Frequently Asked Questions
|
Q. How does the money line wager work?
A. Playing the money line is the same as picking the winner straight up regardless if the team is favored or not. Plus, there is no vigorish, the sports book profit is built into the odds you are receiving. There is no point spread to contend with. Consequently, if you were to pick the favorite, your bet will return considerably less money but is a safer bet in that you are not giving up any points. On the other hand if you thought the underdog was going to win outright, then a money line bet would pay much better than a straight bet. For example, you could see the money line with the favorite being -160 and underdog being +180. Betting for the favorite would involve betting $160 to win $100, or if betting for the underdog, betting $100 to win $180. The payout on the underdog bet would be $280, the $180 win plus your original $100, demonstrating how much leverage is available with a money line wager. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Q. What are Straight up picks?
A. Straight up refers to picking a team without regard to giving up points for taking the favorite or getting points for taking the underdog. Most office pool contests entail just picking the winner of the game or straight up picks. Football contests, such as many found in Las Vegas, may also use straight up picks. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Q. What are Predicted upsets?
A. In the 2006 regular season our statistics selected a total of 60 upsets. These are the money line bets indicated in the historical data. The average money line for those 60 bets was right at +170. At a +170 money line the break even mark was 37%. Our picks hit 61.7% correct on the upset picks. That percentage exceeded the break even point by 24.7% yielding a 61% profit. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Q. What do I need to know when betting against the "Spread?"
A. The point spread established by Las Vegas sports books is a number, typically between 0 and 17, that attempts to attract an equal amount of money on each team in a game. In doing so the sports book manages to capture the vigorish, that's the 10% a losing bet must contribute. Thus the sports book manages a 5% profit on all the bets. This is why one must win at least 52.4% of all bets just to break even. In other words you have to win 11 games for every 10 losses to break even. Whoever sets these point spreads does an incredible job. If, for example, you religiously bet every favored home team [that happens about two-thirds of the time] you would historically only win about 49% of the time. Likewise if you were to bet all away favorites you would only win just over 45% of the time. Think the underdogs are the bet? No, they only win just over 50% of the time in each situation. The difference is the tie against the spread, you don't win those either, but you don't loose either. Getting above that magic 52.4% break even point takes a plan. The point spreads do not come close to describing what actually happens in a game. In fact, if you could simply pick the winner of the game you would cover the spread 80% of the time! That's because each week in the NFL there are 5 upsets on the average, about one third of the games. Picking 65% of the winners each week straight up [not considering the spread] is difficult to achieve. One could look to such contests as the "Pick the Pros" football contest in Las Vegas. With tens of thousands of contest entries, the first place winner of the $100,000 in 2006 picked 67.5% correct straight up. Picking just 64% was good for $1,000. However, if you bet those wins against the spread, you would still not make any money because 20% of the winners fail to cover the spread and you're back below that 52.4% barrier. Beating the spread consistently is very, very difficult. One approach to beating the spread is to concentrate on attempting to predict the upset winners. Over the last four years the updated Vegas line has correctly favored the winner just under 66% of the time. It's the other 34% of the time we're interested in. There is good reason to concentrate on these other games. First in the typical "office pool" the object is to just pick the winners straight up [no point spread]. Another approach is to enhance the return on your money thru a "money line" bet. These bets, when placed on the underdog, often pay 120% to 250% more than the initial wager in return. In fact betting the underdog at a +180 you only have to win just under 36% of the time to break even! |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Q. What are the Break Even Points for Underdog Money Line Bets?
A. Underdog Money Line Break Even Points
|