Understanding Baseball Betting Lines

To begin our Baseball Betting Guide, we thought the logical place to start was making sure we know how to read, interpret, and understand baseball betting lines. I'm guessing a lot of folks already know how to read the odds, but we're going to start from the beginning and then dig in deeper.

In other words, we're going to give you a very thorough review of baseball betting lines from beginning to end. I always feel it's very important to go into more details than not enough.

The actual concept of betting on baseball is simple enough. You're basically just betting on a team to win the game or for the total amount of runs to go over or under the total that is set for the game.

Sounds easy enough right? Well, as with anything when it comes to sports betting, it can get a little more complicated and that's where we're here to help. So with that, let's jump right in and learn how to read baseball betting lines.

The numbers in parenthesis are simply used to identify the team and game for betting purposes. Next we'll see that Tampa Bay is +140. Whenever you see a +(plus) by a team, this means they are the underdog.

So in this example TB is a +140 underdog, which means you would risk $100 to win $140. However, you don't have to wager $100, this is just how the odds are listed in the United States. You can wager any amount that's allowed by your sportsbook, but the payout would be at +140 odds.

We're going to skip the "10o -120" for right now and move on to the "NY Yankees -150." When you see a -(minus) by a team, this means they're the favorite. In this example, NY is -150.

This means you would have to risk $150 to win $100 if you were to bet on NY. Again though, you can bet any amount that's allowed by your sportsbook, but the payout will be out -150 odds.

As you can see with baseball betting lines, you're payout will be less than what you're risking when betting on the favorite. And just the opposite when betting the underdog, you're payout will be more than what you're risking.

I'll also point out that this line is what's called a 10 cent line or dime line. This is because of the difference between -150 and +140. The lower the difference, the more advantageous it is for the bettor...it basically means the sportsbook is taking a lower payout.

I would highly suggest that you only use sportsbooks that offer dime lines or less. They aren't hard to find and we have our recommended sportsbooks that offer these odds.

As I said before, the favorite will always have a - (minus) by it while the underdog will have a + (plus) or nothing by it. Although sometimes you'll just see a "100" by the name which means the bet is for even money (bet $100 to win $100).

However, the larger the favorite becomes, the bigger the spread between the money line odds. Take a look at this example of a heavy favorite:

The reason for the increase in the spread between the odds is that sportbooks typically only make money when the underdog wins. A sportsbook wants an equal amount of money on both sides to guarantee a profit (obviously this isn't realistic).

The sportsbook knows they will get plenty of action on the favorite, but they also must get enough money bet on the underdog to cover any potential losses if the favorite wins. Let's take a look at another example using the same teams above.

Almost all of the time more money is going to be bet on Arizona because they are the heavy favorite. If a sportsbook takes $10,000 worth of bets on Arizona, they hope to receive $3333 ($10,000/the odds on Arizona(-300 or 3)) worth of bets on San Francisco.

If this were the case and Arizona won, then they would take the $3333 that was wagered on San Francisco to pay off the Arizona bettors which would result in a push for the sportsbook. However, if San Francisco won, then they would take the $10,000 from the losing Arizona bettors to pay off $8332 ($3333 x the odds for San Francisco (+250 or 2.5)) to the San Francisco bettors and keep $1668 for a profit.

Let's go back to our original example and take a look at the "10o -120." This is what's called the total or over/under for the game. The total for the TB/NYY game is set at 10.

The "o" is short for over. This means that if you were to bet on the over 10, then you would have to risk $120 (-120) to win $100. Again though, you can risk any amount allowed by your sportsbook, but the payout when betting the over will be -120 odds.

If you were to bet that the total amount of runs scored is going to be less than 10, then the odds would either be +110 or 100 (even money) depending on what types of lines your book gives for totals.

The run line is simply a 1.5 run spread that is set for the game. The money line favorite will be favored by 1.5 runs while, the underdog will be given 1.5 runs. Let's take a look at an example:

We can see in this example that the odds for TB +1.5 are -150. In other words, if TB only loses by a run (or wins), then you'll cash in your bet.

On the other side though, if you take NYY -1.5, then the odds will pay out +130. However, the NYY must win the game by at least 2 runs for you to cash. If they only win by one, then you'll lose your run line wager.

It's pretty simple to understand, so don't make it harder than it has to be. Most people like to bet big home favorites on the run line even though it's typically a pretty bad run line wager.

Later in our Baseball Betting Guide, we'll give you some great tips and strategies of how to use the run line to your advantage. For now though, you have a good idea of exactly what it is and what it means.

Let's be honest, it's pretty darn easy to read the lines so don't make it difficult on yourself. Now that you know how to read them, let's get into some detail of how their set, why they move, and how to take advantage of them.

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