With a spread of +8.0, Philadelphia must win the game outright or lose by 8 points or less to cover the spread and be graded as a win. Alternatively, Chicago must win by at least 8 points to cover and be graded as a win. When a team has a point spread with a minus sign (-), it indicates that the team must win the game by a greater number of points than what is indicated in the spread . With the spread and the total, you will occasionally see that the odds are distributed with “half points,” which are in place to prevent a “push,” or no one winning or losing the bets. As long as there is a winner or loser, the sportsbooks will make their money on the juice and be happy. These are the ones that you see right off the bat and the ones that really matter when you are betting on sports.

• Point spreads have an even tax on both sides because we expect each team to cover the point spread about 50% of the time.
• There’s no real difference between them, even though they look dissimilar.
• However,parlays have a separate betting calculator for more intricate wagers, which allows you to input the odds for each leg of your parlay to quickly calculate the payout of your bet.
• If you are having trouble deciding who is likely to win a game, then an over/under bet might be the way to go.
• The odds – and payout – for spreads, money lines, totals, prop bets, etc. will be adjusted in real-time based on how a matchup is unfolding.

My computer spits out a projection of Michigan State 28, Nebraska 21 for this week’s game, which suggests that the Green and White will cover the spread. I think that looks about right, and I would not be “shocked” if the Spartans were to win by double digits. As it stands now, my power rankings have Michigan How Odds Work State at No. 22 and Nebraska at No. 41. The spread opened with MSU only as a three-point favorite, which translates to a 58 percent chance that the Spartans will win. The spread moved in MSU’s direction over the past few days to somewhere between -4.5 and -5.5 points. Note that historically, my method to pick games against the opening spread is correct roughly 55 percent of time and almost 60 percent of the time year-to-date.

What Does +500 Mean In Betting?

If you bet $100 on the Dallas Cowboys +2.5 handicap with odds of +112 and they cover the spread, it will return $112 profit (plus the original $100 stake). Location dictates what format a sportsbook will default to naturally. For the purpose of uniformity and consistency, we’re using American odds here. Without odds, bettors wouldn’t be able to bet on anything at all. And that would defeat the purpose of the very principle of betting.

Special Teams

You can pick teams to cover the point spread, over or unders, or moneylines in a parlay and sometimes you can mix in different sports. There is also the total score or the over/under, and this line lets you bet on whether or not the total score between all competitors will go above or below a predetermined amount. You simply look at what the Over / Under is and then bet on which you think it will be.

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For a bet on Pittsburgh to win at +4.5, they can either win the game outright or not lose by an amount that surpasses 4.5. For Cincinnati to win, they must win the game and do so by a number greater than 4.5. If you’re new to the world of sports betting, one of the first things you’ll need to do is figure out how betting odds work.

Regular Season

Alternatively if you think Chicago will dominate the game, a -8.0 spread is a good bet to take. In order to best understand these lines, you first need to look at the ratio to 1. In the example above, 4/7 odds is less than 1 and the opposite can be said for the other side as 3/2 is more than 1.

However, without using the odds, the payouts are usually much different then they would be with the odds in place. It’s especially the case in soccer since matches can end in draws, whereas a winner is declared in almost every other sport because of overtime rules. However, in most cases, the favorite will have a ” – ” in front of its moneyline odds while the underdog will always have a ” + .” The decimal odds number shows how much the wager wins for each one dollar they bet. In this betting, the indicated number shows the total payout of the house combined with the initial bet.