Sports Gambling For Dummies
Sports Betting for Dummies
by Victor Ryan
- Betting Odds For Dummies
- Betting Line For Dummies
- Sports Gambling For Dummies Games
- Sports Gambling For Dummies Students
- Sports Gambling For Dummies Kids
Sports betting is considered by many to be the easiest form of gambling to get started with. When betting on sports, your goal is essentially to predict the outcome of a sports event and wager money. Welcome to your no-nonsense guide to sports betting for dummies. Sports betting is the most popular form of gambling among people ages 14-22. 65% of American adults have placed at least 1 sports bet in the last year. But were they successful? Like with all gambling, sports betting has risks. Swain Scheps has written extensively on gambling topics and is a veteran sports bettor and industry expert. He has provided gaming advice and instruction in the Fodor's Las Vegas travel series and has contributed to Casino Gambling For Dummies. He is a data and analytics professional in Oregon and author of Business Intelligence For Dummies.
Sports wagering has boomed with the advent of the Internet, as easily evidenced by the hundreds of Web sites willing and able to take action. If you're looking to get in on this growing past time, it pays (literally) to know what you're doing. Therefore we bring you this basic betting primer, a 'Sports Betting for Dummies.'
Point Spreads and Money Lines
Inability to read sports odds is one thing that novice sports bettors have a very hard time with. Point spreads and money lines are used to indicate one team being favored over another. Of the four major North American sports, point spreads are the dominant form of betting on football and basketball, while money lines are the preferred method for baseball and hockey because of the limited scoring in those two sports.
When betting with a point spread you are wagering that a particular team will win or lose by a certain amount of points. This pays out even-money minus the vigorish, or bookmakers take, which we will later explain further. To better understand how point spreads work let's look at a typical NFL oddsboard:
401 Buffalo Bills 49
402 New York Jets -4
403 Seattle Seahawks 39
404 San Francisco 49ers +3
In this example the Jets are listed as four-point favorites (-4) over the Bills and the 49ers are three-point underdogs (+3) against the Seahawks. So, if you bet $110 on the favored Jets, they must defeat the Bills by more than four points in order to win $100. If you bet $110 on the underdog 49ers you will win $100 if they win outright or lose by less than the three-point spread. If the final score happens to end up exactly on the number it's a tie, or 'push,' and you get your money back.
These are examples of 'side' betting with a point spread. There are also 'total' wagers that refer to the total amount of points scored by both teams. In the above example, the total, or 'over/under,' in the Bills-Jets game is 49. You can bet whether the final score will come in over or under that total by laying $110 to win $100.
Reading baseball and hockey lines can be a bit different. When using a money line you are betting which team will win outright, not by a specific amount of points. Secondly, the payouts differ on a money line as compared to the standard 11/10 odds of a point spread bet. The money line system requires more money to be risked on favorites and gives higher payouts to underdog players. To better understand how money lines work let's look at a typical Major League Baseball oddsboard:
103 San Diego Padres +135
104 Los Angeles Dodgers - 125
105 St. Louis Cardinals +190
106 Washington Nationals -220
The teams with the plus (+) are the underdogs and the number indicate how much you will win if you bet $100 on that particular team, while the minus (-) numbers show how much you need to risk in order to win $100. So a winning $100 bet on the Padres would pay $135. If you bet the Dodgers, you would have to risk $125 to win $100. The difference between the two numbers is called the 'dime line.' As seen in this example the dime line will increase based on how heavy a side is favored.
Vigorish
The vigorish, also known as 'the vig' or 'juice,' allows bookmakers to make money regardless of the outcome of a game or match. For example, the true odds when betting with a point spread is even-money, but in order to win $100 you have to bet $110. The $10 difference reflects the vig, or the bookmaker's commission.
Betting Odds For Dummies
The optimal situation for bookmakers is to set odds that will attract an equal amount of money on both sides, thus limiting their exposure to any one particular result. To further explain, consider two people make a bet on each side of a game without a bookmaker. Each risks $110, meaning there is $220 to be won. The winner of that bet will receive all $220. However, if he had made that $110 bet through a bookmaker he would have only won $100 because of the vig. In a perfect world if all bookmaker action was balanced, they would be guaranteed a nice profit because of the vig.
Rotation Numbers
In the sample odds boards listed above you may have noticed a set of numbers to the left of the team names. These are called 'rotation numbers' and are used by all bookmakers across North America. This helps expedite the wagering process and also makes comparing lines from various books much easier because the games are always displayed in the same order.
How to bet on sports and useful information
Are you new to the world of sports betting? Need some help cutting your teeth before getting into sports betting action?
You’ve come to the right place.
SportsBookWire’s betting and wagering 101 series is designed to give you the how-to information you need to know to make more educated bets. Before you can walk the walk, you’ll need to talk the talk. Use these handy reference sports betting pages to help build your knowledge base before making a sports bet.
Wager 101: Sports Betting Terms and Definitions
Common and not so common sports betting terms in the world of sports betting that you need to be familiar with. Do you know what “juice” is? How about what a “chalk” bet is? We’ve got your back.
What does chalk mean in sports betting?What is a sharp in sports betting?Sports Betting and Wagers 101: Types of Bets
What’s an over/under bet? How about betting against the spread? We’ve got you covered on the most popular types of bets and what each type means.
What is a moneyline bet?What is a point spread or “betting the spread” in sports betting?What does over/under mean in sports betting?Sports betting by State
Legal Colorado Sports Betting
Colorado legal sports betting: How to bet on the Denver Broncos for beginner bettorsSports Betting and Wagers 101: What do odds lines mean in sports betting?
New to sports betting? You’re going to see a lot of things like -200, +137, etc. tied to sporting events. Here, we break down what those numbers mean to you.
What does -200 mean in sports betting?Betting Line For Dummies
Sports Bets ands Wagers 101: Important Sports Events (coming soon)
Want to have some action in some of the most popular sports events of the year? We’ve got you covered on a month-by-month basis in our important sports events of the year.
Sports Gambling For Dummies Games
Wager 101: States you can legally place sports bets in (coming soon)
Sports Gambling For Dummies Students
Wondering where you can place a legal sports bet? We break it down for you on a state-by-state basis.
Wager 101: March Madness and College Betting Strategy
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Sports Gambling For Dummies Kids
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Basic tips for betting on horsesFollow SportsbookWire on Twitter
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