betting lines
It is customary with fixed-odds gambling to know the odds at the time of the placement of the wager (the "live price"), although this category also includes wagers whose price is determined only when the race or game starts (the "starting prices"). It is ideal for a bookmaker to price up a book such that the net outcome will always be in his favour, i.e. the sum of the probabilities quoted for all possible outcomes will be in excess of 100%. The excess over 100% (or overround) represents profit to the bookmaker in the event of a balanced book. In the more usual case of an imbalanced book, the bookmaker may have to pay out more winnings than what is staked, or he may earn more than mathematically expected. An imbalanced book may arise since there is no way for a bookmaker either to know the true probabilities for the outcome of competitions left to human effort or to predict the bets that will be attracted from others by fixed odds compiled on the basis of his own personal view and knowledge.
With the advent of Internet and bet exchange betting, the possibility of fixed-odds arbitrage actions and Dutch books against bookmakers and exchanges has expanded significantly. Betting exchanges in particular act like a stock exchange, allowing the odds to be set in the course of trading between individual bettors, usually leading to quoted odds that are reasonably close to the "true odds."
In making a bet where your expected value is positive, you are said to be getting "the best of it". For example, if you were to bet $1 at 10 to 1 odds (you could win $10) on the outcome of a coin flip, you would be getting "the best of it" and you should always make the bet. However if someone offered you odds of 10 to 1 that a card chosen at random from a regular 52 card deck would be the ace of spades, then you would be getting "the worst of it" because the chance is only 1 in 52 that the ace will be chosen. It is mathematically disadvantageous to make a bet where you are getting "the worst of it."
When making a bet where you must put more at stake than you stand to win, you are laying the odds or laying the bet. So, for example, if you bet $1000 that it will rain tomorrow, and if you win you will only win $200 but if you lose you will lose your entire $1000, then you are laying a bet. It is possible that you could be getting "the best of it" or "the worst of it" when you lay a bet; the fact that you are laying a bet does not necessarily mean you are getting "the worst of it". A lay bet is a bet that something won't happen, so if you lay $50 on a horse then you are betting the horse won't win.
Favoured by bookmakers in the United Kingdom and Ireland, fractional odds quote the net total that will be paid out to the bettor, should he win, relative to his stake. Odds of 4/1 ("four-to-one" or less commonly "four-to-one against") would imply that the bettor stands to make a £400 profit on a £100 stake. If the odds are 1/4 (read "one-to-four", or "four-to-one on"), the bettor will make £25 on a £100 stake. Should he win, the bettor always receives his original stake back, so if the odds are 4/1 you would actually receive a total of £500 in return (£400 plus the original £100). Odds of 1/1 are known as evens or even money. Unusually, odds of 10/3 is read as "one-hundred-to-thirty".
Fractional odds are also known as British odds, UK odds or in that country, traditional oddsFavoured in continental Europe, Australia and Canada, decimal odds differ from fractional odds in that the bettor must first part with their stake in order to make a bet, the figure quoted is the winning amount that would be paid out to the bettor. Therefore, the decimal odds of an outcome are equivalent to the decimal value of the fractional odds plus one. Thus even odds 1/1 are quoted in decimal odds as 2. The 4/1 fractional odds discussed above are quoted as 5, while the 1/4 odds are quoted as 1.25. This is considered to be ideal for parlay betting, because the odds to be paid out are simply the product of the odds for each outcome wagered on. Decimal odds are also favoured by betting exchanges because they are the easiest to work with for trading.
Decimal odds are also known as European odds, or continental odds in the UK.
Moneyline odds are favoured by American bookmakers. There are two possibilities, the figure quote can be either positive or negative.
Moneyline odds are often referred to as American odds. Moneyline refers to odds on the straight-up outcome of a game with no consideration to a point spread.
If the figure quoted is positive, the odds are quoting how much money will be won on a $100 wager (this is done if the odds are better than even). Even odds are quoted as $100 . Fractional odds of 4/1 would be quoted as $400, while fractional odds of 1/4 cannot be quoted as a positive figure. If the figure quoted is negative, then the moneyline odds are quoting how much money must be wagered to win $100 (this is done if the odds are worse than even). Even odds are quoted as -$100. Fractional odds of 1/4 would be quoted as -$400, however fractional odds of 4/1 cannot be quoted as a negative figure. Sports betting is the general activity of predicting sports results by making a wager on the outcome of a sporting event. Perhaps more so than other forms of gambling, the legality and general acceptance of sports betting varies from nation to nation. In the United States, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1994 makes illegal to operate a "betting, gambling or wagering scheme", except for in the states of Delaware, Nevada, and Oregon. Nevada, however, is the only state currently allowing sports gambling, while in many European nations bookmaking (the profession of accepting sports wagers) is highly regulated but not criminalized. Proponents of legalized sports betting generally regard it as a hobby for sports fans that increases their interest in particular sporting events, thus benefiting the leagues, teams and players they bet on through higher attendances and television audiences. Opponents fear that, over and above the general ramifications of gambling, it threatens the integrity of amateur and professional sport, the history of which includes numerous attempts by sports gamblers to fix matches, although proponents counter that legitimate bookmakers will invariably fight corruption just as fiercely as governing bodies and law enforcement do. Most sports bettors are overall losers as the bookmakers odds are fairly efficient. However, there are professional sports bettors that make a good income betting sportsAside from simple