Spread Betting on Sporting Events

From: The Rockstar

Spreads in sports wagering
Spread betting was invented by Charles K. McNeil, a mathematics teacher from Connecticut who became a bookmaker in Chicago in the 1940s.[4] The idea became popular in the United Kingdom in the 1980s. In North America, the gambler usually wagers that the difference between the scores of two teams will be less than or greater than the value specified by the bookmaker.

Here's an example: The bookmaker advertises a spread of 4 points in a certain game..

• If the gambler bets on the "underdog", he is said to take the points and will win if the underdog's score plus the spread is greater than the favorite's score. If the eventual score is Underdog 8, Favorite 10: (8 + 4) > 10, so the gambler wins; if the eventual score is Underdog 8, Favorite 13: (8 + 4) is less than 13, so the bet is lost.
  
  
• If the gambler bets on the "favorite", he gives the points and will win if the favorite's score minus the spread is greater than the underdog's score. If the eventual score is Underdog 4, Favorite 10: (10 - 4) > 4, so the gambler wins; if the eventual score is Underdog 8, Favorite 10: (10 - 4) is less than 8, so the gambler loses.

Spreads are frequently, though not always, specified in half-point fractions to eliminate the possibility of a tie, known as a push. In the event of a push, the game is considered no action, and no money is won or lost. However, this is not a desirable outcome for the sports book, as they are forced to refund every bet, and although both the book and its bettors will be even, if the cost of overhead is taken into account, the book has actually lost money by taking bets on the event. Sports books are generally permitted to state "ties win" or "ties lose" to avoid the necessity of refunding every bet.

A teaser is a bet that alters the spread in the gambler's favor by a predetermined margin, often six points— for example, if the line is 3.5 points and the bettor wants to place a teaser bet on the underdog, he takes 9.5 points instead; a teaser bet on the favorite would mean that the gambler takes 2.5 points instead of having to give the 3.5. In return for the additional points, the payout if the gambler wins is less than even money. At some establishments, the "reverse teaser" also exists, which alters the spread against the gambler, who gets paid at more than evens if the bet wins.

Spread bets on the total (over/under)
In addition to the spread bet, a very common "side bet" on an event will be the total (commonly called the over/under or O/U) bet. This is a bet on the total number of points scored by both teams.

Suppose the Bears are playing the Giants and the total is set at 44.5 points. If the final score is Bears 24, Giants 17, the total is 41 and bettors who took the under will win. If the final score is Bears 31, Giants 24, the total is 55 and bettors who took the over will win.

Check out the scoreboard. If this was Bears/Giants game situation and you were holding the over ticket, what needs to happen for you to win? What if you had bet on the under? In either case, the winning over/under wager has not been determined, so the final 1:33 will be very exciting!

The total is popular because it allows gamblers to bet on their overall perception of the game (e.g., a high-scoring offensive show or a defensive battle) without needing to pick the actual winner.

In the UK, these bets are sometimes referred as spread bets, but rather than a simple win/loss, the bet pays more or less depending on how far from the spread the final result is. Example:

• In a soccer match the bookmaker believes that 12 or 13 corners will occur, thus the spread will be set at 12-13. A gambler believes that there will be more than 13 corners, and 'buys' at £25 a point at 13. If the number of corners is 16, the gambler wins (16 - 13) = 3 x £25. If the number of corners is 10, the gambler loses (13 - 10) = 3 x £25.
  
• A 'sell' transaction is similar except that it is made against the bottom value of the spread.
  
• Often "live pricing" will change the spread during the course of an event, allowing a profit to be increased or a loss minimized.

In North American sports betting many of these wagers would be classified as over-under (or, more commonly today, total) bets rather than spread bets. However, these are for one side or another of a total only, and do not increase the amount won or lost as the actual moves away from the bookmaker's prediction. Instead, over-under or total bets are handled much like point-spread bets on a team, with the usual 10/11 (4.55%) commission applied.

Many Nevada sports books will allow these bets to be used in parlays, just like team point-spread bets, making it possible to bet, for instance, "the Vikings and the over," and be paid if both the Vikings "cover" the point spread and the total score is higher than the book's prediction. (Such parlays usually pay off at odds of 13:5 with no "vig," just as a standard two-team parlay would.)

In 2004 Cantor Fitzgerald launched the spread betting exchange Cantor Spreadfair, which matches up spread bettors opposing views and allows them to bet with each other. This removal of the faceless bookmaker allows clients to bet at the spread size and monetary level that they request, and in turn this creates a tighter spread margin, which in turn allows users to lose less and win more than with the non-exchange spread-betting firms.

The mathematical analysis of spreads and spread betting is a large and growing subject. For example, sports that have simple 1-point scoring systems (e.g., baseball, hockey, and soccer) may be analysed using Poisson and Skellam statistics.

