Baseball Odds Explained

MLB odds explained As noted above, moneyline odds in the MLB will typically range from -200 to +200. The +200 means bettors will make twice their investment in profit i.e. A $10 wager will return a $20 profit. The -200 odds will profit half your investment ($10 bet equals $5 profit). MLB Odds Explained. Of the four primary sports leagues in the United States, Major League Baseball features the largest number of games played. Whereas each team in the NFL plays 16 games in a season and each NBA team plays 82 games, each MLB team plays a mind-blowing 162 games per season for a grand total of 2,430 games! The betting lines for baseball games are typically different than football or basketball. You’ll see point spreads for those sports, but the most common bet in baseball is the moneyline. For this article, we are going to specifically focus on American odds - the odds with the + or - in front of the number. The short answer to the question of 'what do the plus and minus signs before the odds number mean' is: a minus sign indicates a.

Welcome to the Sports Betting Odds section of The Sports Geek. If you are new to sports betting and don’t understand how to read betting odds (+150, -110, +2200, etc) we will lay it all out for you and help you learn how the betting odds work.

Sports Betting Odds Explained

Many people don’t know how to read or calculate sports betting odds, so below we have done our best on explaining how betting odds work. The most common type of sports betting odds used in North America are the American style odds which we explain below.

American Style Sports Betting Odds

Most online sportsbooks will list their odds in what is called “American Odds”. There are a couple different versions of sports betting odds, but these American Odds are the most common odds used. Reading and understanding sports betting odds can bet a little confusing to beginners, so we have provided an example below using two NFL football teams:

American Odds

• Matchup Odds
• New England Patriots +120
• Pittsburgh Steelers -140

The number shown in the bracket represents the odds. The American Odds have two components to them, the first being the positive or negative sign, and the second being the number that follows the sign.

The sign in front of the number indicates whether placing a wager on that outcome will pay out more money then you have wagered or less money then you have wagered. If the odd is negative (-) it means that outcome is more likely to happen and placing a bet on that outcome would payout less than the amount you wagered, while a positive (+) odd shows that the outcome is less likely to happen and it would pay out more than the amount you wagered.

The next step is figuring out exactly how much the bet pays out, which is where the numbers in the odds come into play.

A listed odd with a – sign in front of it, such as the -140 in our example above, shows us how much money you would need to wager in order to win $100. So using the -140, this would show us that you would need to bet $140 in order to win $100 in profits. You can easily substitute the $100 bet for a $10 bet by moving the decimal place over one spot, showing us that you would need to wager $14 in order to win $10 in profits.

Examples:

A listed odd with a + sign in front of it, such as the +120 in our example above, shows us how much money you would win on a $100 bet. Using the +120 odds, it shows us that a $100 bet on that outcome would pay out $120 in profits. Again this can easily be converted into smaller or larger size bets. A $10 bet on +120 odds would pay out $12 in profits.

Examples:

Below is an example of NFL betting odds taken from an online betting site.

In this example you can see Los Angeles is listed at +130 ($100 bet pays $130 plus of course your original wager back) and New England is listed at -150 ($150 bet pays $100).

The great thing about betting online is that the online sportsbooks will do the calculations for you before you place your bet. You can click on the outcome or team you would like to bet on, and then input the amount you wish to wager and it will show you your potential pay out before you confirm your bet.

Ready To Start Betting?MyBookie and BetNow are my two favorite sportsbooks and make betting very easy. You will also get a Free Money Bonus at each sportsbook if you follow either link above.

Decimal Style Sports Betting Odds

Decimal style odds are used mostly in Europe, and are pretty easy to understand. To calculate the decimal style odds all you will need to do is simply multiply the amount you wish to wager by the decimal odds shown and you will get your payout. For example it may look something like this:

If you wanted to place a $10 wager on the USA at 2.40 you would simply need to multiply your $10 wager by the 2.40 odds (10 x 2.40) to find out that the payout is $24. It is important to realize that with decimal style odds it includes the amount you wagered, so to find out profits you would need to subtract your wager ($24 – $10) to find out your potential payout is $14 in profits.

If you wanted to place a $10 wager on Brazil you would again just multiply $10 x 1.55 to find out that you would win $15.50 total or $5.50 in profits.

Decimal style betting odds are very simple to understand, but you won’t see them displayed in many North American sportsbooks. With that said, most online betting sites will allow you to chose the style of betting odds you want displayed, with American odds set as the default.

Basketball Odds Explained

The point spread is such a ubiquitous part of sports gambling that it has become fodder for pundits and fans who would never place a wager. “Notre Dame is giving up 6 points to USC,” someone might say. “I didn’t know that USC was looking that good this year.”

Instead of judging whether they think the numbers are correct or misguided, people are more likely to simply accept what Vegas has to say. The spread becomes just another prediction.

Baseball wagering is unique in that there is no traditional point spread set for a ballgame. Instead, sportsbooks focus on run totals, the run line, and, most commonly, the money line (ML).

When you wager on the ML, you are picking who you think will win the contest outright. It doesn’t matter how many runs a team scores or how many runs they win by, they just need to score more than their opponent.

This, of course, comes with a catch. A sportsbook is not going to give the same odds to win between a division-leading team with their best starter on the mound and a team at the bottom of the division throwing a bottom-of-the-rotation pitcher.

