I’ve never been a gambler and am not looking to start, but I like to know how things work and what they mean.
I see that the odds on today’s game between the Braves and the Reds is “-106” with “T:8.5”
I’m guessing that the “T:8.5” is an over/under score, meaning I could bet that the total score at the end of the game* would be either higher or lower than 8.5.
But I don’t get “-106” at all. Can someone toss me a line here?
ETA: Sorry, I typoed the thread title.
Under US odds a negative number is the amount you have to bet to win $100. A positive number is the amount you win if you bet $100. And 8.5 is a standard over/under score.
How do I bet $-106?
You just bet $106 and if you win you get back $206. In civilized countries the odds would just be $1.94 and that is what you would get for every dollar you bet on a winner.
Like Tigers v Red Sox. US betting is Tigers +155 Sox - 175. Everywhere else Tigers $2.55 Sox $1.57
I understand what you’re saying well enough to understand that I will never understand gambling.
Thanks!
If it looks like this:
Boston: -105
Cleveland: +105
The negative number represents the favorite in the matchup and the positive number the underdog. So if Boston is favored to win vs. Cleveland, you would have to bet $105 to win $100 on Boston and a $100 bet on a winning Cleveland would win you $105. Usually the spreads are more pronounced, even though baseball games are as close to a 50/50 as you will find in the sporting world. Most spreads are -115 and +135 and so on. In football (especially college football) the spreads can get even larger, where let’s say you had defending National Champion Alabama playing Alabama State (a borderline BCS team) the spread would be something like 50 points, or in baseball style numbers:
Alabama: -9,000
Alabama St: +10,000
Where a $1 bet on Alabama St would win you $10,000. That’s how realistic of a chance Alabama St. has at winning that game. Likewise, you would have to already have a huge pile of cash to bet on Alabama to even win $1 on their almost guaranteed victory. Most sportsbooks wont even put those kinds of mismatches up for public bets.
Over/Unders refer to the combined score of the game. Usually denoted in half points so there is always a winner and loser and not a “push.” So if Boston scores 5 runs and Cleveland scores 3, you would win the Over/Under bet if you bet the “under” at 8.5. That way you don’t have to pick a winner, just the total score.
Strictly speaking, the bookies’ numbers don’t tell you the probabilities; they tell you that the bookies believe bettors will behave as if those are the probabilities. The difference arises because bettors aren’t entirely rational: An alumnus of Alabama State might put down money on his school, even though he fully expects to lose it, just out of pride. And if a bunch of ASU alums all bet out of pride, and the longshot comes through and they really do win, then a bookie who based his odds purely on the probabilities could go bankrupt. The goal of good bookies is to make the same profit no matter what happens, so a smart bookie will adjust the odds enough that, if the underdog wins, then there are still enough people betting on the favorite and giving him a little bit of money each that it more than balances out the few nuts he has to pay off.
Oh if only this were true. This bookie would be betting 96%. So $5349 on the favorites and $4255 on the underdogs will return me $10,000 whoever wins. And I only bet $9604. Sweet. Wonder if he’ll take more.
As Chronos points out bookies are not betting they are acting as the middleman for people who are betting on possible results. It always amuses me when people say, “the bookies have got the prices wrong” on some event. They are never wrong. All they are selling is a price and the one they offer is the lowest one at which they can make a sale.