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A moneyline bet is one of the simplest and most common types of sports bets that you’ll see in the industry. What is a moneyline bet? A moneyline bet is a wager on who will win a game or a contest. That’s it. Think a team is going to win a game? Bet on them, and if they win, you win your bet. Most people who have placed any sort of bet before (even with friends) have made a moneyline bet.

Moneyline bets have absolutely nothing to do with how a team or person wins or by how many points, runs, or goals, they win by. The only criterion that must be met for a winning ticket is that the team or person you chose wins. It doesn’t have to be pretty, and it doesn’t have to be ugly; all that matters is the checkmark in the W column.

Breaking Down a Moneyline Bet

A moneyline bet is a sports betting wager on which team or person will win a game or sporting contest. When you make a moneyline wager, you are betting on who will win a contest. It doesn’t matter how they win, by how many points, goals, or runs they win, or how long it takes them to win. What is a money line bet? What do I need to know when betting the moneyline? Can I parlay moneyline bets? We answer all these sports betting questions in thi. Moneyline favorites are listed with “-” odds, and the underdog is listed at “+” odds. Geoff Fisk is a San Diego-based freelance writer, specializing in the poker and gambling.

Let’s take a look at a sample moneyline bet and break things down. We’d like to point out some important details that you need to be aware of for this type of bet.

• New England Patriots -180
• Philadelphia Eagles +155

In the above example, you see three different elements on each line. You see a team name, a plus or minus sign, and then a number after that sign. This will be what you see for every moneyline bet that you’re ever going to make. If you happen to see a number before the team name, that is just a number to identify the bet.

If it said 503 before the Patriots and 504 before the Eagles, those would be the “labels” for that bet. If you wanted to bet the Patriots, you could tell the sportsbook agent that you want to bet on the Patriots or that you wanted to take the moneyline on 503.

If you’re betting online, you won’t usually see those numbers at all because you won’t have to give your bet to an agent.

Let’s talk about what each portion of data is on each line. First, you have the team name. This signifies who you would be betting on. The bet on the top line would be a bet on the Patriots while the bet on the bottom line would be a bet on the Eagles. The next thing you see is a plus or minus sign. The plus sign signifies that a team is the odds underdog and you will be getting paid even money or better if you bet that team. The minus sign means that the team is the odds favorite and that you will be getting paid worse than even money for a correct pick on that team.

So, in our example above, the Patriots are the favorites, and the Eagles are the underdogs. The number that follows the plus or minus sign tells us how big of a favorite or underdog a team is. It also tells us how much we will be paid out for a correct bet on that team. With underdogs (minus signs), the bigger the number is, the bigger the underdog the team is. A bigger number also means that you will be receiving a bigger payout for a correct bet.

If a team is +200 and another team is +400, the team that is +400 is a bigger underdog, and you will also receive a much better payout than you would with a correct bet on the team that is +200.

Moneyline Meaning

With the favorites (plus signs), the bigger the number is, the bigger the favorite the team is. This is the same as with underdogs. The difference, though, is that the bigger the number is, the worse the payout is that you are going to receive for a correct pick on this team.

If one team is -250 and one team is -500, the team that is -500 is a much bigger favorite, but you would receive a much smaller payout than you would if you bet correctly on the team that is -250.

A question that is frequently asked at this point is why you would want to bet on favorites if the payouts are so much better on underdogs. The reason is that the favorites are much more likely to win the game. This means that even though you are not going to win as much money, you are going to win more often, and that should make up for it.

Moneyline Payouts Will Vary Greatly

Even though the criteria to win a moneyline bet is always the same, the payouts are not always going to be the same. If a sportsbook paid out the same amount for every team, the sportsbook would go broke. Everyone would bet on the big favorites, and no one would ever bet on the underdogs. This means that unless there were some major upsets, the sportsbook would go broke overnight.

To deal with this, the sportsbook has to encourage more people to bet on the underdogs while discouraging people from betting on the favorites. The way that they do this with moneyline bets is by altering the amount you are paid for a correct pick. If a team is a favorite to win a game, the sportsbook will offer to pay you less money for a correct pick. This is going to make you less enticed to make that bet. If a team is an underdog to win a game, the sportsbook will offer to pay you more money for a correct pick. This is going to make you more enticed to make that bet.

The idea is that the differing payouts will allow the sportsbook to get the same amount of money bet on both sides of the game. Then, regardless of who wins, the sportsbook will pay out the same amount of money and will make a profit from the small percentage they take off the top of the winning bets. You see, the sportsbooks love to facilitate gambling, but they don’t like to gamble themselves. They want to do everything within their power to guarantee profit regardless of which team wins the game.

