Sports betting can be one of the best types of investments you can make, if you have the right information in front of you and can successfully undermine a game. However, to get this information, you need to look at up-to-date injury reports, late training scratches, and last-second odds moves. However, none of this will do you any good if you don’t know how to effectively read sports betting odds.
Each sport has a different style of odds to master. Now, there are some similarities between baseball and hockey odds, as well as the same type of similarity between basketball and football odds. In total, there are usually six main sports that people try to impair effectively. Between college and professional football, college and professional basketball, baseball, and hockey, there are numerous options throughout the season for the savvy bettor to take advantage of.
Football/Basketball (both college and professional)
Football/Basketball offers three types of bets: Spread, Money Line, and Totals. The most popular type of bet for these two sports is the spread bet. With this bet, you are giving your opinion on who you think will “cover” the spread. For example, let’s say you’re watching the game between the Patriots and the Bills. The spread in this game is 8 points, which will read Patriots (-8) and Bills (+8). If you are betting on the side and pick the Patriots to win, you are saying that they are going to win by more than 8 points. By the way, betting on the Bills is saying that the Bills will lose by less than 8 points.
Money line bets on football/basketball are generally played by people who have large bankrolls who can afford the sometimes outrageous prices that are put on a team. With these money line bets, you are strictly betting on who you think will win the game, with no points being awarded or taken away. Be very careful because some money lines can be very expensive (eg -1500 for a great team, +1500 for a bad team).
Total bets are bets based on whether you think the combined scores of the two teams involved will be higher or lower than the posted total for that game. Totals usually fluctuate by 0.5 points. The more money you enter into a game total of 57, that total will go higher, say to 57.5 or 58. If the money goes below that, the total will go down to 56.5 or 56.
Baseball/Hockey
Baseball/hockey offers three different types of bets: moneyline, runline/puckline, and totals. The money line totals are the easiest to understand because you are betting specifically on who you think will win the game. There is no spread that goes with a money line bet, so you just want to pick who you think is going to win and bet accordingly. Be careful, however, because the heavy favorites (Yankees, Red Sox, etc.) generally have very high prices that you’ll have to pay when they take on the perennial basement dwellers (Orioles, Royals, etc.). “Paying a very high price” means that these teams generally have odds of -200 or more. The way to read this is that you’ll have to pay $200 to win $100, so as you can see the risk/reward ratio is much lower than if you were at the underdog’s +200 price, meaning every $100 bet you make will net you $200 if that particular team comes out victorious.
Runlines/pucklines in baseball/hockey are always -1.5, which is basically like betting spreads on football games. You are choosing which team you think has the best chance of winning by more than 1.5 runs/goals (you would bet Team A -1.5) or losing by less than 1.5 runs/goals (you would bet Team B +1.5). However, be careful here again, because sometimes the prices get very expensive and really not worth the risk.
Totals are played in exactly the same way as in soccer and basketball. The one exception with baseball/hockey is that the totals don’t move as frequently. For example, a total in the game between the Red Wings and the Flyers might have a total of 5.5 goals. The game total is unlikely to change much from this number; instead, you will see the individual prices for betting the totals (-110, +105, -125) fluctuate throughout different points of the day.