To figure out the exact amount of risk/return, just divide the moneyline by 100. The key thing to keep in mind is that the payouts are constant regardless of how much you bet. If a team was at +140, that means you only have to risk $1 to win $1.40 or $100 to win $140. You now would have to risk $315 to win $100. That’s really the basic principle you need to remember. Which is the same thing as risking $140 to win $100. That means you have to risk $1.40 for every $1 of profit. Let’s say a team is listed at -140 on the moneyline. The bigger the favorite the more you will have to risk to earn back your initial wager. When you see “-” that means you are going to have to risk more than you win, while with “+” odds you risk less than what you will win. It’s not something where you can bet $100 on the favorite and win $100 back. Second, you need to understand that the payouts are going to vary quite a bit. Oddsmakers will list who they feel is the favorite in a game/match with “-” odds and the underdog at “+” odds. Understanding How Money Line Odds Workįirst things first, you need to get familiar with how the betting lines are presented.

To understand why it’s difficult to profit from long-term betting just the winner, we need to get a full appreciation of how the odds work. You just have to come up with a good idea of what percentage chance a team has of winning and convert that to a money line number. It is a lot easier to predict a team to just win the game than to worry about how much they win or lose by. The total is an over/under proposition, where you pick if the two teams (combined) will exceed the number or not.Īt first, you might think moneylines are the way to go. With the point spread, the books set a line on the game and you have to decide if a team will beat that number. The other two are the point spread and total.

It’s one of the three basic ways to bet on sports. You are simply placing a wager on which team/player will win a specific game or match. New to sports betting or need a quick refresher on money lines and how they work? It’s the most basic bet you can make.

Betting odds explanation