One of the most common types of sports betting lines when wagering on a game is the moneyline. You will see moneyline odds for every game and every sport played for the most part. While some games that have a very large spread but stray away from offering a moneyline, it is still one of the most popular styles of betting. A moneyline is a type of straight wager where the bettor wagers simply on who will win the contest, straight up – without any spread involved.

• How To Read NFL Football Odds | SportsRec
• Understanding The Spread In Football

The Money Line: It’s important to understand the money line in football betting. It faces us in virtually any bet we make. Simply put, money lines are just a way to express odds. We all know of odds like 2-to-1 or 10-to-1. Those are easy to understand. But within those numbers are many degrees. Odds don’t always land on a round number. Odds are important because you can’t bet without them. Placing a bet is the method of predicting what the outcome of a sporting event will be. Bookmakers display odds on what the probability is of the event outcome, e.g. Win, lose, draw. 2 simple forms of understanding probability are the roll of a dice and a coin toss. The three main types of betting odds are fractional (British) odds, decimal (European) odds, and American (moneyline) odds. These are simply different ways of presenting the same thing and hold no.

The easiest way to think of moneyline betting odds is that you are only betting on who wins the game. It does not matter how many points or goals they win by, all that matters is who wins. If you see a - (negative) symbol then that team is the favorite and the team with the + (plus) sign is the underdog. Keep reading below to understand how moneyline odds work or visit the homepage of ExplainBettingOdds.com to read about odds in general.

Explaining The Moneyline For Super Bowl 55

Kansas City Chiefs -160
Tampa Bay Buccaneers +140

It isn’t that hard explaining the Super Bowl moneyline. Take Super Bowl 55 between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Chiefs are seen as the favorites with their line set at -160. This means that in order to make a $100 profit, $160 would have to be risked. Looking at the Buccaneers’ moneyline, it is at +140 which is an underdog. This means that a $100 bet would profit $140. Something to keep in mind when reading the moneyline is that when there is a minus symbol in front of the team, they are favored while if there is a plus sign, they are the underdogs.

Understanding How Moneyline Betting Odds Work

The moneyline is used exactly the same no matter what sport you are betting on. All you must do is select who you believe will with the matchup without any other thought behind you. By taking the favorite, a bettor would have to risk more money than what their expected return would be. Because there is no point spread involved to handicap the game, the oddsmakers and books handicap the payouts to ensure their book stays balanced. Betting on the underdog will result in a much better payout, as the oddsmakers have deemed this team less likely to lose. As you take action on either the favorite or the underdog and select the moneyline, a ratio of $100 is used to represent the payouts.

Seems pretty easy right?

Well, it's definitely easier than betting the point spread, in which a team has to cover a spread installed for a match up however you should know that moneyline wagers do not payout the same as a wager against the spread. Keep reading to learn more about payouts when betting on the moneyline.

Understanding Payouts When Betting On The Moneyline

The biggest differences on the moneyline though, aside from no point spread, is the payout. The idea behind a point spread is to bring the two teams in a match up to a more even playing field. If a team is better than the other, the points given by the favorite brings the underdog to a more even field. That is not the case on the moneyline.

Simply put, you will have to risk a whole lot more money on a favorite to profit. On the flip side though, if you bet on the underdog, the potential profit is a lot bigger on the moneyline than betting on the point spread. That is because the likelihood of the underdog winning is slim on the moneyline.

Explanation Of How Moneylines Work In MLB

• Atlanta Braves -300
• Philadelphia Phillies +200

This is an example of a moneyline you could see in Major League Baseball. The Braves are matching up with the Phillies, with Atlanta set as the favorite. You can tell Atlanta is the favorite because of the minus symbol. It is indicative of the amount that must be risked to return a profit. At -300, a $1 profit is made for every $3 risked on the Braves to win the game. On the other side, at +200, that is the same as saying 2/1. That means, for every $1 risked on Philadelphia to win the game, a $2 profit is returned. Moneylines are simply straight-up betting lines with no spread involved, which is why they can range quite significantly.

