Monday, 21 May 2012
Regardless of what sport punters fancy and which online sportsbook commands their attention and loyalty, bettors need to understand some basic concepts to make meaningful and successful sports bets.
Jackpot Finder is here to help by explaining some of the most popular bet types.
To make this tutorial practical, we’ll discuss these bets in light of a specirfic NFL game between Indianapolis Colts and Tennessee Titans.
Moreover, we’ll take look at the betting lines of Bet365 Sportsbook, which offers one of the easier notations for a novice to understand:
Other sportsbooks, such as Bodog and BetUS, use different notations. All these notations and how to convert them are explained in How to understand fractional, decimal and moneyline odds guide, which players should read before continuing to make sense of the numbers below.
Money line betting is a very simple bet, sometimes known as “fixed-odds” betting. It is very popular with American bookmakers. In a moneyline bet, punters only wager upon the final outcome of the game: who actually wins and who actually loses.
Usually one team is favored to win over the other. Somewhere on the favored team’s betline, the punter should see a plus (+) sign. Meanwhile, the underdog is represented by a minus (-) sign.
Above, you can see the moneyline when betting on the Colts is 20/31, while the money line for the Titans is 27/20. When players bet on the favored team, they will stand to win less than they wager. Consequently, those who bet on the underdog stand to win more than they wager.
Thus, if the punter places $100 on the Colts and the Colts win, the punter will win $155. However, if the punter places $100 on the Titans and the Titans win, the punter will only win $74.
Spread Betting is another very simple bet type and also one of the most popular ways to bet on American football games. The payoff in a spread bet is derived from the accuracy of the gamble instead of just a win or lose outcome. This makes the game more interesting even when a historically strong team plays a historically weak time and the winner seems a foregone conclusion before the game even starts.
Let’s continue to consider the NFL match between the Indianapolis Colts and Tennessee Titans. The Colts are favored to win by 3 points and thus are given a -3 point handicap to be subtracted from the number of points they score in this game. If a punter bets on this spread, the Colts must actually win by at least 4 points for a payoff.
Alternatively, punters can bet on the Titans who are expected to lose by 3 points. By betting on the underdog, a punter will win when the Titans lose by 2 or fewer points, or if they miraculously win the game.
When the game has a three point spread and the favored team wins by exactly 3 points, this is known as a push, meaning it is a tie. In an ideal world the punter would have his money returned. In practice, because the gambling firm has an overhead to cover just by taking the bet, sportsbooks will often inform bettors that “ties lose”, allowing the operator to retain the bet.
Bet365 Sportsbook makes it clear that players who pick the team will win either $21 or $23 for every $20 wagered. So a bettor who bet $100 on the Colts and won, wins $105, while a bettor who bet $100 on the Titans and won, wins $115. Not all online sportsbooks make this so obvious.
Over/Under Betting is another popular type of sports bet. Rather than betting who will win or by how much, punters bet on the size of the combined score.
Given our Colts versus Titans example above, readers will see “O 46.0” and “U 46.0”. By selecting one of these bets, the punter will bet whether the combined total will be over or under 46 points.
In either instance, Bet365 pays off this bet at 11 to 10, so a punter who wagers $100 and wins, will receive $110.