Benefits of Moneyline Bets

The biggest benefit of moneyline bets is that they are simple. If you’re brand new to sports betting, it’s a great place for you to start. You don’t have to worry about checking off a bunch of criteria to win your bet. Pick a team, and if they win the game, you win your bet. As you start to get more comfortable with moneyline bets, you can start looking into the different payouts and what that means in terms of implied probabilities and the search for value.

In Gambling What Is The Moneyline Rule

In the next section, we’re going to talk about the importance of looking for value over winners. You’ll find that calculating value in relation to moneyline bets is much easier than with spread bets or other types of bets. This is a big benefit for those bettors who like to take a mathematical approach to their wagers.

Moneyline Betting Strategies

The Search for Value over Winners

The secret to moneyline bets is looking for instances where the payouts are much better than they should be for the likelihood of the outcome. This is called value. If a sportsbook is paying way too much for a favorite that you think is sure to win the game, you’ve found value. On the other side, if the sportsbook is paying way too much on an underdog that you don’t really think is that big of an underdog (or even an underdog at all), you’ve found value. If you consistently bet moneyline bets that have value, you’re going to make money in the long run.

Remember that you can find value in underdogs. This means that often it is a wise move to bet on a team that you think will most likely lose the game, just because there is a lot of value in the bet. Remember, sports betting is a long-term endeavor that sometimes will take a larger sample size of bets to start realizing your profits.

Basically, this comes down to analyzing risk versus reward. Is the amount you will be paid out for your pick going to be worth the money that you have to risk to win it? If the answer is no, then that’s a moneyline bet you want to avoid. If the answer is yes, then that’s a bet you’re going to want to make.

Avoid Overwhelming Favorites

We may get some pushback on this tip from big-money sports bettors, and that’s okay. We’ll explain our point, then explain where we anticipate the pushback coming from, and then allow you to decide for yourself. Let’s say that a huge dinosaur is going to fight a small child in an upcoming MMA match. While the kid may be crafty and elusive, he or she really stands no chance of winning. The odds on the dinosaur winning might be something like -10000. Since you believe that the kid has zero shot of winning, should you make this bet?

Well, technically it is probably a smart bet if you really believe that the kid has a 0% shot at winning. However, if you were to wager $100, your profit on the fight would be $1. Honestly, that’s a ton of money to risk for such a negligible payout. That being said, it may still technically be a good bet, and that’s where we expect to get some pushback from some bigger money bettors. If you’re betting a huge amount of money on this fight, the returns could start to be noticeable.

It’s really going to be up to you whether or not you want to bet on overwhelming favorites. Personally, we like to stay away from them when they become too big of favorites, but if there is value, it is a good bet in theory. This will all come down to your personal preference.

Understand What the Moneyline Represents

The moneyline odds don’t just tell you the amount you’ll get paid out on a correct bet. They also tell you the percentage chance that the sportsbook thinks each team has to win. This is called the implied probability. While we could walk you through the complex math, your best bet is to find an implied probability calculator online to do the conversions for you.

What you’ll do is put in the moneyline odds you’re given and then click convert. It will spit out a percentage number. This is the percentage chance that the sportsbook thinks the team has to win.

Let’s say that a team is +250 on the moneyline. As they are the underdog, we would expect them to have less than a 50% chance of winning the game. When we put this into the converter, it tells us that the team has a 28.6% chance of winning based on the payout odds. If you think that the team is more than 28.6% likely to win the game, then it’s probably a bet you’re going to want to take. You’ll be paid out as if it is less likely to happen (more money), but you’ll end up winning more often than you should.

What you can also do is figure out the likelihood (percentage chance) that you think a team will win a game first, and then convert that into moneyline odds. You can then take those odds and start shopping around different sportsbooks for one paying out better odds than you think you deserve.

Moneyline as a Predictor

There is one additional thing that we would like to make clear before we conclude the strategy section of this guide. If you notice, we’ve been saying that the moneyline odds tell you the likelihood that a team will win or lose a game. This is mostly true, but we need to clarify something. The sportsbook will put out a starting line that indicates what they think is going to happen in the game. If you look at that starting point, you could realistically say that’s what the sportsbook thinks is going to happen.

However, you have to remember that the sportsbook is going to move the line based on the bets that come in. This means that the line will start to reflect the bets that have come in and not so much what the sportsbook thinks is going to happen. It will be reflecting more of what the betting public thinks is going to happen.

This really shouldn’t change much of your bets, but it is something you should be aware of. If you can start to predict how you think the betting public is going to bet, you may be able to figure out the optimal time to bet to get the best moneyline payout.

Conclusion

Don’t let the simplicity of moneyline bets fool you. The sharpest and most successful of sports bettors use these bets day in and day out to crush the books and bring home massive profits. While the bet type itself is simple, it does not mean that making correct moneyline bets is easy.

