Posted on

What Are Point Spreads? Betting Point Spreads Explained

Handicappers bet on sports for a living, and often sell their picks or are involved in sports and sports betting media. To test mobile betting apps, we compared dozens of features on more than 20 sportsbooks. We rated each on ease of use, reliability, sports and bets offered, live betting, app navigation, and more. See the full lineup of Moneyline.com reviews for more insights and tips on using the top sports betting apps.

What Is The Payout On A Point Spread?

Odds may be displayed differently depending on what the standard is for a particular sport. Refer to our guide’s section on Fubo Playing Releases Their bet on us open tennis Wagering Service Within the Arizona American, fractional, and decimal odds to see different types of betting odds explained. The chance of a particular outcome occurring that a sportsbook has calculated is called the implied probability. To determine the implied probability, you must convert the betting odds into a percentage. See how to convert each format of odds to an implied probability in the following section, where you’ll see each type of the betting odds explained.

So if you like Oakland, you can push their spread up to +14 and tease that with New Orleans +8 or the New York Giants at -4. If you want to play the totals, very simply, you can push the total six points up or down and take the over or under for whichever benefits your side. Once oddsmakers set the number, the public puts money on a side and can influence the line if a lot of money is going towards one specific play. That’s why a closing line can be much different than the opening line, although it usually stays pretty close as long as there are no major injuries or weather factors in an upcoming game. To make all this information slightly easier to understand, here is a quick example of a bet on a football match.

Features Of Spread Betting

If you were to place a bet of $200 on the Steelers here, you’d make a profit of $100 if they were to win. If you were to place the same $200 on the Packers here, you’d make a profit of $360 if they were to win. Take it from a professional football gambler who failed at everything for the first ten years and gained wisdom from the process. Before he turned 18 he’d already started an online-shop, grew it to more than $1m in sales and sold it. His specialties are gambling mathematics and creating winning betting strategies.

We’re moving on to Part II of the guide where we explain what spread betting is and how it works. In this chapter, we’re going to show you exactly how spread betting works, complete with examples of spread bets. Some traders and investors are a bit reluctant to venture into the world of financial spread betting, simply because it’s a financial product that they’re unfamiliar with. The puckline and runline are the spread within hockey and baseball respectively.

Most often used in Europe and Asia, decimal odds use a number with a decimal point as opposed to the fractional format. When you see 4/1 odds, to use the example above, those are fractional odds. This means you have a one in four chance of winning, or a 20% chance.

These odds represent the likelihood of that team covering the spread. Oddsmakers are very skilled in predicting these margins, so the odds are usually fairly modest compared to moneyline wagers. Pittsburgh is +4.5, with Cincinnati at -4.5, which means Pittsburgh is a 4.5-point underdog and Cincinnati is favored by 4.5 points. For a bet on Pittsburgh to win at +4.5, they can either win the game outright or not lose by an amount that surpasses 4.5. For Cincinnati to win, they must win the game and do so by a number greater than 4.5.

Build Your Trading Knowledge

Betting on the point spread is completely different from betting on teams to win a game outright. One of the nice things about online betting is that point spread wagering doesn’t stop at the start of the game. With the advance in technology, bettors are able to place live wagers on the points spread, plus bet different spreads at different intervals in a game. If the Bucs win by exactly 10 points then the spread bets would push and wagers would be returned.

Betvictor

“Favorite” simply means that team is expected to win while an underdog means the opposite. Each NFL game will also have an over/under total, which is the total number of points the game is handicapped to have by both teams. Yes, spread betting on sports is completely legal in the UK.

For example, a majority of the money coming in the favorite could lead odds on that side to change to -115, while odds on the underdog side are adjusted down to -105. This may influence the direction they go and even out the action for the sportsbook a bit, which is the goal they have when adjusting odds. If a book takes in more action on one side over the other – but not enough to justify moving the spread – then the odds can shift a little. While the Badgers are the underdogs for this contest, the game is expected to be tight.