Betting On Football
Betting on football for a newbie can be kind of confusing. There are a lot of terms that get thrown around like commonplace, but they might not make sense. If this sounds like you, don’t get discouraged. There are a lot of people out there that don’t understand the betting lingo. Let’s look at a few of the more common terms and try to explain what exactly they mean.
One term that gets thrown around a lot is the point spread. What exactly is a point spread? The point spread is basically a way to level the playing field when placing a bet. It’s kind of like a handicap in golf. When a sports book is giving a point spread it’s basically like giving the underdog a certain number of points lead before the game starts. For example, let’s say that Kansas City is favored by 7 points over the Dolphins. This means that if you bet on Kansas City, they have to win by more than 7 points in order for your bet to pay off. Otherwise, in the eyes of the sports book, the Dolphins win the bet, regardless of whether they win the actual game. This means that when you’re betting on a team to win, you have to take the final score into account for it to actually pay off.
When you’re reading a line, they put the favored team first, followed by the point spread and then the underdog. For example, in our scenario they would have Kansas City -7 Miami.
If you hear someone refer to “the line” or for a particular game this is basically the same thing as the point spread. Don’t let all the different names for the same thing confuse you. When an odds maker comes out with the line, they are putting a lot of research into their numbers. They don’t just pick these out of the air. They are based on a lot of statistics and past history. Another thing that they have to take into consideration is the amount of bets that come in on both sides of a game. They want to make sure that all of the bets aren’t coming in on a particular side of the game. If they lose, they could stand to lose a lot of money.
When you hear someone refer to “the odds” this is also very similar to “the line”. However, sometimes you will see that a certain team has 2:1 odds to win the game. This means that if you are going to bet on that team, you have to bet two dollars to win one dollar. Therefore you are giving the other person that’s betting, better odds.
“Handle” is another term that is thrown out in betting sometimes. This basically just refers to the total amount of money that is being bet on a certain event. Obviously the Super Bowl has the biggest handle of the year as more people bet on it than any other sporting event.
Overall, there are several terms that get thrown around. If you don’t understand what something means, be sure to ask before you bet. It’s better to risk looking stupid upfront than to go ahead and lose your money.
The Top Sports Betting Sites
Sign Up Bonus 25% Reload Bonus 25% |
US Players Welcome! Best Betting Bonuses |
||
Sign Up Bonus 20% Referral Bonus 20% |
US Players Welcome! Best User Experience |
||
Sign Up Bonus 10% Referral Bonus 20% |
 |
||
| |
Sign Up Bonus 20% Reload Bonus 5% |
|
|
Sign Up Bonus 100% Reload Bonus 20-50% |
|
||
 |
Sign Up Bonus 20% Reload Bonus 10% |
US Players Welcome
Best Loyalty Program
|
|
Sign Up Bonus $20 bet Reload Bonus 10% |
US Players Welcome!
Great Live Odds |
||
Sign Up Bonus 30% Reload Bonus 10% |
US Players Welcome! Great Bonuses
|
||
Sign Up Bonus 50% Reload Bonus 10% |
US Players Welcome! Best New Site |
