What Are Vegas Odds and How Do They Work?

At first, reading Vegas odds may seem like a daunting task. For someone new to wagering, the amount of available betting options can literally be overwhelming. Terms like money line, spread and over under are simply not used when making a casual bet among friends. After all, that’s the type of wagering experience most people have. They pick one side or the other but beyond that, there aren’t that many choices.

The ability to read and understand Vegas odds will open a world of options that will make the entire experience of watching a game change forever. Note we said it will change the way you watch the game not just how you bet on it. Those two things go hand in hand. We aren’t saying that you must watch games in order to wager on them, what we are saying is wagering makes you see and understand parts of the sport you really didn’t need to as a casual fan. The easiest way to understanding what’s going on while reading Vegas odds, is to put yourself in the mindset of someone looking to place a wager.

Terminology and Types of Wagers

The first thing that needs to be understood is what type of wagers can be made before looking at all of the numbers on the board. In order to do that, certain wagering terms need to be made clear. We start with the term side.

When picking a “side”, this refers to the team or person you would be wagering on. If you are wagering on non-team sports, a “side” then refers to an individual person.

Typically, when gamblers are looking to place a wager, they are either looking to get action on the side or the total. The word “action” simply means to make a wager. Betting on the total is a very simple concept to grasp. Essentially, Vegas offers customers the opportunity to bet on the combined score between the sides. In order to do that, Vegas will assign the game a number that they believe represents the combined score of the 2 teams giving you the total. Your choices when betting the total are to pick that the game will go over that number or under it. There really isn’t much more to it than that. Wagering on the total is something that takes a little getting used to but is a great way for someone to get action if they are unsure about what side they like.

Betting on the Spread or Money Line

This is the part that usually gives newcomers to the world of sports betting the most trouble to understand. Not because it’s a difficult concept, but because it’s something that has to be explained in great detail which tends to make things seem difficult. Luckily, this ‘how to read Vegas odds’ guide is exactly that – detailed, while at the same time easy to understand.

You’ll realize quickly how detailed the concepts are explained and you also get a sense that the order of how these things are explained makes all the difference. The spread and the money line are directly related to betting on a side. When you finally choose what side of the wager you like, you need to decide if you want to bet it on the side or the money line.

In some ways, the choice is made for you due to the fact that some sports are designed for the money line, while others are spread sports. The money line sports are baseball, hockey and soccer. The spread sports are football and basketball. Of course, there are more sports that can be wagered on but for the sake of simplicity, we will stick to the ones that receive the most action worldwide.

Low Scoring vs. High Scoring

The first thing that should be observed is that the money line sports are the ones that are low scoring while the spread sports are the ones that are usually high scoring. Another way to look at it is money line sports are the ones that go up by increments of 1 while the spread sports have different point systems. Since money line sports are very low scoring, a blowout is usually a win by 3 points or more. In the spread sports, a 3-point lead or deficit is a one possession game. Also, with spread sports the scores can be very high whereas the total combined score of money line sports rarely reaches double digits.

What Exactly Is a Money Line?

In order to get a clearer picture of what exactly a money line is, you must understand it’s purpose. The money line exists in order to give parity between two sides of a wager. When wagering on a side using the money line, all you need to win your bet is for that side to win. The parity comes from the price you pay to make your wager. If you’re picking between two sides that are even according to Vegas, then the money line will likely be -110 for both teams.

Without turning this into a math class, please always use a round number in order to figure out how much you will need to win or risk on the money line. We will be using the number $100 in order to see different examples of how to calculate risk versus win amount.

In the case of a wager on a side that has a money line of -110, you would need to risk $110 to win $100 on that particular wager. This is a foreign concept to most beginners. The usual question that comes next is “why am I risking more than I’m winning”?

The juice or the vig is the price of making a wager. In other words, it costs you 10 cents for every dollar you wager. In the same way it costs you $110 to win $100, it would cost you $55 to win $50 or $220 to win $200. The money line simply put is the price of your wager. The bigger the favorite, the more it will cost you to make that wager.

Regardless of your wagering experience, this is a concept that everyone who watches sports understands. That takes us back to why wagers among friends are usually not fair. A friendly wager rarely if ever involves adjusted odds for the fact that one team might be much better than the other.

Rewarding the Underdog

According to sports betting experts at OffshoreSportsbooks.com, the other thing the money line does is it rewards individuals brave enough to bet on the underdog to win outright. An example of a money line involving a heavy favorite and an obvious underdog was Super Bowl 42. We will stick to this game as our example for the duration of this article. In that game the Giants who barely made the playoffs faced the undefeated New England Patriots.

As heavy underdogs coming into that game, the money line if you bet on the New York Giants was +475. To be clear, when betting on the favorite, the money line will start with a negative sign. When betting on the underdog, the money line will have a plus sign in front of it. Think of it as another reminder of the obvious. If you are betting on the favorite, you will be risking more than you will be winning, thus the minus sign. If we use the concept mentioned earlier of using $100 bets as our example, if you bet $100 on the Giants in Super Bowl 42, you would have won $475. The point is when betting on the underdog on the money line, you will always win more than you risk.

What makes the money line less attractive for some are the poor odds you get while betting on the favorite. In the example involving the New York Giants, the money line for them gives a great payout. The reality is that 70% of the money wagered on that game was for the New England Patriots. The money line for the Patriots was -825, meaning you would have to risk $825 to win $100. If that seems crazy, it’s time to learn about betting on the spread.

Understanding Betting on the Spread

The best way to think of the spread is it’s a way to make a wager on either the favorite or underdog while paying the same price for either side (usually -110). The point spread makes it much more interesting, especially if you’re picking the underdog as they can lose the game but you can still win your wager, depending on the spread.

Before looking at an example of how to bet on the spread, it is important to understand that the spread is points taken from the favorite and given to the underdog. The favorite is not only expected to win; they must win by more than the amount of the spread. By the same token the underdog gets the benefit of points in their favor meaning if they lose game, as long as its not by more than the point spread, you will still win your wager.

For the sake of simplicity, we will stick with the example from Super Bowl 42 involving the Giants and Patriots. In that game the New England Patriots were -12 point favorites. In other words, if you bet the Patriots on the spread, you would need them to win by 13 points or more (remember favorite must win by more than the spread). Conversely if you bet on the Giants, not only do you win if they win, but you also win if they lose by 11 or less, as that is less than the spread.

The final piece to understanding the spread is the concept of the push. A push bet is a wager that lands exactly on the spread. If you bet on either the Patriots -13 and they win by exactly that amount, it’s a push bet and everybody gets their money back. That’s why you usually see a half point on a spread. If the spread was -13.5, then there is no possibility of a push as there are no half points in any of the major sports.

Trying to understand all of these concepts the first time you come across them is unlikely. It takes patience and a little bit of trial and error. Learning how to bet on sports is very similar in many ways to learning how to play one. First you need practice, then real world experience and then usually more practice. In any case, remember to have fun while doing it.