Understand Betting Lines
Sports betting lines on FanDuel Sportsbook are presented in what is called the 'American odds' format, with odds for favorites getting 'minus' odds while underdogs get 'plus' odds (i.e.120 for a favorite and +120 for an underdog). For the favorites, that line reflects how much you would need to wager to win a $100 payout. Betting Lines Explained. Looking to dive into the sports betting world? Our guide to sports betting lines will have you making expert wagers on the biggest leagues in the US in no time. We'll teach you how betting lines work and give you the lowdown on sports odds. The biggest difference between making the kind of casual bets mentioned above and placing wagers with online sportsbooks or at brick-and-mortar bookshops is the use of.
Most newspapers and online sports betting sites publish the line on a football or basketball game simply as a single number. In our example we will use Chicago against New York in which Chicago is favored by 4 points versus New York. Some bettors refer to this as the favorite laying 4 points, and the underdog getting 4 points. The spread is typically displayed in the following format:
- Chicago -4
- New York +4
By betting the spread, a sports bettor wagers on the amount of points a team is projected to win or lose by. In the example above, -/+4 is the spread. Since the spread is 4, Chicago must win by 5 or more points to win the bet, while New York can lose by 3 or fewer points to win the bet. If Chicago wins by exactly 4, then the bet is a push and no one wins or loses money.
Betting odds can be extremely confusing and the information they convey can be overwhelming. When it comes to understanding betting odds, it’s important to start with the basics. Once you have all that.
Often there is a number to the side of the spread, such as Chicago -4 (-110). This is to show how much extra money a bettor must risk on their wager.
The (-110) important for calculating payouts and break-even percentages. Since it is -110, we must bet 1.10 to win 1.00, so for each $1 we want to win, we have to risk $1.10. For example, a sports bettor must risk $11 to win $10, $55 to win $50, $110 to win $100, $1100 to win $1,000 and so forth. If the line is a single number, like in the first example, -110 is simply assumed As you may have noticed, bettors are risking 10% more than they can possibly win from their wager.
There’s a technical term for this extra fee: vigorish. The vigorish, also known as “vig” or “juice”, gives sportsbooks a mathematical advantage, commonly referred to as the house hedge. You have likely seen similar fees for casino games. This how sportsbooks make a profit. Since sportsbooks charge a fee, sports bettors winning only 50% of their bets will likely end up losing money in the long term. Taking into account the vigorish, you need to win not half of your bets but at least 52.4% to break even on traditionally-juiced lines (-110).
A common misconception is that, because of this fee, sportsbooks stand to make 10% from the total amount of money bet, also known as the handle. For clarity’s sake, the commission charged to sports bettors is actually 5%. Remember, there is action on each side of a betting line. Say the betting handle on New York vs. Chicago is $1100, divided evenly between the two teams. With $550 to win $500 wagered on Chicago -4 (-110) and $550 to win $500 on New York +4 (-110), the sportsbook will profit $50 off this game, or 5%, so long as Chicago does not win by exactly four points. In the case of a push, all money wagered on the spread will be returned to bettors.
While -110 is typical for spreads and totals, in the era of online sports betting, competition among legal US sportbooks often leads to better deals for customers. One no longer needs to risk an extra 10% on every wager. Some US sportsbooks will run promotions where sports bettors only have to risk an extra 5% on most games instead of 10%. In this case, the line would look like:
- Chicago -4 (-105)
- New York +4 (-105)
One would only risk $105 to win $100 a wager on Chicago winning by 5 or more points. If you win, you still win $100, but if you lose you’ll only lose $105 instead of $110. It may seem like a small difference, but that extra $5 can add up over the course of a season.
Sometimes the line will be displayed as a rather larger number to the side of the point spread. Let us look at an example where you would need to wager $120 in order to win $100:
- Chicago -4 (-120)
- New York +4 (-100)
In this case, the bookmaker is getting a lot of action on Chicago. The bookmaker has two choices. Option A) they move the spread to Chicago -4.5/New York +4.5, or B) if they like the current spread, they can stick with Chicago -4 and move the “juice” instead, hence -120.
