How To Understand Sports Betting Spreads
![](/file/13a3b9e931c19ca98e655.gif)
⚡ ALL INFORMATION CLICK HERE 👈🏻👈🏻👈🏻
How To Understand Sports Betting Spreads
Why are point spreads in the NFL so much lower than in college?
What does ‘pick em’ or ‘pick’ mean in NFL betting?
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:
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.
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.
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.
09.07.2022
ZenSportsians & EMPerors: A Modern Splinterlands Brawl
09.05.2022
NFL Week 1 – Thursday Night Football Picks
09.04.2022
NFL Week 1 2022 – Survivor Pool Best Bets
If there’s one thing you know, it’s sports. You’ve been making friendly bets with your buddies for years, and almost always come up a winner. But do you really understand odds in sports betting?
Sports betting odds can be tricky to understand at first, especially since you may see the odds posted in more than one way.
From plus/minus to decimal, to fractional — how is anyone supposed to know how to place the best bets?
In this guide, we’ll explain everything you need to know about how to understand odds in sports betting, and how you can start creating your own odds .
So, you want to place a bet on the upcoming match but you’re not sure how to get started.
First things first, you have to understand the odds to know which bets are worth the risk. We’ll touch more on that in the sections below.
Secondly, you need to know that there are a variety of formats for which odds are displayed, such as:
All of them are easy to understand, and we’ll show you in the upcoming sections of this article.
Lastly, odds are used to calculate the implied probability of a particular outcome in any sporting event.
Once you have a solid understanding of how the odds work, you’ll be able to determine which bets offer the best payouts and how much money you are willing to wager.
If you don’t know how to calculate sports betting odds , don’t worry, you’re not alone.
The most common type of sports odds used in North America is American Odds, which uses a plus/minus system for calculating payouts.
Below, we’ll answer your question: how are odds calculated in sports?
We’ll start with the American way, and give you some betting odds examples so you know exactly what you’re looking at the next time you want to make a wager.
But first, it’s important to know what odds are designed to do.
However, odds can be influenced by more than the events that are relevant to the outcome of the game or match.
Many traditional sportsbooks are known for manipulating the odds in their favor and factor in how much the book is charging for you to place your bet. You may hear fellow wagerers refer to this cut as the “juice”, “vig”, or “cut.”
When you see +130/-240 (or any other three-digit combination) you know you’re dealing with American odds.
The plus or minus indicates whether you’re betting on the favored team or the underdog.
A negative number on the betting line implies the favorite, and exactly how much you have to bet to walk away with a $100 payout.
Positive numbers belong to the underdog, and let you know how much you’ll win if you bet $100.
Using the above example, calculating your odds look like this:
To win $100 on the Vikings (favorites), you would need to wager $130. If you bet $100 on the Packers (underdogs), you’d be paid out $260 in addition to receiving your $100 bet back.
Let’s say you don’t want to bet $100 of your money — we get it, that can add up.
Many people prefer to place a series of smaller bets on multiple games to get the most out of the experience.
Winning two and losing one can be more appealing than losing it all in one shot.
With the above example, let’s calculate the odds of betting the underdog with only $10, instead of $100.
Using the +260 odds on the Packers, a $10 bet would payout $26 in profits, plus the return of your original $10 bet for a total of $36 back in your pocket.
In most cases, the sportsbook you’re betting with will do the calculations before you even place the bet.
You’ll know the exact payout before you confirm your bet.
If you’ve started to research exactly how sports betting works, then you’ve probably heard the term “implied probability” .
The odds are what suggest a particular outcome in any match, and the implied probability refers to the prospect of that outcome.
To calculate the implied probability you need to convert the odds into a percentage.
The reason you’d want to calculate the implied probability is to determine if the estimated probability of a match you wish to bet on is different from the sportsbook so that you can adjust your bet accordingly.
Remember, that all odds available at a sportsbook include the “juice” or “cut” so you’ll need to factor that in, as the implied probability of every conceivable outcome of a match is going to be above 100%.
This is called overround, and it’s the reason you should remove the “ juice” from betting lines before calculating what the oddsmakers actually expect the outcome to be.
Of the three types of odds you’ll come across, betting with decimal odds are the easiest to learn.
Decimal style odds are typically used in Europe, but many Sportsbooks default to American odds. However, you should be able to set the preference to any betting style.
Calculating your potential winnings with decimal odds is easy. All you have to do is multiply the amount of money you’re wagering with the odds attached to the team you’re betting on.
Calculating your implied probability is a valuable tool to determine if a wager is worth the risk.
Using our example above, we’ll determine implied probability using the following formula: 1 / Decimal odds
With the above example, the Toronto Blue Jays implied probability of winning is:
And the New York Yankees implied probability of winning is:
In this case, the New York Yankees have a much higher probability of winning, and therefore the safer bet… unless you know something we don’t.
