Sports Betting 101: Reading the Money Line

One of the most popular forms of sports bets is in the form of the money line.  Money line bets are also known as straight up bets and are simply bets that you place on the team that you believe will win the game.  You don’t have to worry about point spread odds for this one as you are simply betting on who is going to win the event – whether it’s basketball, football, baseball, etc.  In other words, you don’t have to determine how many points a team will win by or lose by – it’s just the winner of the game outright.

When it comes to oddsmakers at online sportsbooks, they will determine the favorite and the underdog of any particular event by their past match-ups, recent performances and strength.  However, that is not where the odds necessarily come from – well, not exactly.  The odds on the money line simply explain the amount of money that you must put up for bet.

Let’s take the following money line for demonstration purposes – this is not a REAL money line for any upcoming contest.

Texas Rangers -140

New York Yankees +120

The (-) symbol in front of the Texas Rangers signifies that the Rangers are the favorite for this event while the (+) in front of the New York Yankees signifies that the Yankees are the underdog for this particular event.  These symbols are always used for these purposes on the money line and are never different; therefore, the (-) will always be in front of the favorite and the (+) will always be in front of the underdog.  When you place your bet, you are betting on which one of these teams – the underdog or the favorite – will win.

Now, if you were to place your bet on the Rangers then you would have to risk $140 in order to win $100.  In the same token, you would need to bet $100 to win $70 and $70 in order to win $50.

On the other hand, if you were to place your bet on the Yankees, you would simply place a $100 bet in order to win $120.

The reason it is like this is because sportsbooks need you to risk more money to bet on the favorite, who is the most likely to win; however, sportsbooks are giving you an incentive (winning more money) if you were to place your bet on the underdog.

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