Now bettors will risk $120 to win $100 on Chicago -4. On the other hand, those wagering on New York +4 will only risk $100 to win $100 (even money). This is how the bookmaker incentives bettors to wager on New York and balance their sportsbook’s betting handle.
You might find one sportsbook with Chicago -4 (-120) and Chicago -4 (-110) at a different sportsbook. This is why it’s so important for sports bettors to shop for the best lines across the US sports betting industry. The best way to shop lines is to use our odds comparison tools, which you can find for NFL, NBA, MLB, NCAAB, NCAAF and NHL.
In general most bookmakers apply the principle that the difference between betting on the favorite and the underdo is 20 cents. So if the favorite is -115 then the dog is -105. If the favorite is -125, then the dog is +105. And if the favorite is -110, then the dog is -110.
The same principle applies to wagers on the point total (Over/Under) of the game. If the game total is O41 (-120), U41 (-100) then a $120 wager on the over will win $100 while $100 on the Under will win $100. If the line simply states 41, then you are risking 1.10 to win 1.0 whether your bet is on the over or the under. Again, you can minimize the difference between the over and under and favorites and underdogs by using our odds comparison tools to shop lines.
A Moneyline bet is a wager on the outcome of the game regardless of the point spread. So if you bet the moneyline, you are betting on a team to win the game straight up (or outright). Moneyline wagering is more popular for MLB, NHL, golf matchups and combat sports such as the UFC and boxing, but you can also find moneylines for football and basketball. The usual display for a moneyline wager is as follows:
- X Team/Player -200
- Y Team/Player +170
As you can see, the spread disappeared. Now the number to the side of Team/Player is the moneyline. The moneyline is fluid, fluctuating based on the matchup and the amount of money being bet on each side. In this particular example, a sports bettor must risk $200 to win $100 (2-to-1) if they’re betting on the favorite to win the game. One may bet $200 to win $100, $150 to win $75, $10 to win $5 and so forth. The bottom line is the same, one has to risk twice as much as they want to win.
A $100 wager on the underdog will net the sports bettor $170 if the underdog pulls off the outright upset. One may bet $100 to win $170, $200 to win $340, etc. The bottom line is the same, a bet on the underdog results in a +170% ROI if the underdog wins.
This principle is universal for moneylines, regardless of the team or sport. If Tiger Woods is -180 vs. Phil Mickelson +160, golf bettors must risk 1.80 to win 1.00 on Tiger. Those betting on Phil will risk 1.00 to win 1.60
If you’re new to sports betting, we hope this page helped answer some important questions. We also have a parlay calculator for your convenience, along with the odds comparison tools mentioned above. Be sure to use all of our sports betting tools and tips to help save you time and money at legal US sportsbooks.
Note: Lines and scores highlighted in blue signify an update within the last ten minutes.
The evolution of exchange betting has revolutionised market-making to such a degree that even the biggest bookmaker names no longer employ professional odds setters.
How did odds making start?
As touched on in our Brief History of Betting blog, the concept of calculating the likely chance of a winner in a horse race, and converting that into bookmaker odds, was devised by one Harry Ogden.
Operating on Newmarket Heath towards the end of the 18th century, Ogden was the first bookmaker to take betting beyond its strikingly crude roots. Most early bets were simply a way of settling an argument over whether a named event would come to pass or not.
Not only did Ogden begin the process of making a book, he also understood that he had to save a percentage of his takings for his own purse. In order to achieve this, he slightly adjusted prices in his favour. It worked: if somebody won a bet and got paid out at odds of 4/1 they were unlikely to complain, especially at this early stage, that they had not been paid at the true probability of 5/1.
So already, within Ogden’s lifetime we witnessed the evolution of a book featuring a range of prices as well as the concept of what is now known as an “overround”.
What is an overround book?
A perfect book, without factoring in a margin for the bookie, would mean the implied probability of all outcomes would add up to 100%. However, bookies use the concept of overround to stretch this probability greater than 100% – which then becomes their profit.
Here’s an overround example from a tennis match:
Now, have you ever considered why bookmakers like to encourage accumulators in sports like football where punters enjoy backing multiple selections in a single bet?
Well it’s simple: if a bookmaker has an overround of 105% on each of five football matches, a punter placing a bet in all five of those matches is betting against an overround 125% because the extra 5% is factored in each time.
