How To Read Sports Betting Spreads

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Home Betting Tips A Simple Explanation: How to Read Sports Betting Odds
Understanding the world of online betting can be a daunting task for the sports betting novice. You’re met with a wall of numbers, dots and dashes before you even get started.
The key to enjoyable betting is in knowing how to read the odds. We’ll break it all down into manageable chunks, covering the different bets and odds, and how to read them.
Before we get started, let’s take a look at what odds actually are. Odds are a set of numbers which indicate the likelihood of an event taking place. In gambling terms, the odds aren’t a true representation of probability, but show the ratio between the amount bet and the payout based on the probability calculated by the bookmakers.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get down to business.
The first thing you’ll need to be aware of is the three most common types of odds in sports wagering:
The moneyline wager is perhaps the simplest bet to understand. It’s a straightforward bet on who you think is going to win the game, no matter the final points or score margins.
The odds on a moneyline will normally have a plus or minus in front of a number: for example, Team A -150 or Team B +150. The minus symbol indicates the favorite to win, while the positive shows who the underdog is.
Essentially, these odds show how much your profit will be based on the amount you wager. Moneyline wagers have odds attached to both the favorite and the underdog.
Note: the odds are given in the American format. We’ll explain that in more detail later.
Usually in any game, one team is better than the other, giving us the terms favorite and underdogs in the first place.
If you were to just bet on the favorite each time, you could take your money and go, but this doesn’t make for a very exciting betting experience, nor would it be very profitable for the online bookmakers. The point spread makes things more interesting for bettors, as well as making a profit for the bookies.
Essentially, the point spread is a handicap given by the bookmakers to bring teams to an equal footing, in that it generates interest in both teams from bettors. With the point spread odds, you’ll bet on the score difference between the two teams.
Again you’ll see the plus and minus symbols, but with smaller denominations. For example, say Team A is shown at -7, and Team B at +7. If you placed a bet on Team A, the team would have to win the game by eight or more points.
Betting on Team B would win you your bet if the team wins the game, OR if it loses by less than six points.
If you are having trouble deciding who is likely to win a game, then an over/under bet might be the way to go. Sometimes referred to as ‘totals’ betting, over/under odds are a bet on the total combined score in a game.
It doesn’t matter who wins or loses. Instead, the bet depends on whether the combined amount is over or under a predetermined number set by the bookmaker.
If you see a bet written as 45.5 o/u, for example, this means that the bookmakers have calculated the possibility of the combined scores of the two teams as being around 45.5. The odds will often be with half points, in order to prevent what is called a ‘push’ or tie.
All you have to do is decide whether the combined scores will total over that mark, or under it. How much you are set to win from each of these bets will be decided by the bookmaker’s odds, and how much money you want to wager (more on this later).
Now that you know the basic betting forms, you will notice that the odds given aren’t all written in the same way. Again, there are three main formats:
This is where your head may start to hurt, but let’s try to keep it simple.
American odds show how much a bettor has to risk and what they are set to win using a baseline value of $100. Let’s look at the odds of winning the NBA Championships. At the moment, the Golden State Warriors are -140, while the Cleveland Cavaliers are showing at +295. What does this mean?
Well, the Warriors are a favorite (shown by the minus symbol), so you’d have to bet $140 in order to win $100. The Cavaliers, on the other hand, are the underdog (always shown with a +), meaning if you bet $100, you’re set to win $295.
American odds are also used with the point spread bets, for example:
So while the point spread doesn’t change the odds given for each result, it allows the bookmakers to protect their margin or ‘juice’.
In another article, we explain how you can find out more about how bookmakers operate and how they calculate their odds.
Decimal odds are sometimes referred to as “European odds” and are used throughout Europe, Australia and Canada. If you’re interested in betting on international sports, it’s a good idea to know how they work.
Luckily, they’re very straightforward and easy to calculate. All you have to do is multiply your wager by the odds to find out your potential winnings.
Bet x Odds = Payout (original bet + profit)
For example, if you bet $100 on a team winning, with odds at 1.82, then your potential total amount received is $182. Simple.
Fractional odds are one of the oldest forms of odds in sports gambling and are more popular in the UK market. Basically fractional odds show you how much you are set to win relative to how much you put in. Again, we’ll keep this simple with an easy example. Say you make a bet of $5 on Team A to win with the odds of 2/1.