Fractional odds are most commonly used in the UK and can typically be seen when placing bets on horse races.
They’re sort of funny looking odds , but when you understand what they mean, they are really easy to calculate.
Let’s say you want to bet on a horse in the Breeders’ Cup Classic.
You open up your betting app and see strange-looking figures such as 8/3 or 1/2 ( which, by the way, we would say “eight to three” or “one to two” ).
So, how do you calculate these odds?
The number on the left (8) tells you how many times the oddsmaker expects the related outcome to fail. And the number on the right (3) dictates how many times the outcome should succeed.
So, what does this mean for your pocketbook?
Calculating your payout for fractional betting is really quite easy.
Multiply your bet by the numerator ( or top number ), then divide the result by the denominator ( bottom number ).
For example, if you place a $50 bet on 8/3 odds the calculation would look like this:
(50 x 8) / 3 = $133.33 (a total of $183.33 coming your way).
Or if you placed your $50 bet on the 1/2 odds, then the calculation would look like this:
(50 x 1) / 2 = $25 (for a total of $75 in your pocket).
Figuring out the implied probability for fractional bets can be done fairly easily.
Let’s say your horse of choice has 8/3 odds on him, this means that out of 11 races (8+3) your horse is expected to win eight times. Pretty good right?
Now divide the number of times he’s supposed to win by the number of races on the roster and you get your implied probability: 8 / 11 = 72.7%
Remember though, it costs money to play, so anytime you’re calculating odds, whether American, decimal or fractional, the outcomes when added together will always equal more than 100% … that’s the “vig” or the “cut” we’ve been talking about.
A push — while not related to odds — can directly affect your payout so we thought it was worth mentioning here.
Being aware of the possibility of a push before you place your first bet on a sports match is important.
So, what is a push, exactly? In simple terms, it’s a tie.
You will not see a push on the moneyline when placing bets, so you need to know in advance if it’s an outcome you can bet on. Typically this only applies if you’re betting against the spread or making a totals bet.
If a push occurs and hasn’t been bet on, then you’ll just get your money back, as it’s considered neither a win nor a loss.
A point spread will usually add half a point to each number so that a push can’t happen, but that’s not always the case, so keep your eye on your bets and all possibilities of a push.
Now, that you know how to figure out odds in betting this is where it gets really interesting.
ZenSports is an online peer to peer betting marketplace that removes the need for a bookmaker, and thus the “ vig”, “cut”, or “juice” .
By eliminating the bookmaker, ZenSports can charge 50-90% lower fees than traditional bookmakers do.
On top of saving a lot of money, every customer that uses ZenSports is betting against other sports bettors ( not greedy bookmakers ), so customers feel good knowing that they’re going up against people that are just like them.
How does peer to peer betting work, exactly?
By eliminating the bookmaker, ZenSports has essentially created a marketplace for which every bettor plays a role in creating a fun, decentralized ecosystem for everyone involved.
Here’s a five-step overview of how the ZenSports process currently works:
All bets are then paid out accordingly.
ZenSports is the only mobile peer to peer sports betting marketplace, where anyone can create and accept bets around the world without the need for a centralized bookmaker.
The future of online sports betting is here.
Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress
How to Understand Sports Betting Odds?
© 2022 | 99Gamblers | All Rights Reserved
© 2022 | 99Gamblers | All Rights Reserved
There are some elements on the betting sheets or an application that will be unfamiliar to newbies to sports betting. Understanding how betting odds operate and what they signify is among the most essential things to learn. To begin, odds are given in a variety of ways, and the figures represent quite different things based on the sportsbook’s system. American odds, decimal odds, and fractional odds are the three most frequent ways to present odds.
American odds appear to be a little bewildering. They’re more complicated than fractional odds or decimal odds. The odds in the United States are based on $100, but how they relate to $100 depends on whether the bet is preferred or not. The betting odds for favorite bets will begin with a negative number and therefore will inform you how much you must bet to win $100. If the odds or chances are -110, which is a normal number for just a spread bet, you’d have to wager $110 to win $100. If the odds are -200, you must wager $200 in order to win $100. Of course, betting don’t have to be that big, but the proportion will.
Bets with a plus sign are considered underdog bets. The plus odds show you how much money you’ll make on a $100 wager. A $100 bet with +200 odds yields a profit of $200 plus the original $100 stake. You would make a $40 profit if you staked $20.
Even money odds can be written as -100, +100, or EV.
The sum a winning bet might receive on a $1 bet is displayed as a single number in decimal odds. If the odds are 6, a successful bet will net a profit of $5 plus the original stake of $1. A favori
Monster Cock Penetration
Pussy Spreading Webcam
Christina Lingerie