Help me sports bet!

The Game Room
1

In a matter of days (Saturday) I am going to be flying to vegas for an extended weekend. I have been there before, so I do know how vegas works to an extent, but the last time I went I never bet on sports.

Since we are in the middle of the Big Dance I would be very remiss if I didn’t bet on basketball. My problem is though…I don’t know how. More so, I don’t really know the terminology and/or how it all works.

Scenario… Let’s say that Duke is playing Villanova. The Blue Devils are plus 15 over the Wildcats. If I go in and say “I’ll put 50 on Duke” how does that work with the spread? On the flip side, what happens if I put 50 on 'Nova?

Also, What do I win? Is that determined by the spread as well? Or is it some other odds that I have to see at the casino?

If someone could help me that would be really appreciated!!!

2

Okay, there are two common lines when dealing with matchups (i.e. one against one).

The spread is a certain number of points that the favorite is favored by. If you bet on the favorite, you win the bet if it wins by more than that amount (“covers the spread”). A bet on the underdog pays off it it wins or loses by less than the spread (“beats the spread”). That’s what sports gamblers mean by “winning for real”; it’s the side that wins against the spread. If the favorite hits the spread exactly, it’s a push. Some lines include half points…6 1/2, 10 1/2, etc.; these are exactly the same except, of course, they cannot result in a push. How the sports book (that’s the place you bet on sports) makes money is via the “vigorish”, an extra amount you have to pay on losing bets. It’s not much…around 5% according to one source…but it’s enough to guarantee a profit as long as there’s nearly equal money on both sides. That’s the whole point of the line, to make both sides equally appealing.

In gambling paralance, “plus” refers to the underdog and “minus” refers to the favorite. Therefore, in your scenario, the Wildcats would be “minus fifteen”. Also, if you bet Duke, the nomenclature is that you “took Duke and fifteen points”, or simply “took Duke and the points”. (I’m unaware of any equivalent for the favorite.)

The plus/minus line (I’m not sure what this is called exactlY) places a 3-digit number in front of both teams, with a plus in front of the underdog’s and a minus in front of the favorites. E.g. Hawaii +900 BYU -780. For the plus side, this means that for every bet you make of that many cents, you get 1,000 cents back if it wins…substitute nickels, quarters, or whichever domination you like. Bet $9, win $10, bet $45, win $50, etc. The minus side is simpler; it’s what you win for every 1,000 whatever you bet, in this case 78 cents on the dollar.

You didn’t mention this, but another common bet is the over/under line. This one’s pretty simple, you bet on whether a certain stat will be over or under a certain number. Like spreads, the book wants as even a balance as possible, half points are possible, and the vigorish is in effect. Any stat can be used, but the most common is total points by both teams.

Of course, there are lots of other details like teasers bets and middling and parlays etc., but these are the basics.

Someone here who knows more about gambling than me can help you more. Anybody?

3

Thanks DKW!!!

I was starting to get worried I wouldn’t get an answer before I flew off. This helps me at least understand whats going on, and if I know if I won or lost.

If anyone else has any tips and/or tricks it would be much appreciated.

Less than 24 hrs to take off!!!

4

I like to play prop bets. Not serious money, these are mostly for fun. They are things like who scores first, how many three pointers in a game, head to head match ups between players etc. there are even some pretty wacky stuff, for example at the super bowl you could bet on which song bruce would sing first. Not everybody’s thing, but since your just betting for fun, i would look into it.

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Note also that Vegas doesn’t actually care about the probability of one or the other winning, except insofar as it influences the betters’ decisions. And some betters don’t care about the probability either, but bet for other reasons (loyalty to one’s home team, for instance). So if you have reason to believe that one side is betting more irrationally than the other, then your best expected return is to bet on the other side. In extreme enough cases, it’s even (theoretically, at least) possible to get positive expectation on a sports bet this way, but most of the people who know the game well enough to recognize those situations are probably already working for the casinos anyway, deciding where to set the line.