It still requires a lot of effort, research, and drive on your behalf to get yourself over that profitability finish line. It’s safe to say that if you stick around in the sports betting world for a long time, the moneyline bet will most likely play a huge role in your success.

In sports betting, a moneyline bet is a wager on which team will win a game. Moneylines are the primary wagering option for hockey and baseball, while for basketball and football they are viewed as a secondary alternative to the point spread.

Have you ever heard of moneyline betting? It’s an American term that’s traditionally associated with betting on the major US sports. These wagers are available in other parts of the world too, but they’re typically referred to as win bets. The same principle applies though. When you correctly select which team will win a match, you’ll get paid out at the relevant odds.

We explain how moneyline betting works in a little more detail below. There’s no need to feel overwhelmed, since they’re relatively straightforward. As a result, the strategies for betting moneylines are also rather straightforward. Nonetheless, we provide some useful advice for how to use them effectively.

Moneylines Explained

For the most part, moneylines are used when there are two possible outcomes. For example, if you’re placing a moneyline wager on a basketball game, then you’ll essentially be betting on which of the two competing teams will win. Your two choices will be to either back the favorite or to back the underdog.

For example, let’s say there’s an upcoming basketball game between the Boston Celtics and the Memphis Grizzlies. A bookmaker might offer the following point spread on the game.

If you understand point spread betting, then it will be obvious that the Celtics are the favorites here. For the purposes of a point spread bet, the bookmaker would remove 5.5 points from their total at the end of the game. If you chose to back them, you’d need them to win by six points or more in order to win your point spread wager.

The Grizzlies, on the other hand, are the underdogs. For the purposes of the point spread bet, the bookmaker would add 5.5 points to their total at the end of the game. If you chose to back them, you’d need them to win or lose by less than six points.

The point spread is basically used to create a 50/50 betting proposition. In this example, the Celtics are theoretically just as likely to win by six points or more as the Grizzlies are to lose by less than six points. This is reflected in the odds, which are typically -110 on both sides of the wager. You have to risk $110 for the chance of winning $100.

If a bookmaker offers moneyline betting on the same game, then their market might look similar to this one.

The bets here are no longer a 50/50 proposition. A bet on the Celtics means you have to risk $240 for the chance of winning $100. The odds are lower because you only need the Celtics to win. Since it doesn’t matter how many points they win by, the chances of this happening are obviously higher.

A bet on the Grizzlies means potentially winning $210 for every $100 staked, which is obviously a better return on your money. However, the Grizzlies would need to win the game outright for such a wager to be successful. The chances of this happening are pretty low.

With a negative moneyline, the odds show how much stake is needed to win $100. With a positive moneyline, the odds show how much a $100 stake will pay in winnings. When betting in non-$100 increments, you’ll have to do all of these calculations on your own.

Calculating Moneyline Payouts

We’ve written a whole article on how to calculate moneyline payouts. Anyone interested in learning more about all the formulas and configurations involved should definitely check this article out. Otherwise, you could just follow this quick trick.

When betting on the favorite, simply divide the negative moneyline by 100 to get a decimal. If you were planning to bet on the Celtics in the above example, this would give you 2.40 (ignore the negative). Now all you have to do is divide your stake by that number in order to see what your potential payouts would be. Let’s say you wanted to stake $650. When you divide that number by 2.40, you’d see that your potential payout is $270.83.

When betting on the underdog, the first step is the same. Divide the positive moneyline by 100, which in the case of the Grizzlies in the above example would give you 2.10. Then, multiply your stake by that number to get your potential winnings. $450 multiplied by 2.10 is $945. Essentially, this means if you risked $450 on the Grizzlies, you would stand to win $945.

Finding Value in Moneylines

All moneylines have what is referred to as an implied probability. This is really just a fancy term pertaining to how often a wager needs to win in order to breakeven, but it’s something you need to understand in order to make a profit from betting moneylines.

Calculating implied probability is relatively straightforward, as long as you use the following formula.

Risk is the initial amount staked on a wager, while return is the initial amount staked plus the potential win.

Let’s use this formula to calculate the implied probability of the Celtics winning their game against the Grizzlies. We know the odds are -240, which means we’d have to risk $240 for a total potential return of $340 (the initial stake plus the $100 winnings). So the calculation here is $240 divided by $340. This gives us an implied probability of 0.7059.

Technically, probability should always be a number between 0 and 1. It’s often expressed as a percentage though, which makes things easier for the purposes of betting. 0.7059 converted into a percentage (i.e. multiplied by 100) gives us 70.59%. What this means is that the odds suggest the Celtics have a 70.59% chance of winning. If we believe the Celtics have an even greater chance of winning, then we should back them at odds of -240.

This is basically what finding value is all about. When we think that a wager is more likely to win than the odds suggest, we should place that wager. As long as we’re estimating those chances accurately, we should have no problem making an overall profit.

