Betting odds guide: Everything to know about how to read odds and how odds work

Payouts on point spread bets depend on the odds assigned to either side of the wager. Most daily baseball bets are moneyline wagers, and you can check out MLB odds for every game at TheLines. Typically, placing a moneyline wager on the favored team will “cost” the bettor more than placing another type of wager. This number shows how much the bettor must wager on that team (or player) to win $100 in profit. As such, an overview of the most common betting terms is in order.

Bettors wager on major leagues (NFL, NBA, MLB), season-long awards, and major events such as the Super Bowl, March Madness, the Olympics, and more. All of the odds update after every pitch, play, or possession based on momentum, current score, and more. Live betting allows bettors to place wagers while the game is active. These focus on team achievements or in-game occurrances rather than individual player stats. There is no relation to which team ends up winning or losing. Prop bets are considered individual stats, team milestones, or things bookmakers that happen during a game.

However, unlike in other sports where a bettor gets the odds when the bet is placed, bettors in horse racing get the final odds when the starting gate opens. Since baseball teams score in runs and not points, the run line is the baseball betting equivalent to the point spread bet in football or basketball. For the four major North American sports—football, basketball, baseball and hockey—sports betting odds will look very similar. Here is a table with some common sports betting odds expressed in American, fractional and decimal formats, as well as the corresponding implied odds for each. This occurs in games between teams deemed by the sportsbook as evenly matched.

In other words, bettors can place point spread parlay wagers, moneyline parlay wagers, and totals parlay wagers. In that case, bettors would receive refunds on their original bets. Totals bets are usually set at odds of -110, meaning the bettor must wager $110 to win $100 (using the “100” figure as an example). This helps prevent some potentially sizable losses for the casinos. To utilize another NFL betting example, say the Rams are listed as 14-point (-14) favorites over the 49ers.

A $100 bettor who wants the Over would need Gilgeous-Alexander to score 31 or more points for a $183.33 return ($100 initial stake plus $83.33 profit if the bet hits). Just like for the total, a player prop is a bet that you can get Over or Under on and the odds are the price you pay to wager on your side of the bet. For point spread bets, which are most popular in football and basketball, one team will generally be favored by a certain number of points over the opponent. And there are multi-race wagers in which bettors must string together the winner of two (known as the double), three (Pick 3), four (Pick 4), five (Pick 5) or six (Pick 6) races in a row. The traditional bets are win, place (a wager on a horse to finish first or second) and show (a wager on a horse to finish first, second or third).

The more teams wagered on in a parlay, the better the payout. That’s true regardless of any other changes to the point spread, projected totals, or moneyline involving any of the teams in the parlay after the wager is placed. Parlays also survive eventualities such as a rainout in baseball or a tie.

Comparing sports betting odds is one of the best ways to maximize value and improve potential returns. An oddsmaker sets futures odds based on the potential outcomes. Most futures bets involve odds on a team to win a championship or division, but other futures wagers are available for various sports.

The most common wagers in golf betting are tournament winner, top-five finish, top-10 finish, top-20 finish and first-round leader. While a bettor might find a “better” price on 60-minute lines than a standard money line, the bettor risks losing if the game goes into overtime. For hockey, sportsbooks also offer 60-minute lines, which give NHL odds based on three periods, not including overtime.