbooks offer several different odds types, so changing betting markets into different odds types can almost always be done with a click of a button. Bettors can also Google the term “odds converter,” and they will be met with several betting calculators that provide this service as well.
Do Betting Odds Represent the True Probability of an Outcome?
While betting odds are indeed the best barometer for predicting the outcome of a sporting event, the odds don’t necessarily reflect the true likelihood or probability of the outcomes concerned.
For instance, if we flip a coin, we know that there’s a 50% chance that it will land on heads and 50% chance it will land on tails. When a bet is placed, we will either win our side of the wager or lose (or push in some cases). This seems like a 50/50 proposition as well, but the bookmaker’s vigorish adds an edge to both sides of the bet.
Furthermore, the odds can be influenced by other factors. Not every bookmaker has the same opinion on a game, and the odds may also be affected by how much exposure a sportsbook has to each market. If they are taking a lot of action on one side, the odds will likely move due to the increase in wagering volume.
As a sports bettor, our goal should be to look for markets with the smallest edges held by the sportsbook. The closer we can get to the 50/50 coin flip odds, the less the sportsbooks will make off us in the long run. Of course, betting with no juice isn’t possible, but line shopping and cutting down on your edge is something that all bettors can do easily.
Sports betting has become a phenomenon across the world. People all around the world will put wagers on a sporting event to create more excitement around a game for themselves. Let’s face it, you wouldn’t watch a 1-10 team play a 2-9 team without placing a wager. But once the wager is in, you’re absolutely tuning in and watching every second.
Betting lines are used for sportsbooks to put a price on a certain wager. If you’re looking at a team with -150 odds to win, they’re a favorite. If it pays out, you will receive less than you put in. However, if you bet on the opposite side and take a chance with a +150 underdog, you would make more profit if the team won. Read more about Moneyline betting here.
Who creates the betting lines that are used by sportsbooks?
Most sportsbooks have in-house oddsmakers that are in charge of creating betting lines in the weeks before games, especially when it comes to Opening Day or the NFL. In baseball, the oddsmakers are required to make the lines daily as games never seem to stop in the summer with the MLB.
Years ago, the oddsmakers didn't have that much information to look at when trying to make betting lines. Now there are analytics everywhere to come up with all of the lines much more accurately.
Back then, oddsmakers would really only have box scores to look at. Now oddsmakers can look up anything and everything which gives them an advantage over the average bettor. Of course, records and things like the weather are important, but deeper stats mean so much more to oddsmakers. They’re able to develop systems to figure out exactly how much a team will score and such. You know the saying, “Vegas is always right.” Unless you follow Doc’s Sports picks. Then it’s different.
How Lines Move
When a game starts out at -3 for a team and the line changes to -2 before the game begins, that means that there’s action on the game or an injury to a key player. There are 'sharp' bettors that place a large bet on one team that forces oddsmakers to raise an eyebrow and switch the lines. An oddsmaker is always watching action to see if a change is necessary on the lines.
Popular Ways to Bet
Point spread
A point spread is a handicap where you essentially give or receive points on top of the actual outcome of the game. The spread basically looks at how a sportsbook or oddsmaker thinks about what the outcome might be. For example, in an NFL game, if the Kansas City Chiefs are -3 on the spread, the oddsmakers believe that the Chiefs will win their game by three points. If your data and analysis say otherwise, you would be on the opposite slide and gain three points from their opponent. So, if you bet on the Chiefs with the spread, you would have needed them to win by more than 3 points to cash your ticket. If the score was 27-21, Chiefs, you would win your bet. But if it was 23-21, Chiefs, you would lose because the other side gained three points and won 24-23 theoretically. Betting on spreads allows you to pick a team to win with better odds. If you were to just pick the Chiefs to win that game, you would have to lay a lot of money on the Chiefs. Picking them against the spread gives you a chance to make money near an even line.
Moneyline Betting Calculator
Moneyline bets:
Moneyline bets take some stress away. With a moneyline bet, you only need your team to win the game and don’t need to worry about how much they do it by. We’ve all been there where we’ve taken a team to win by 7.5 and then a team wins by just seven. Those are the worst bad breaks and losing bets possible and not fun to endure. After the game, you’ll then wish you had been on the moneyline instead. Those absolutely sting.
The problem with money lines is that you will have to lay a lot more money on the team to win. On heavy favorites, you’re looking at putting down $300 just to win $100 on teams that are -300 American odds. If the San Francisco 49ers were -300 against the Minnesota Vikings, all you would need is for the 49ers to win the game. However, if they are upset, you’d lose $300 trying to win just $100. Heavy money lines are very scary if your team doesn’t perform like they should be or how they were projected to.
Point total bets
With totals, or over/under betting, you don’t need to worry about who wins the game. You’re worried about how many points are scored in the game. For example, if you bet over 52 points on the New York Giants against the Philadelphia Eagles, you’d want the combined score between the two teams to be more than 52 points. Therefore, if the score was 35-28, you would have 63 points and score over 52 points. If the score was 17-14, you would have a total of 31 points and the total would go under. Therefore, you would lose the wager and the bet.
You don’t only have to bet on the total for the game, but you can also bet on the team total for a certain team. If you’re not sure about one side but you love the other side, you can isolate a team and bet their team total.
Proposition bets:
Many people make their money on proposition bets. Prop bets are available for most sporting events, and you can bet anything from a team’s total to how many yards a player will rush for to how many touchdowns a player will score. Prop bets are like playing fantasy sports but with odds.
Prop bets are extremely popular during the Super Bowl, where people go as far as betting on how long the National Anthem will be. There are some ridiculous props like what color Gatorade will be poured on the winning head coach. Unless you have insight on those bets, it’s hard to have concrete analysis for that. You’re basically just trying to hit the lottery.
How Does The Moneyline Work In Sports Betting Games
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