The Ultimate Guide to Moneyline Betting
The moneyline is one of the easiest ways to bet on sports at Odds.ph. We explain moneyline odds with examples from the NFL, college football, and more!
What is a moneyline?
Moneyline betting is a simple and popular way to bet on sports. In this type of wager, bettors choose a team or individual athlete, like a tennis player, to win a game or match. The goal is to pick the winner, and that's it. It's an easy-to-understand bet that's perfect for beginners and seasoned bettors alike.
Moneyline odds are very popular with new sports bettors because you’re simply picking which side will win. Moneyline betting is one of the three most common ways that people bet on sports, along with point spread betting and Over/Under betting.
The most basic moneylines are a two-way market involving a favorite and an underdog. Favorites have a higher implied probability of winning a game due to a number of factors, including skill, matchup factors, and sometimes home-field advantage. Underdogs have a lower win probability, usually for the same reasons.here are some terms that we will be using through the guide which you should about (if you don't already):
- Favorite: The team or athlete expected to win the game or match.
- Underdog: The team or athlete expected to lose the game or match.
- Vigorish (Vig): The commission charged by a sportsbook on bets.
- Implied Probability: The likelihood of an outcome occurring based on the odds.
How to read moneyline odds
The online sportsbooks calculate moneyline odds based on each team’s implied probability of winning the game, and because not all teams are equal, moneyline odds will vary from game to game.
Most often, moneyline odds are presented in an American Odds format that displays odds with positive and negative numbers that meet at 100.
Games that are expected to be close competitions will have less variance between the two sides’ moneyline odds. The MLB moneyline below is an example of a game that was expected to be highly competitive.
Games that are expected to be one-sided will see a larger gap in the moneylines. In a college football game where top-ranked Alabama is playing an FCS opponent and is expected to win easily, it wouldn't be a surprise to see the Crimson Tide as a -10,000 favorite on the moneyline. This would mean bettors would need to wager $10,000 just to win $100!
Some betting sites show odds in decimal format as well, where -110 is expressed as a decimal 1.91. In this case, you'd multiply your wager by 1.91 to see how much profit a winning bet would return.
You can use Covers' moneyline odds calculator to convert between American, decimal, and fractional odds, as well as see the implied probability and expected payout.
Moneyline favorites
Moneyline favorite team have shorter, more expensive odds and will have a negative number, such as -110, meaning a bettor would have to wager $110 to win $100. A heavier favorite might have odds as low as -300, meaning a bettor would be wagering $300 to win $100 in profit.
How to bet the moneyline
Based on this NFL moneyline, the Buffalo Bills are the favorites to win. We know this because their moneyline odds have a minus (-) before them. The Los Angeles Rams are the underdogs because they have a plus (+) before their moneyline.
Buffalo is a -135 moneyline favorite. That means that in order to win $100 betting Buffalo’s moneyline odds, you would need to risk $135. L.A is a +115 moneyline underdog. That means that if you risk $100 on San Francisco’s moneyline odds, you could win $115.
Moneyline betting only requires a team to win outright. If Buffalo wins, anyone who bet the Bills at -135 on the moneyline would have won their wager, while all bets on the Rams are graded as a loss.
How to win a moneyline bet
Winning a money line bet is simple: just pick the winner. However, how much you win depends on the moneyline odds you bet and how much money you wager.
The higher a team’s probability is of winning the game (and the lower the risk), the less their moneyline odds return. The lower the probability of winning (and the higher the risk), the bigger the potential return is for the moneyline.
If you bet $100 on a -130 moneyline favorite (lower risk), you could win $77 (plus your original $100 wager). If you bet $100 on a +110 moneyline underdog, you could win $110 (plus your original $100 wager).
You must be cautious of the size of the moneylines you bet and how much they return. A $100 bet placed on a -250 moneyline favorite will return a profit of just $40. If you were to bet $100 on five moneyline favorites at -250 odds each ($500 wagered in total) and won three of those five bets, you would lose $80 overall – despite going three for five with your bets.
Use our moneyline calculator to find out exactly how much you can win based on different odds as well as the implied probability for those moneylines.
Moneyline parlays
Moneyline parlays allow you to tie together multiple moneyline bets and wager a single amount for a larger possible payout. The more moneyline picks you to add to your parlay, the more money you could potentially win.
However, for your moneyline parlay to win, all of the picks involved in the parlay must be correct. The more moneyline picks added, the higher the risk and, therefore, the higher the payout. But even if four of your five parlay picks are correct and only one is wrong, the entire moneyline parlay loses.
If you want to make a moneyline parlay, find out how much money you could win using our easy parlay calculator.
How do sportsbooks make money on moneyline bets?
Sportsbooks make money on moneyline bets by charging a commission or a "vig" (short for vigorish) on the bets placed. The vig is typically a percentage of the total amount wagered on a particular outcome.
For example, let's say a sportsbook offers a moneyline bet on a NFL game between the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins. If the moneyline for the Patriots is -150, that means a bettor would need to wager $150 to win $100. If the bettor wins, they receive their original wager plus $100 in winnings. If the bettor loses, they lose their entire $150 wager.
If a total of $10,000 is wagered on the moneyline for the Patriots, the sportsbook may charge a 10% vig, on the total amount wagered. This means that regardless of whether the bettors win or lose, the sportsbook would collect $1,000 in commission.
By charging a vig on the bets, sportsbooks ensure that they make a profit regardless of the outcome. They try to balance the action on both sides of a wager so that they are not overly exposed to one particular outcome, which could result in a significant loss for the sportsbook.