Sports Betting Basics Articles | Gambling

By: Richard Bleuze

Sports Betting Basics

To understand any of the various betting systems for sports betting, you should first know the jargon.

Thus, below are what I recommend that you understand before placing that first sports bet.

Action - Action is simply betting activity. Phrases such as "I want in on the action" or "Show me where the action is" come from this term. Sports betting is illegal in many places.  Although, that seems to be changing.

Handicap - In sports betting, "to handicap" is to give one team a points advantage in order to level the betting field.

Handle - The handle is the total amount of money wagered on bets. 

Sportsbook - An establishment that takes bets, also known as a book.  I have found that the best sports books for U.S. players to bet on sports is either 5Dimes or BetUS.

Juice - This is the percentage of all bets taken by the bookie as profit.  Juice is also known as the vig, short for vigorish, by many sports bettors.  As a rule, the vig is figured into the odds.

The spread - The point spread is used in high-scoring sports such as football and basketball.  It is basically a handicap used to make all games competitive in the eyes of sports bettors.  The spread gives one team an advantage of a few points.  Standard notation for the point spread shows the favored team first, followed by a negative number (the actual spread).

Oddsmakers do not try to predict the outcome of the game when setting point spreads.   The oddsmaker's goal when setting the line is to keep an equal number of bets on both sides of the game.

Why do oddsmakers try to keep the action even on both sides of a bet?  Because sports books do not want to make huge payouts.  Thus, the goal is for half the sports bettors lose, and their money goes to pay off the other half, who won, with the sports book taking the vig for their profit.

That is why the line can be moving on certain games.  Lines move because of the sports betting patterns of the public.  If too many bets are coming in for the underdog, then that team might have been given too many points, so the line is moved.  However, bets made prior to the move are still counted at the old line.

The money line - Very popular in sports like baseball since scoring is not high enough to use a point spread.

The money line is really only a simple pricing system.  You want to win a certain amount of money on your bet. Chances are greater that the favored team will win the game, so it costs more to bet on the favorite to win that amount than it costs to bet on the underdog.

Pick'em - Sometimes the money line games will be listed as "pick" or "pick'em."  This means that the teams are considered equal, and the line on both teams is -1.10. Betting on either team requires $1.10 per $1 in potential winnings.

Parlays - A parlay is just a combination bet.  Instead of making five separate bets on five different games, the sports bettor places a single parlay bet, hoping he or she can predict the outcome of all five games. If any one of the games is a loser, the entire parlay is a loser.  This sort of bet is not easy to win.  Thus, the payout is much higher for parlays, because the odds of successfully picking multiple winners are much tougher to beat.  I suggest NOT to bet on a parlay when sports betting. 

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