How to Read MLB Baseball Money Lines – Basic Explanation & Definition

What oddsmakers do in lieu of the point spread is to weigh the moneyline with heavier odds on the favorite. This is an example of what the numbers on a typical ballgame might look like:

• Texas Rangers (-150)
• Oakland A’s (+130)

The Rangers are projected to prevail. The favorite in the match-up will always be the negative (-) number, while the underdog is always positive (+), just like the numbers work with point spreads.

The easiest way to factor the risk vs reward is in terms of $100. In the example above, the (-150) means that you’d need to risk $150 to win $100 on the Texas Rangers. This means if the Rangers prevail, you will be paid $100 (plus your initial $150 investment), however, if the Rangers lose, you lose $150. You must increase the amount you risk on Texas because they are handicapped as the team most likely to take the game.

As for the A’s, at (+130), that number tells you that you can risk $100 to win $130 on them. A winning wager on Oakland gives you $130 (plus you’ll get back the $100 you bet), while a losing bet on the A’s would only cost you $100.

Learn About Baseball Line Prices: Dime Line vs 20 Cent Line

In the example above, and at most sportsbooks, you’ll have what is called a 20 cent line. All that this means is that the absolute value of the favorite price is 20 cents more than the underdog price (150 – 130 = 20). With reduced juice or dime line odds, you’ll get a 10 cent difference. On the very same game, a dime line book like 5Dimes would set the prices at -140 and +130 (140 – 130 = 10). This definitely gives you an edge simply because it takes away some of the built-in vig the book uses to calculate their odds. More on this to come.

Calculating Probability

When it comes to the money line can help to think in terms of probability. In other words, how likely is it that one team will beat the other? This is the foundation of baseball betting and is important to understand before really understanding the money line.

Convert Money Lines to Percentage

There are two formulas you will need to convert baseball betting lines into probability. The formula you use depends on whether the line is positive or negative.

Mlb Baseball Odds Explained

Positive

Example: Money Line = +130

Negative

Example: Money Line = -150

Understanding Vig/Bookmaker Margin: Calculating the No-Vig Line

The astute bettor will notice right away that the probability on each side of an MLB game does not add up to 100%. This is because there is a built-in vig or edge for the bookmaker that helps them make their money. To get the true probability for each side of a game, you need to remove that edge.

Start by adding the two probabilities together. In our example, we had 43.5% + 60% = 103.5%; 103.5%. From the 103.5%, the 3.5% is the estimated vig on this pair of odds (some books do adjust differently on favorites versus underdogs, but we do not need to go into that in detail at this point). We can then take each percentage and divide it by the combined percentage to give us the true probability for each team.

In this matchup, the line tells you that in a fair (no vig) market the underdog has a 42% chance of winning and the favorite has a 58% of winning. This is relevant because as you start to make predictions, you will come up with your own probabilities for a matchup and compare them to the available odds to see whether or not your prediction has value based on these fair market odds.

How to Calculate MLB Baseball Moneylines for Betting Risk & Reward

If you aren’t betting exactly $100 per game, it’s easy to calculate your risk/reward by converting MLs to decimals and multiplying those numbers by your wager amount. A couple of examples:

• If the ML is (-134) and you want to wager enough to collect $35 on that team, you must convert the ML to -1.34 and multiply by $35, which equals $46.90; the amount that is needed to risk on a favorite of -(134) to win $35.
• If you’re looking to bet an underdog of (+172) and have $47 available for a wager, then calculate 1.72 x $47 = $80.25, which is the amount you could collect on a (+172) underdog with a $47 bet.

Using Major League Baseball Odds to Your Advantage

The great part about the ML is that when you bet on underdogs, you can decrease the percentage of games you need to pick correctly to show a profit. For example, if you wager on 100 games with an average line of (-130), you would need to score on 58% (58 of 100) of your bets just to turn a profit, betting $100 per game. You should be paid out $5,800, but lose $5,460 on these bets, giving you a total profit of $340.

Money Line In Baseball

Now, looking at a situation where you bet on mostly small underdogs, say an average line of (+115) over 100 bets, you would only need accuracy on about 47% of your picks (47 of 100) to show a profit. You should receive $5,405 in this case while losing $5,300, a profit of $105. Say you can up your winning percentage to 50% at an average money line of (+115). If you are able to do that, you should instead collect $5,750, while losing $5,000, a profit of $750.

Remember that pitching is still the ultimate factor in making your picks and predictions. But a club that recently won a low-scoring outing as a ‘dog is dangerous and almost never a bad wager. Once a team has proven it can small-ball grind its way to upsets of more talented clubs, they carry more value than a squad that got lucky with 5 homers against the Yankees.

Underdog Betting Equals Value In MLB Wagers

As you can see, winning bets on underdogs can add up quickly. Sportsbooks are, of course, well aware of this, but because most people lean toward favorites and not underdogs, they don’t really care. Like a grocery store putting its sweet snacks at toddler-eye level, the books know that some people are wise to their strategy – but enough of a % of shoppers won’t be. Don’t be taken advantage of. Take advantage!

There are few sure-fire handicapping systems that lead to sustained profit in any sport. NFL wagering, for instance, can be a supreme challenge due to its volatility and the sheer amount of action leveling out the lines. The NBA can be a bear due to “garbage time” and other factors that affect the Over/Under.

Not to say that a cash player can’t make money over time wagering on those sports, but when you find a system that is proven to work in a sport where lines can’t be adjusted too much (due to being set in the morning and paid off by night), then it’s never a bad idea to learn those tactics – even if you don’t always adhere to them.

How To Read Baseball Lines

The numbers above show that if managing to choose your picks on the diamond wisely and take as many high-value underdogs as you can, you will be well on your way to a profitable summer.