The legal sports betting world is changing. Quickly.
Odds expressed in terms of money, with $100 being the standard. If the odds are minus (–), then that amount of money must be wagered to win $100. –150 means you must bet $150 to win $100.) If. The reason why you see -110 most often is because it represents the odds required by a sportsbook to guarantee a 10% commission as long as the betting public as a whole is wagering evenly on both teams.110 is also the most common odds you’ll see on most point spread lines and Over/Under lines.
New states are opening their arms to the world of legal sports betting and are opening opportunities for you to take part in making legal sports bets on your favorite teams in casinos, race tracks and through online betting.
Part of our goal at SportsbookWire is to educate the new and/or casual sports bettor on the typical terms around legal sports betting and the various nuances that go into making a sports bet or wager.
In sports betting, a negative money line (represented as -200, -300, -400, etc.) represents the amount of money that you need to bet in order to win $100 if your bet is correct.
It’s actually pretty easy and we’re sure you get the point here.
Fractional odds of 1/2 and decimal odds of 1.5 are also equivalent in this scenario.
A negative money line is also considered as the favorite – or chalk pick – by the oddsmakers.
We’ll get into that more in other pieces, but the heavier the team, player, situation or bet in general is favored to succeed, the higher the negative money line.
For example…
In the first round of the 2018-19 NBA Playoffs, the Golden State Warriors money line was -20000 to beat the Los Angeles Clippers. That means you would need to have wagered $20,000 to win $100 if the Clippers won.Kind of ridiculous, right? That’s how heavy the Warriors were favored over the Clippers … the sports books don’t want you making that bet, because it was expected to be an easy Warriors win.If you’re looking for more educational information on sports betting and terms around such, be sure to check out our How to Bet on Sports 101 section for a variety of betting definitions, betting terms and sports betting strategies to help you build your bank account.