Money Line Betting Offers Less Risk And Higher Returns
By Michael Williams (3/27/2007)
There are many sports bettors who do not understand the money line and as a result they cannot reap the benefits associated with betting on it. Usually in a money line a bettor wagers a small amount but the returns can be immense.
Money line is actually very simple. A bettor needs to select the team he thinks would win the game and place a bet. If the selected team wins, the bettor wins his bet. If the selected team loses, the bettor loses the wager. Nothing can be simpler than this in sports betting.
A newbie sports bettor at this stage would be thinking that he should just place bets on the favorite and then sit back and watch the money rolling in. However, it does not work that way. If you select a favorite to win, you would need to bet more money than you can win. While if you select the underdog, you need to bet less money than you can win.
A good example to explain the money line would be to take an imaginary NFL game where the Dallas Cowboys are playing the Washington Redskins. The money line is -180 for the Cowboys and +150 for the Redskins. If you want to place a bet on the Cowboys, you would have lay down $180 to win $100. While if you want to place a bet on the Redskins, you would have bet $100 in order to win $150.
By betting on the underdog, a sports bettor risks less money to win more, and in order to break even, a sports bettor has a smaller percentage of the bets. Therefore, money line is preferred by sports bettors if they think that the underdog has a chance of winning the game. |