Betting 101

For those new to sports betting / wagering, i have decided to go over some simple terms and strategies. It can be overwhelming sometimes. Here are some terms that we use often:

Odds - the likelyhood that an event will occur. In terms of Sports, the likelyhood that a player or team will win. The greater likelyhood of an event occurring the lesser the odds. For instance The New England Patriots maybe 3/1 (3 to 1 odds) to win the Super Bowl as opposed to the Arizona Cardinals 50/1. The Patriots are the better team, oddsmakers think the Patriots are more likely to win the Super Bowl.

Moneyline - A (-) negative moneyline indicates the team is favored. A (+) positive moneyline indicates the team is the underdog. For a negative moneyline (-115) it indicates how much you’ll have to wager to win $100. For a postivie moneyline (+220) indicates how much you’ll win if you wager $100. For example:

New England Patriots (-110) vs Arizona Cardinals (+220). If you think the Patriots will win, then you’ll have to bet $110 to win $100. If you think the Arizona Cardinals will win, you’ll have to bet $100 to win $220. That is a great bet, but you’ll have to think the likelyhood of the Arizona Cardinals will beat New England Patriots.

You dont have to bet $100, the wager would be a proportionate to your wager. You can wager $11 to win $10 or wager $10 to win $22 for lower amounts.

Spread - The spread is the amount of points the a Sportsbook like Bodog will give you to help you with your bet. The (-) negative spread indicates that the team is favored. A (+) spread indicates that a team is the underdog. A bet is usually followed by a spread and then a moneyline. The final bet is decided by taking into account the final score. For example.

New England Patriots -7 (-115) vs Arizona Cardinals +7 (+220)

If you take the Patriots, you will have to subtract 7 points from Patriots final score. If you take the Arizona Cardinals, you will be able to add 7 points to the Arizona Cardinals final score. If the score is New England 21 Arizona Cardinals 10, and you take the Patriots, you would win the wager. The spread score would be 14-10 Patriots. If you took the Cardinals, the spread score would be 21-17, it would not be enough points to win the game. You would lose the wager.

Cover - Cover is a term used for spreads. A team covers when they beat the spread. For instance the New England Patiriots are -7 vs the Arizona Cardinals. The final score is 21 to 10. The Patriots -7 points still beat the Arizona Cardinals. It means that the Patriots covered. If they didnt score enough points, then they would not have covered.

Pick or Pick’em - indicates that no spread is given. You would have to decide on a wager with no spread points given.

Lay - A bet is sometimes called a “Lay”. Laying down a bet for instance. You would lay $100 on the Arizona Cardinals to win $220.

Over and Under - The over and under is the when you want to wager if the final combined of both teams is going to be over or under the oddsmaker determined amount. For example:

The over and under for New England vs Arizona is 30.
The final score was New England 21 vs Arizona 10. The total combined score is 31.
If you had the bet of Over 30, then you would win.
If you had the bet of Under 30, then you would lose, because they scored more than 30 points.

Frational Odds - are often used for future bets. For example 4/1 is “four to one”. It means that you would win $4 for every $1 you wager. If the Patriots are 4/1 odds to win the Super Bowl. You wager $100. The Patriots win the Super Bowl. You would win $400 ($4 x $100). This is usually used for future bets. You would wager this bet ahead of time and wait til the out come to happen sometime in the future.

If there are any terms that I missed or you want explained, feel free to send me an email - rob@thesportsaffiliate.com

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