wagers--betting a friend that one's favorite baseball team will win its division, for instance, or buying a football "square" for the Super Bowl--sports betting is commonly done through a bookmaker. Legal sports bookmakers exist throughout the world (perhaps most notably in Las Vegas). In areas where sports betting is illegal, bettors usually make their sports wagers with illicit bookmakers (known colloquially as "bookies") and on the Internet, where thousands of online bookmakers accept wagers on sporting events around the world. (In the United States, the legality of Internet wagering is ambiguous, due to the fact that online bookmakers generally operate outside of the U.S. Some online bookmakers do not accept wagers from the U.S. due to these unresolved legal questions.) The bookmaker earns a commission or "vigorish" by regarding the money at risk as less than the size of the bet placed. A common line is a $110 bet on a fair coin which pays $210 to win and $0 to lose. On this line, it costs $220 to bet both sides of the same coin simultaneously, but the combined bet always pays $210. The $10 loss constitutes the vig. There are opposing positions on whether the winner or loser can be construed as paying the vig, but this debate is not especially meaningful. If you view $110 to win $210 on a fair coin as $100 at risk, then it will appear as if the loser pays the vig; if you view the same line as $110 at risk, then it will appear as if the winner pays the vig. It happens that standard practice among bookies is to adjust odds so the amount at risk remains constant from the winning side of the proposition, hence the common perception that the loser pays the vig. Vigs expressed as percentages suffer from the same perceptual bias. On the line as given in this example, for a fair coin, the bookie has an expectation of making $5 for each $110 bet placed, which is often divided out and expressed as 4.5% Odds on teams or adversaries are quoted in terms of the favorite (the team that is expected to win, thus requiring a riskier wager) and the underdog.
Bookmakers generally offer two types of wagers on the winner of a sporting event: a straight-up or money line bet, or a point spread wager. Moneylines and straight-up prices are used to set odds on sports such as association football, baseball and hockey (the scoring nature of which renders point spreads impractical) as well as individual vs. individual matches, like boxing. For these sports, bookmakers in Europe and Asia generally use straight-up odds, which are quoted based on a payout for a single bet unit; for example, a 2-1 favorite would be listed at a price of 1.50, whereas an underdog returning twice the amount wagered would be listed at a price of 3.00.
American bookmakers generally use moneylines, which are quoted in terms of the amount required to win $100 on a favorite, or the amount paid for a $100 bet on an underdog. The amount "won" in a bet is the net amount over and above the initial bet. If a person wins $200 on a bet of $100, the bookmaker actually pays the winner $300 (i.e. $200 plus the initial bet of $100).
For example, a baseball game between the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs might have a moneyline on Milwaukee (the favorite) at -200 and Chicago (the underdog) at +180. A bettor looking to take Milwaukee must risk $200 for every $100 he wishes to win over and above the initial $200 bet. A person wagering on Chicago will win $180 for every $100 he bets.
The +180 moneyline on Chicago includes a 20 cent "dime line". Bookmakers generally use a "dime line" with moneylines to calculate the vigorish they receive on losing wagers. Without the 20 cent dimeline in the example above, the Chicago moneyline would be +200.
For favorites of -120 to -150, the difference between the favorite and underdog is 10 cents; i.e., the underdog to a -120 favorite is priced at +110. The discrepancy between prices rises for favorites of -160 or higher.
Unlike point spread bets, a moneyline wager requires only that the team wagered upon win the match. In sports such as baseball, where certain teams can be heavy favorites against weaker opponents (sometimes as much as -350 or higher), the moneyline system requires that a hefty sum be risked on the favorite, while enticing underdog players with a higher payout.
In sports such as basketball or American football, betting on the point spread is more popular, although money line odds are usually offered as well. A point spread wager typically requires a bettor to risk $110 to win $100, the extra $10 being the bookmaker's vigorish if the wager loses. However, bettors backing the favorite collect only if their team wins by more than a specific victory margin, which is set at the time of the wager. This is called "covering the spread". Similarly, underdog bettors can collect even when their team loses, as long as they win against the point spread by losing by fewer points than were quoted by the bookmaker. For example, suppose that a college football game between Kansas State and Kansas had Kansas state as a 27 point favorite (quoted as Kansas State -27, or Kansas +27):
If Kansas State defeats Kansas by more than 27 points, they have covered the spread and bettors on Kansas State would receive $100 on a $110 bet. Kansas bettors lose the $110 they wagered. If Kansas defeats Kansas State, bettors on Kansas would receive $100 on a $110 bet. Kansas State bettors lose the $110 they wagered. If Kansas loses by less than 27 points, they have won against the spread. Bettors on both sides are then treated exactly as if Kansas had won the game. If Kansas State wins by exactly 27 points, the wager is called a "push", and neither side wins. Standard practice by U.S. bookmakers is to return the stakes of all bettors on the game in full. To prevent pushes and ensure that they receive their commission on losing wagers, bookmakers often set point spreads that include a half-point. Another common wager available for sporting events involves predicting the combined total score between the competing teams in a game. Such wagers are known as "totals" or "over/unders." For example, the Kansas State/Kansas football game described above might have a total of 55 points. A bettor could wager that both teams will combine for over 55 points, and play the "over." Or, he could predict that the score will fall under this amount, and play the "under." As with point spreads, bookmakers frequently set the totals at a number involving a half-point (i.e., 55.5), to reduce the occurrence of pushes.
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