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Introduction to Sports Betting
Betting On Football
There are basically 5 ways to bet on football games:
1. Betting Against the Spread
2. Over/Under Betting
3. Money Line Betting
4. Parlays
5. TeasesI'll quickly cover 1-3. Parlays and Teases are generally considered bad bets and shall not be discussed here. If you're hell bent on going broke, google them yourselves.
Betting Against the Spread
Every game has a favorite and an underdog. The difference between the two teams is commonly described by a point spread. Say the New York Jets are favored by 10 points over the New England Patriots. That would be stated as NY Jets-10 vs. N.E. Patriots. Ten points will be added to the Patriots' score and the winner of the bet will be decided on that basis. If the points produce a tie score, that is called "a push" and there is no winner. This type of bet is a 50/50 proposition - you bet $50 to win $50.
Over/Under Betting
This is a bet on the total points scored in a game by the two competing teams. If the odds makers make the line for the Jets/Pats game 45 and the final score is 33-21 with a total of 54, then the "over" wins. If the score's 24-20, it's the under. When the total equals the line, that results in a push.
Money Line Betting
Here there is no point spread - you simply bet on the team you expect to win. However, the bets are not even money. The price you pay for betting on the favorite is a bigger risk.
Example 1: New York Jets -3 over New England Patriots
Let's say the Money Line has been set at -180 for New York and +150 for New England. This means that if you expect New York to win straight up, you would have to lay out $180 to win $100. On the contrary, if you want to take New England to win straight-up, you would lay out $100 to win $150.
In other words, if you pick all underdogs, you can lose more than half of your games and still come up a winner. Not bad if you have the stomach for it.
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