What you are set to profit / amount wagered = Payout (original bet + net profit)
So your bet of $5 at 2/1 odds gives you a return of $15 ($5 wagered x 2 plus the original stake of $5).
It’s a good idea to have a basic understanding of how to recognize and read each of the odds formulas, but fortunately, there are also a number of online odds converters and calculators that will do the hard work for you quickly and easily.
This comes in very handy especially when you have to recalculate when the odds change.
Between the time when the betting lines open and the game starts, you’re likely to see some change in the betting odds, especially in the last few minutes. Why? There are a few reasons.
Firstly, the bookmakers may change the odds to protect their profit. Since they’ve calculated the odds carefully to give both teams equal interest, making sure they are set to gain a profit either way, if one team is getting a clear majority of the bets, then they will change the odds to make the less favored team’s odds more favorable.
Betting websites may change their odds as information comes to light. For example, when a team line-up is published before a game and the star players aren’t making an appearance, or perhaps news of injuries or training issues come out. These will all have an effect on the betting odds offered.
Another reason for movement on the betting line will be the sharp bettors, those professional players who may hold off to the last minute and bet against the public opinion. They are usually big-money players and their wager can be enough to move the lines.
Knowing how to use line movement to your advantage takes time and experience, but you can get a head start with our handy guide to understanding line movement.
Now that you have the basic building blocks required to understand sports betting odds, you’re ready to go. All that’s left for you to do is find the right sportsbook for you.
This can be another learning curve, but don’t worry, we’re here to help you. Just follow the link to get some great tips on how to choose the best online bookmaker.
Having worked in the marketing department at two online sports betting sites, John brings his love of sports to serve BigOnSports as chief writer. He will be researching and writing about the sports betting community to improve your experience as a sports bettor.
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To start the 2007 NCAA college football season, perennial powerhouse Michigan squared off against Appalachian State, who played in the FCS division ― a step below the division where blue bloods like Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State play. 
Michigan was at home in The Big House, its massive 100,000-person stadium where losses occurred less frequently than presidential elections. Appalachian State was a 33-point underdog in the game.
In a stunning upset, Appalachian State took a 34-32 lead late in the 4th quarter and blocked the potential game-winning Michigan field goal on the last play of the day. At the time, Appalachian State was one of the longest underdogs to ever win a game outright ,and you can still annoy Michigan fans to this day by bringing it up.
So how did Appalachian State come to be a 33-point underdog? Because across the country, sports books set point spreads based on a variety of environmental and team-specific factors. In this particular game, the oddsmakers thought Michigan was 33 points better than Appalachian State. Needless to say, they don’t always get it right.
In investing, a spread is the difference between the price a seller is willing to accept for an asset and the price the buyer is willing to pay for that asset. The spread is collected by the market maker for facilitating the deal. 
But in investing, individual shares of a specific company are pretty much all equal, except in certain circumstances. When it comes to sports betting, the 2 teams competing are almost never equal, so a spread is required to entice betting action on both sides.
The spread is simply the amount of points oddsmakers favor one team over another in a particular game. When crafting a spread, the oddsmakers will look at factors like skill of the individual teams, location of the game being played and weather forecasts for outdoor sports like football. 
A point spread also varies depending on the sport being played. For example, football spreads are usually much wider than baseball spreads since you get 6 points for a touchdown in football but only 1 point for a run in baseball.
If you aren’t familiar with point spreads, you might be confused at first glance. A point spread will involve 3 figures: the favorite, the underdog and the juice or vig.
Unless the 2 teams are evenly matched, every sporting event will have a favorite and an underdog. The team that’s expected to win the game is the favorite. One of the reasons the spread exists is because teams aren’t evenly matched and just picking winners and losers is easy. 
Imagine how much money a sportsbook would lose if the 15-1 Kansas City Chiefs played the 2-14 New York Jets without a spread and payouts were equal on both sides. Everyone would bet the far superior Chiefs, right? 
So instead, oddsmakers set a spread of 14.5 points in an attempt to entice equal betting action on both sides. This is the crucial job of an oddsmaker: listing a spread that will garner as close to 50% of the bets on each side as possible. 
The odds would read as follows: Chiefs -14.5 (-110) vs Jets +14.5 (-110). More on the numbers in parenthesis in Step 3.
The underdog is the team NOT expected to win the game. But betting on underdogs can still be a profitable venture if they lose the game by fewer points than the listed spread. 
