Baseball Betting
Football and Basketball are based on pointspreads, which are the dominant method of wagering. Baseball, however, works a little differently. In baseball, the odds you are betting on are based on the moneyline instead of the pointspread. Moneylines make you pick the straight up winner of the game, but the payoffs are based on odds.
With a money line, the sportsbook, such as www.bodog.eu Sports, will post the current odds that you have to risk in order to win $100. Your bet must follow that ratio regardless of how much money you want to put at stake. For example, let’s say the team is a -150, meaning that they are the favorite. This means that you will have to wager $150 on them in order to win $100, or $300 to win $150. If you are going to place a wager on the underdog for the upset, you’ll risk $100 and your return will either be 10 or 20 less than the posted price depending on the bookmaker. It will most likely be +120 or +130, meaning that you will need to risk $100 to win $120 or $130.
In baseball, each game’s odds are heavily influenced by the starting pitchers.
When betting on a game, you can choose to bet team against team in the match-up regardless of the starting pitcher or you can choose to specify one or both of the scheduled starting pitchers. Betting team against team in called “action” and that means your bet will stand regardless of who starts the game pitching. If you want to specify pitchers to start you would be betting “listed” pitchers. This means that if the scheduled pitcher to start the game does not start your bet is void. Because of the influence of pitching on a game many people will use this option.
For example, Clayton Kershaw is scheduled to start against the Atlanta Braves who have a terrible record hitting off him. You want to bet on the Dodgers to win the game because you know Kershaw will shut them down. You would then want to bet on the Dodgers with Kershaw as “listed”. That way if for some reason Kershaw doesn’t start your bet would be void. On the other hand, if you think the Braves are in such a bad spot that they can’t win regardless of who starts the game pitching, then you would want to bet on the Dodgers and have the pitchers “action”. You bet then not be good even if there is a change of starting pitchers.
It may sound a bit complicated if your new, but you’ll think it’s easy once you’ve have practiced on your own for a few weeks. What is important to know is that the odds are only a representation of how well the general public believes the two teams and the sportsbooks create the odds to try to get a 50/50 split on the betting. So, as with other sports, you can make money betting on baseball if you’re willing to put in the work.