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Sports Betting
What’s it all about? Want to know how to bet on US sports? Take a look at the pointers below:
Reading The Odds Sheet
· Looking at the first column, bettors will find the bet number, which the bettor writes down, but isn’t essential.
· The second column shows the teams that are playing. Usually the team listed on top is the visiting team and the team listed on the bottom is the home team.
· The third column is the time of the game and in Las Vegas it is based on Pacific Time.
· The fourth column is very important as it shows which team is favoured to win over the other. The favoured team will have a negative number in the same row, called the point spread. This is how much the favoured team is expected to win by. If the two teams are evenly matched there will be a "P" or "PK", meaning, "Pick" or that you can pick who will win without a point spread. The other number is the over/under line. You may bet whether the total points in the game will go over or under this number. In both point spread and total bets the probability of winning is about 50%, so the bettor must usually lay $110 to win $100, or any proportion therein. For example if a bet were $22, the winnings would be $20. So bets need to be kept in increments of $11.
· The fifth column is the money line. If bettors want to bet on who will win without any point spread then the money line is for them. For fairness, bettors must lay odds, if betting on the favourite and bettors get odds if betting on the underdog.
· The sixth column displays the bet numbers if bettors wish to bet on the half time outcome.
· The seventh column shows the point spread and over/under line for the outcome at half time.
The Parlays Way
Want to bet on multiple sporting events? The Parlay is the best way to do this, with a big payoff if all of them win. All picks are relative to the same point spread as in straight bets. If just one event doesn't win or draw then the bettor loses the entire bet. If one or more events are a draw then those events are ignored. If the bettor wins all the other events they get paid according to the number of events that they won. If all games that are bet on, result in a push, except one or none, then the entire bet becomes a push.
The Teasers Way
Teasers is similar to parlays but the point spread on each game moves 6, 6.5, or 7 points in the players’ favour. The player pays for this in the form of much lower winnings. For example assume the New York Giants are an 8-point favourite over Buffalo. If you tease New York on a 6-point teaser they will only have to beat Buffalo by more than 2 points.
Buying Half a Point
The straight bet player has the option to move the point spread 1/2 point to their advantage. The cost of this half point is laying 120, as opposed to 110. The best time to buy a half point is when a team is preferred by 2.5, 3, 6.5, or 7 points, due to many games ending in a 3 or 7 point difference and the extra half point can either turn a loss into a draw or a draw into a win. However many sportbooks know bettors do this and don’t allow buying a 1/2 point on these spreads.
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