Article: How To Read MLB Betting Odds

Understanding The Moneyline In Football

• Denver Broncos -300
• Jacksonville Jaguars +300

Here in this example, the Broncos have been set in the role of the favorite, going off at -300 on the betting line. That means, for every $3 risked on Denver to win, a $1 profit is returned. So if you wager $30 on Denver to win, you stand to win $10. On the flip side, the Jaguars are set as a +300 underdog. That means for every $1 risked on Jacksonville, a $3 profit is returned. So if you were to wager $10 on Jacksonville to win, you would profit $30. So you can certainly see the disparity on the payout and why someone might want to take the Jaguars over the Broncos. Also, taking underdog moneylines in parlay bets can be huge for your payouts!

Article: How To Read College Football Betting Odds - How To Read NFL Betting Odds

Understanding The Moneyline Odds In The NBA

• Los Angeles Lakers +200
• Miami Heat -200

Here in this moneyline example for the NBA, the Lakers are matching up with the Heat. Miami has been set in the role of the betting favorite, going off at -200 on the betting line. As such, a $2 wager is needed to profit $1. So if you were to wager $200 on Miami, as $100 profit is returned if the bet is won. On the other side of the equation, the Lakers are in the underdog role. at +200, that is the same as 2/1. So, for every $1 risked on L.A to win, a $2 profit is returned. You can see a wide range of profits for a moneyline, because the underdog and favorite can be far apart straight up with no point spread.

Article: How To Read NBA Betting Odds

Bovada Sportsbook - Best Sports Betting Site For Betting On The Moneyline

Moneylines are one of the most popular bets that players get involved in. There are always teams that are expected to beat other teams. The margin of victory may be pretty wide. The big thing that sticks out here is how big of a favorite some teams are.

There plenty of moneylines that might show a team being a heavy favorite and if players bet against them, that is a very huge profitable opportunity. Upsets are always going to happen so this is where a lot of bread can be won. There are also toss-up games as well that many players take a stab at as well and end up cashing big on Bovada. This is the place to get when it comes to Moneyline bets regardless if its blowouts or close games.

BetOnline Sportsbook - Best Sportsbook With Great Moneylines

It's clear that BetOnline is one of the best sportsbooks for players and the moneylines that are offered are one of the main reasons why. There is news coming out all the time about teams prior to games and as soon as news drop that effects a team, it also affects the Moneyline on BetOnline.

This is what gives BetOnline a bonus over other sportsbooks because of the consistent update of Moneyline and always moving. Place your bet early could also be a great idea because of the news that could swing later on that week or day before matchup. BetOnline has it set up to where if any changes need to have done that is possible.

SportsBetting's Sportsbook - Lots Of Betting Odds When Betting On Moneylines

There are a number of things that SportsBetting sportsbook offers that makes it one of the better online sportsbooks for players. When it comes to picking some of these games with favorable matchups, the Moneyline does really determine how much players want to put down on these games. Most of the time, these games have the favorite that doesn’t really see players win a lot unless they put a lot of money down. When it comes to upsets, however, this is where players can have their lives change by just one pick.

Players with SportsBetting account have seen the Moneyline and have taken advantage of that the line because of the possible big payout. When you see a team like the Lions be underdogs against the Arizona Cardinals pull out the victory, only one thing is happening and that is big money is being handed out to all the players who took the chance on SportsBettting.

MyBookie Sportsbook - Money Line On MyBookie One of The Best

It is hard to find any sportsbook that has better moneylines that MyBookie. The way Moneyline works is very simple and most of the time it changes depending on what players are playing and are not. This often changes and sometimes in the favor of a player's bet. MyBookie is known for having a lot of people cash big when picking the Moneyline and the reason why is simple, their lines are better.

See the underdog betting like at (+115) is not bad but MyBookie will have that same under down with a Moneyline of (+130) which would win players more money if they were to bet on that underdog team. This is why shopping for lines is so important for all players. You can like a team to win a game and have decided you want to place a wager on them but once shopping around for lines, there is a big chance that you will find that MyBookie has the best moneylines.

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.

How To Read NFL Football Odds | SportsRec

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.

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.

Understanding The Spread In Football

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.

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.

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:

1. Professional punters who have grown frustrated by restrictions imposed on them by the bookies
2. Recreational players who enjoy backing and laying selections
3. 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.

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