Betting Odds – What Are The Most Popular Bets to Make?

Being a winning sports bettor long term is a lot harder than it looks. Sometimes people win their first few i9bet sports bets and start thinking it’s easy before being faced with a rude awakening after a few more wagers. The internet Betting Odds and social media tend to glamorize professional sports bettors and make betting seem easy, but the truth is that professional sports bettors are very rare. Below are some tips that professional bettors live by and new bettors can lean on as guidance.

Moneyline – A moneyline is the simplest bet type. A moneyline wager is a bet on which team (or athlete in an individual sport like tennis) will win. For instance, if the San Francisco Giants are playing the Los Angeles Dodgers, sportsbooks will offer a separate set of odds on each team winning the game. An underdog (team/athlete deemed less likely to win) will have more lucrative odds than a favorite (team/athlete considered more likely to win).

Point spread – These are popular for basketball and football games, involve placing a wager on the margin of victory of a game. For instance, if the Knicks are 3.5-point favorites over the Pacers, then one could bet the Knicks -3.5 or the Pacers +3.5. In order for the Knicks side to win, New York has to win by 4+ points and a Pacers point spread bet will cash if Indiana wins the game or loses by 1-3 points.

Over/Under – A bet on the “over/under” AKA “Total” is a wager on the total combined score of a game. With this type of betting, who wins the contest is irrelevant and instead bettors focus their attention on the pace of scoring. For instance, a total for Giants – Jets game might be set at 42.5. In this case, some bettors will bet the score will go under 42.5 while others will wager the score will go over 42.5. A final score of Jets 27-Giants 20 would cash for over bettors.

Prop Bets – Prop is short for “proposition” betting and these type of wagers involve betting on very specific events or players within a game. For instance, how many yards will Patrick Mahomes throw for in a particular game, or which team will kick the most field goals. While betting MLB games, bettors can wager on the total strikeouts for a starting pitcher while hockey bettors can bet on how many shots on goal an individual player will have.

Futures Bets – These are wagers on the outcomes of things happening in the future, for instance, betting on the Super Bowl in October or the World Series in July. The futures market also involves team win totals and which teams win individual divisions or conferences. Futures bets are a great way to enjoy a bet throughout the entire season.

How much a bet wins is determined by the odds set by the oddsmaker at the time of a wager. If odds change after a bet is made, it does not impact the original bet. Most sportsbooks in North America utilize American odds (i.e. -120 or +240) which are expressed as a + or – sign followed by a whole number (usually 3 or 4 digits). If a bet has -240 next to it, that means it will cost a bettor $240 to win $100 (and get the original $240 wager back), while a +240 wager means a $100 will win $240 (and the original $100 wager back).

A “favorite” is the team/athlete expected to win, while “underdog” or “dog” describes the team/athlete more likely to lose. For instance, if the Cincinnati Bengals are considered a much better team than the New England Patriots, a sportsbook might offer -410 odds on the favorite (Bengals) and +320 odds if the underdog (Patriots) wins. Similarly, if the Lions are small favorites over the underdog Rams, a bettor might see Detroit with -180 odds and the Rams with +150 odds. In a situation with no true favorite or underdog like a coin flip or a game with two teams perfectly evenly matched, a bettor could expect to see -110 odds even though each side has a 50/50 chance of winning because sportsbooks essentially charge a tax on each bet. Point spread and over/under bets can typically be found with odds around -110, while moneyline bets often have more dramatic odds as outlined above.

While most sportsbooks have American odds as their default, odds in the app can be changed to decimal odds or fractional odds. A team with odds of -110 would be expressed as 1.91 odds in decimal form or 10/11 odds in fractional form. Our odds calculator is a great resource for bettors looking to understand the differences between odds.