Almost every bet offered anywhere is one of three shapes. Learn these and the rest of the board is a variation.
Almost every bet offered anywhere is one of three shapes: who wins, by how much, and how many points get scored. Learn these three and the rest of a sportsbook is variations on them.
The simplest bet there is. Pick the winner. Margin does not matter; a one-point win pays the same as a forty-point win.
Because the teams are rarely equal, the price does the balancing. The favorite is a minus number and the underdog a plus one — the further apart, the bigger the mismatch.
The market thinks the Chiefs win about 71% of the time — and it is charging a fee on top of that.
Laying -400 feels safe and pays 25 cents on the dollar. One loss erases four wins. Nothing is wrong with betting favourites, but the price has to be right, and "it will probably win" is not the same as "the price is good".
The spread gives the underdog a head start so that both sides are roughly equally likely, and then prices both at the same number — usually -110.
Where there is no hook, an exact landing is a push: nobody wins, and every stake is returned. A -7 favourite winning by exactly 7 pushes.
The spread is not a prediction of the margin. It is the number that splits the betting money most evenly — which is usually close to the same thing, but not always.
The total, also written as the over/under, is a number for the combined score of both teams. You bet whether the real figure finishes over or under it. Who wins is irrelevant.
A total of 47.5 in an NFL game goes over at 24-24 and under at 24-23. Like a spread, it is priced at roughly -110 a side, and like a spread, a whole number can push.
There are narrower versions of the same idea: a team total covers one side's score only, and a first-half line covers part of the game.
| Your view | Best expressed as | Why |
|---|---|---|
| "The underdog wins outright" | Moneyline | You get paid for the whole opinion, not part of it |
| "It stays close" | Spread, taking points | You do not need them to win, only to keep it tight |
| "Both offences are better than people think" | Total, over | The winner is irrelevant to the view |
| "One team's offence is underrated" | Team total, over | Isolates the half of the game you have a view on |
The rule of thumb is to bet the market that matches the opinion most exactly. Betting a spread when your view is really about pace, or a total when your view is really about one team, means you are also betting on things you have no opinion about.
All three carry roughly the same fee at a good sportsbook, so the choice is about accuracy, not cost. Where the cost genuinely changes is once you leave these three — which is the last track of this course.
The board shows moneyline, spread and total for every game on the slate. See all three side by side.