The growth of betting and odds compiling
By the 1950s the big firms that covered the length and breadth of the country betting on horses and greyhounds were already employing odds-makers to help them compile what was known as the “tissue” for each race.
This was effectively the first show of prices. Bookmakers would certainly collude to some degree to check their assessments of the market were not wildly out of place but by and large they were happy to trust their instincts.
The prices were not static: they moved to respond to market forces after the first show was published on the boards.
What did a bookie do if he felt liabilities were in danger of getting too big on a particular horse? All he had to do was rub off the displayed price on his chalkboard and put up a less attractive price. He might then balance his book by pushing out the prices of less fancied runners.
The advent of legal betting shops
The golden age of betting was triggered by the 1960 Betting and Gaming Act – a watershed development that allowed betting on racing and greyhounds to take place in licensed shops around the country.
For the first time, punters did not need to be physically at a racecourse or dog track to legally place a bet. There was still an incentive for big-time punters to go racing because if they were betting in shops they had to pay tax.
But bookmakers small and large had to be on the lookout to protect themselves against betting coups in what was now “open season” for big-stakes punters. If, for example, a group of individuals could target multiple betting shops at the same time soon before the start of a race it was hard in the pre-internet age to ensure the price was cut in time.
The Yellow Sam plot of 1975 was a perfect illustration of how a meticulously organised plot could evade the best attempts of the bookies to minimise their exposure.
Betting Lines Election
The 1990s: Multiple sports, multiple platforms
When restrictions were lifted on football betting to unlock a wide range of markets on individual matches, horse racing’s dominance as a sports betting medium was challenged for the first time.
At the same time, firms were opening more and more shops, allowing telephone and online accounts while accessing more and more global television feeds.
This was the decade in which odds-compilers really earned their corn for bookies like Coral, Ladbrokes and William Hill – traditional names with presence on the high-street, at the courses and, bit by bit, on rudimentary web browsers too.
Sports traders and palps
If, for example, you were a graduate with a good degree in maths or economics and you also followed rugby union religiously you could be hired specifically to draw up rugby union markets for one of the big operators.
With so much sport to bet on, and so many new avenues from which to glean useful information, this was also the time that “palps” (bookie slang for palpable errors) were at their most prevalent.
Shrewd punters could sometimes find out if an obscure tennis match or an overseas domestic football game had been rescheduled to an earlier time slot. If the bookies were unaware they could find themselves accepting a bet on an event that had already happened.
Today's Betting Lines
How exchanges changed the landscape
The arrival of Betfair into an increasingly cluttered market in 2000 proved a positive intervention in a number of ways, even if some small on-course bookmakers to this day rue the dawn of exchange betting.
Betfair had a huge USP: it was allowing markets to be set by individuals trading on its platforms hours and sometimes days in advance. The prices were not set by individual odds-makers using personal assessment.
Understanding Betting Lines
Over the intervening 20 years, the exchanges have had their ups and downs but for bookmakers they provide two major positives which serve as some sort of compensation for draining them of the business they once did.
Firstly, by using the wisdom of the crowd, exchanges establish robust markets relatively quickly meaning betting companies no longer need to invest so heavily in their own odds-makers.
Secondly, the exchanges provide an easy mechanism for bookmakers to lay off worrying liabilities and can even provide early warning of a potential betting coup attempt.
What is BetConnect’s role in the market?
BetConnect is a hybrid solution that combines many of the strengths of the Betfair model – it is, after all, a peer-to-peer exchange – alongside the reassurance of big bets being matched without restrictions.
Available prices quoted are based on real-time markets provided by a wide range of online bookmakers. The platform gives bettors reassurance that they are getting the best bookie prices while layers know where to head for matched betting opportunities.
BetConnect’s single biggest advantage is its ability to fuse three disparate groups of individuals:
- Professional punters who have grown frustrated by restrictions imposed on them by the bookies
- Recreational players who enjoy backing and laying selections
- The growing community of matched betting enthusiasts
If you think you’re ready to bet on horse racing or any other sport then sign up for a BetConnect account now. BetConnect is the only exchange that lets you back selections at bookie odds with no restrictions, and lay the selections of other account-holders commission-free. Not sure how it works? Read this simple guide.