Wager Sports Betting
Effectively betting on sports – turning a profit – requires an understanding of the odds. You can’t win every bet you place. In fact, many great sports bettors lose around 40 percent of the games they play.
In moneyline betting, the bookie assumes most people are going to wager on the favorite and sets the line on the underdog so as to cover any potential losses on the favorite. Using the Louis-Leonard fight as an example, the bookmaker knows more money is going to be wagered on Louis than Leonard because Leonard's chances of winning are much greater. Where is sports betting legal in the US? So far, there are 21 states with active legal sports betting industries, with more on the way. Colorado, Illinois, Tennessee, Montana, Indiana, Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, and North Carolina all legalized wagering in 2019. In sports betting, a tie means much the same thing, but it is slightly different - and more common as a result. The term tie in sports betting simply refers to a wager where no money was either.
This will likely be the easiest and shortest article you read in our “How To” section. In the sports betting industry, there are several different termsbettors use to reference placing a bet. The focus of this article will be the term “wager”.
What Does Wager Mean?
Don’t over think this one. A wager is just a slightly fancier way of saying the word bet. Nothing more, nothing less. When you wager on something, you are always risking a certain amount of money – or anything else for that matter (i.e. case of beer) – on the outcome of an game or event that hasn’t yet happened.
The most important thing to consider when wagering on anything is the rules of the wager. For example, a casual bettor will place a wager on a baseball game without knowing the full extent of the rules and what happens to the wager when a rain out occurs or there is a pitcher change before the game starts. Understanding how your wager is won and/or lost is vital to becoming a knowledgeable handicapper.
What Can I Wager On?
If you have a few bucks laying around and are really serious about investing it in the sports betting world and trying to turn a profit, there is a plethora of betting options at your disposal. The purest and simplest form of wagering is on the money line option. You must simply pick who you think is going to win the game or event. Other options include point spread bets, totals, run lines in baseball, puck lines in hockey, multi-bets such as parlays and teasers, prop bets, and future bets that could take months or even years to be decided.
How to Make the Perfect Wager
This is almost a trick question. Most amateur bettors would classify a perfect wager only as a wager that makes them money. However, this isn’t the case. A perfect wager is one in which the potential reward exceeds the risk involved. This means that over the long term, if you make solid wagers that minimize risk, you should likely turn a profit. A perfect wager can be aided by a little luck, bad or good calls from the refs, or other unexpected circumstance such as an injury to an opponent, but it doesn’t mean you should rely on these things when finalizing your bets. Sportsbooks are built and funded by bettors who do not know how to make a good wager. If everyone was an astute handicapper, the sportsbooks would be out of business.
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“Wait, why does this NFL team have a -235 next to its name? What’s with New England Patriots (-15) vs. Miami Dolphins (+15)? Help! HEEEELPPPP!”
If that sounds like you, we’re here to assist you. If you’ve stared at a board at a sportsbook or just seen spreads and moneylines on the Internet and been utterly confused, don’t worry. It’s not just you. Those numbers can be confounding.
But hopefully, once you’re done reading this, you’ll completely understand how they work. As you prepare to dive into the world of sports betting, here’s a breakdown of how the lines work, starting with …
Spreads
It would be really easy to bet on a game if you could put money on a heavy favorite to win.
That’s where point spreads come in. Let’s look at an example:
Philadelphia Eagles (-4.5)
New York Giants (+4.5)
In this case, you can bet on either two outcomes: you can put money on the Eagles to win the game by 4.5 points OR MORE, which makes them the favorites. Or you can bet that the Giants will either win or lose by LESS THAN 4.5 points. They’re the underdogs.
Now, sometimes the spread “moves” during the days leading up to the game. Perhaps the Eagles’ spread ends up being -3.5 (in which they must win by 3.5 points or more to give you a victory in your bet). Your bet all depends on whichever spread you bet on, whether it was when the Eagles were favored by 4.5 or 3.5 points.
If you ever see “PK” or “pick” next to a team, it means there’s no spread and you can bet on who will win, no matter what the score is.
Moneylines
Let’s take that same example above but use moneylines:
Philadelphia Eagles (-200)
New York Giants (+150)
The team with a minus symbol is the favorite, and the number is how much money you would need to bet to win $100. In this case, you would have to bet $200 on the Eagles in order to win an additional $100.
The Giants are the underdogs. If they’re +150, that means you could bet $100 to win $150.
Wager Sports Betting Against
Note that you can bet any amount you want, but those numbers are always calculated and posted the same way, either in how much money you would need to wager to win $100 or how much money you could win by wagering $100.
Odds
If you’re betting on something like the team who will win the Super Bowl in the future, you might see it look like this:
New England Patriots — 3/1
Baltimore Ravens — 5/1
Kansas City Chiefs — 8/1
Sports Betting Lines
If you were betting on the Patriots and their 3/1 odds, you would win $3 for every $1 you spend. So if you bet $50 on the Pats and they ended up winning the Super Bowl, you’d win $150 (plus your original wager) back.
Wager Sports Betting Picks
Good luck!