In the example above, the Chiefs were a 14.5 point favorite over the Jets. If the Chiefs win the game 28-14, the Jets will have ‘covered the spread’. They lost by fewer points than the oddsmakers projected and a bet on the Jets +14.5 is a winner.
How does the sportsbook make money if they want to entice equal betting action on both sides? The same way a casino does — they employ a rake. In sports betting, this is referred to as vig or juice and it actually functions similar to a spread in a stock trade.
Let’s use our Chiefs vs Jets example from the previous paragraph. Remember the (-110) figure after the spread? This is the vig, and it’s how much you’ll need to bet in order to win $100. 
Most books will set the vig at -110 or -115, which means you must bet $110 or $115 in order to win $100. In order to be a profitable sports betting, you must hit over 52% of your bets in order to beat the vig. A common misperception is that a bettor who hits at a 50% clip breaks even. Due to the vig, hitting 50% of your bets would produce a negative ROI and the only one profiting is the book.
Here’s how a point spread will look at most American sportsbooks:
If you want to bet the Chiefs point spread, they will need to win by 15 points or more, and you’ll win $100 on a $110 bet. If the Chiefs only win by 14 points, you lose the full $110.
The point spread enables bettors to place a near-even money bet on a game, but it’s not the only way to wager on a sporting event. If you want to just pick winners and losers, you can bet what’s called the moneyline. A moneyline bet is a straight win or loss wager. If you bet the favorite and they win, you collect regardless of the score.
Of course, betting on favorites is expensive. Oddsmakers create moneyline odds based on the likelihood of the favorite winning the game. You’ll often see odds listed as fractions (ie. 5/2), but American sports books tend to list them in the same format as the point spread vig.
The Chiefs were a 14.5 point favorite in our previous example, which means oddsmakers give them about a 95% chance of winning (or 1/20). If you wanted to bet on a Chiefs win by any margin, you’d have to bet the moneyline at 1/20 odds. That means wagering $20 for every $1 of potential profit. In order to win $100, you’d have to wager $2,000. 
Yes, the Chiefs likely win, but betting $2,000 to win $100 is awfully risky for a single sporting event, especially when you consider player injury risk.
Betting on a point spreads has 3 potential outcomes: 
The spread is the spread regardless of sport. If an NBA team is favored by 14.5, they must win by 15 or more to cover the spread. NBA and NFL are 2 of the most popular sports to bet because scoring is frequent and less random than the NHL or MLB.
The difference comes from how these spreads are calculated. In the NFL, 3 factors go into the spread: talent level of the teams, location of venue, and weather forecast for the game. For the NBA, the schedule is unbalanced and games are played indoors. 
NBA point spreads use the following factors: talent level of teams, location of venue, and schedule discrepancies between teams. For example, a team with a day of rest will get a more favorable points spread if they play a team who competed the night before. Since NFL games are usually played a week apart, schedule doesn’t play as large a role in determining the spread. 
Sports betting is opening up across the country, but legality is on a state-by-state basis and not all sportsbooks are available in each state. 
Here’s a list of our favorite sportsbooks. Be sure the one you choose is available in your state:
get started securely through FanDuel’s website
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Sports betting is a simple endeavor to participate in, but impossible to master. A point spread is a simple concept that enables bettors to get close to even money action on whichever side they choose. It also gives the sportsbook the ability to smooth their liability out to close to a 50/50 proposition. 
If 50% of bettors choose 1 team and 50% choose the opponent, the book is guaranteed to profit thanks to the vig. Understanding these concepts can help gamblers minimize losses and increase profits.
Why are point spreads in the NFL so much lower than in college?
In the NFL, there are 32 teams. In college football, there are well over 100 in the top division alone. Since more teams are present, the talent level between the top and bottom teams is greater so point spreads in college are often higher. 
In the NFL, team talent levels are more closely aligned, even when the best team plays the worst team.
A +7 spread means that the team in question is expected to lose by 7 points. If you bet a team with a +7 spread, they must win or lose by 6 or fewer in order for the bet to cash. Likewise, a team with a -7 spread must win by 8 or more to make a profit.
What does ‘pick em’ or ‘pick’ mean in NFL betting?
Sometimes, the 2 teams playing are evenly matched after factoring in talent level, venue, and weather forecast. When this happens, the game will be listed as a ‘pick’, which is essentially the oddsmakers saying, “We don’t know”. 
A pick ‘em or pick is a toss-up or coinflip. If you bet $100 on either side, you’ll win $100 if they win minus the vig.
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