Spread Betting >Know the Terminology

From: Mr. Sports Today

Glossary of Spread/Sports Betting Lingo

1. Action - means having a wager or a bet.


2. Air Move - when a sportsbook changes the line on a game not in reaction to bets they receive but rather in response to another book changing their line


3. Angles - when you use past game results to predict future results


4. Against The Spread - means making a wager that will be decided by adding points to one team or the other after the game is played


5. Arbitrage - means making a combination of bets so that if one bet loses, another wins


6. Bar - to refuse someone from placing a bet in a given sportsbook


7. Beard - a person who makes bets for another person


8. Bet - to risk money on the outcome of an event


9. Bet Limit - maximum bet size accepted by any given sportsbook


10. Betting Exchange - a form of betting available on the Internet in which two parties are brought together to bet against each other


11. Bet To Win - a wager on an individual to win an event


12. Chalk - the favorite


13. Churn - the betting and re-betting of money


14. Circled - a game on which the book or bookie has placed a lowered maximum bet limit


15. Cover - to win against the spread


16. Credit Betting - betting without needing to have up front money on account to place a wager


17. Data Mining - means sorting through a large volume of data, usually statistics, searching for profitable situations to bet on the future


18. Dime Line - a line that charges only half of the juice of standard football bets


19. Dog / Fav Money Line Differential - the difference in money lines between the favorite's lay price and underdog's take back


20. Early Line - the first line posted for a game


21. Edge - the belief that you have an advantage when placing a bet


22. Even Money - betting a dollar to win a dollar without laying any juice


23. Exotic - a bet other than the more conventional side or total bets


24. Favorite - the team expected to win


25. Field - a group of the entrants whose odds are not individually listed to win an event, usually longshots


26. Flea - a small bettor who wants something for nothing


27. Front Running - following betting lines on a computer, and betting in the same direction of line moves


28. Futures - bets placed far in advance of the sports event


29. Gamble - to risk money on the outcome of an event


30. Handicap - to handicap is to analyze a contest and then to predict the outcome


31. Handle - total amount of money taken by sportsbooks from placed bets


32. Hedge - to bet the opposite of an original bet to offset the possible loss on the original action


33. Hook - the half point in a point spread


34. If Bet - allows you to link together two or more individual bets, similar to parlay


35. Juice -the amount charged by the bookmaker for taking bets


36. Line - used to even the odds of a particular sporting event


37. Longshot - a large underdog who is not expected to win


38. Matchup Betting - a bet based upon one individual competing head-to-head against another individual or a group of individuals


39. Middle - to have separate bets on competing teams and for there to be the possibility of winning both bets


40. Money Line - odds strictly on the straight-up game outcome with no consideration for a point spread


41. Odds - the likelihood of an outcome occurring, stated in number form


42. Off The Board - if a game is off the board, the sportsbook is no longer taking bets on it


43. Offshore Sportsbook - a sportsbook accessed online over the Internet that offers several betting advantages due to convenience and competitive lines


44. Opening Line - the first line posted for a particular sporting event


45. Over - to bet that the final combined score of both teams in a game will exceed the Over / Under total posted for betting purposes


46. Over / Under Bet - a bet on the combined scores or total points scored by both teams in a game


47. Parlay - a single bet that links together two or more individual wagers and is dependent on all of those wagers winning together


48. Parlay Card- a set of sides, totals and prop bets printed on a card


49. Pick - any bet recommended by a handicapper


50. Point Spread - used to even the odds of a particular sporting event


51. Post-up Betting - betting from an already funded account


52. Power Ratings - numbers that handicappers assign to teams to estimate how likely one team is to beat the other and/or by how many points


53. Proposition Bets - additional, more exotic betting options on major sporting events


54. Public Money - betting action coming from unsophisticated bettors or squares who get information from newspapers and TV preview shows


55. Round Robin - a series of parlays


56. Side - to bet on a single team to win a game against the spread


57. Square - an unsophisticated gambler who uses the same information in the same way as everybody else does


58. Straight-up -winning straight-up means simply winning on the scoreboard without any regard to the point spread


59. System - using past game results to predict future results


60. Teaser - similar to parlay, a teaser bet is a single bet that links together two or more individual wagers but is different in that it also allows you to adjust the point spread of each individual wager


61. Total - a number set by a sportsbook for total points to be scored by both teams during a game


62. Trend - using past game results to predict future results


63. Under - to bet that final combined score of both teams in a game will fall short of the Over / Under total posted for betting purposes


64. Vig - the bookmaker's commission


65. Wiseguy - a successful bettor or handicapper whose insight comes from knowledgeable connections rather than his own handicapping