It’s important to note that finding value isn’t necessarily about betting on what we think will happen. If we applied the above calculations to the Grizzlies at odds of +210, we’d get an implied probability of 32.36%. Backing them would be a wise decision if we believe their chances of winning are higher than 32.36%.

After conducting some research, we gave them a 40% chance of winning. Even though this means we actually think their chances of losing are higher than their chances of winning, we should still back them. We’d be placing a wager with positive expected value, which should be everyone’s goal when betting on sports.

Removing Vig & Shopping Moneylines

Earlier, we explained how the implied probability of -240 is 70.59% and how the implied probability of +210 is 32.36%. Notice these two probabilities total 102.95%. The extra 2.95% is the bookmaker’s advantage. It’s called vig, and it’s basically a commission that they charge customers for placing wagers. By removing the vig, you can see what the fair odds on the game would be.

If the odds are the Celtics at -240 and the Grizzlies +210, what is the fair price without vig? Many assume that because there’s a 30 cents gap between the two lines, we just deduct 15 cents from the favorite and add 15 cents to the underdog. This would give us a fair price of -225 for the Celtics and +225 for Grizzlies, which is incorrect.

To remove vig correctly, we need to divide the total of the two implied probabilities by each individual probability. So, in this case, we need to do the following calculations.

70.59% / 102.95% = 68.57%

32.36% / 102.95% = 31.43%

The two results above are the no-vig probabilities. If you’re sharp, you’ll notice that adding 68.57% and 31.43% up together will give you 100%. The extra 2.95% has been removed, so there’s no more vig. We can now go to our odds converter and enter 68.57% into the implied probability field. This will give us moneyline odds of -218. If we enter 31.43%, we’ll get moneyline odds of +218. The original moneyline market of the Celtics at -240 and the Grizzlies at +210 therefore has no-vig odds of the Celtics at -218 and the Grizzlies at +218.

We explain removing vig, and how this process helps us, in more detail in our article on handicapping the market.

Armed with the knowledge of how to remove vig, it’s now possible to prevent yourself from making the same mistakes that the majority of bettors make. Most bettors understand the importance of line shopping (i.e. comparing the lines and odds at different bookmakers and betting sites). However, if they fail to also understand how moneylines and vig work, then they’re probably going to make wagers where they think there’s positive expected value (+EV), even though there’s not.

For example, imagine a game where the odds were -550 for the favorite and +450 for the underdog. A bettor shopping around for lines might be delighted to see the same favorite offered at -490 and enthusiastically back the team at those odds simply because those are the best odds available. However, if we removed the vig from -550 and +450, we’d see that the fair odds are actually -466 and +466. So, placing a wager at odds of -490 doesn’t actually offer any value.

For reasons hinted at, when shopping odds for what’s expected to be a lopsided game, you need to find significantly better odds on the favorite’s moneyline than on the underdog’s moneyline. This is the only way to make the bet +EV.

Value only exists when the odds are better than the fair price, or when you are confident that a wager has a greater chance of winning than the odds suggest. By simply knowing this information, you become more knowledgeable than most recreational bettors who bet moneylines without really knowing how they work.

Moneyline Bonus Strategy

When it comes to sports betting, sites usually offer one of these two bonuses: cash or free plays. When the bonus is cash, there’s no unique strategy outside of the usual sound handicapping required to gain an edge. When the bonus is free plays, however, some additional strategy comes into play.

Please read our article on sports betting bonuses and rewards for more information on how these work.

If you wager $100 cash on odds of +100, you are staking $100 cash to win $100 cash. Your total potential return is $200, which is your initial stake plus your winnings. If you wager $100 free play on +100, however, your total potential return is just the $100 winnings. Whether you win or lose, your free play is used up. Obviously, free play bonuses aren’t worth as much as cash bonuses, so that means it’s up to you to squeeze as much value out of them as possible.

One the best ways to do this is to hedge by using moneyline betting at multiple sites. Let’s use the previous example of the game between the Celtics and the Grizzlies to illustrate how this works.

At a site that offers a free play bonus, you’d bet $100 free play on the Grizzlies at +210. At another site, where you have a cash balance, you bet $150 cash on the Celtics at -240. If the Grizzlies won, you’d win $210 cash from your free play but lose your $150 cash. That’s a profit of $60. If the Celtics won, you’d win $62.51 from your cash bet and lose only your free play credit. That’s a profit of $62.51

Feel free to play around with exactly how much to bet per wager. We just wanted to show you that making a guaranteed profit is doable. Since it’s possible to claim bonuses at a number of different sites as a new customer, and since many sites offer a reload bonus, this strategy is repeatable. The most important thing to remember is this; only bet with reputable sites, like any of the ones we recommend.