Monday, July 26, 2021

Understanding The Odds Of a Baseball Game


Betting can get you an impressive return on investment - though there’s one caveat. Sure, you can bet on any sport at random and have a chance of winning some sweet cash, but you’re more likely to get a profit if you know the odds for that particular game.

Today, we’re doing a deep dive into baseball odds. What do you need to know, and how can you use betting odds to help you to make the best possible betting decisions? That’s what we’re here to explain today. Keep on reading for more information.

Why Is It Important to Understand the Odds of a Baseball Game?

It’s pretty simple. When you know how something works, you are more likely to be successful with it. The same goes for betting. It’s entirely possible to make a bet on a random baseball game, and have a slim chance of winning. When your hard earned cash is on the line though, do you really want to take a chance on just guessing? No! That’s where betting odds come in.

Betting odds are determined based on a few different variables, and they essentially give you some indiciation about how risky your bet is. It helps you to make a decision that will give you the best return on investment. It helps you to figure out whether you want to take a gamble or play it safe. Ultimately though, until we learn how to see into the future with accuracy, there’s no concrete way of determining whether a team can definitely win. We can just make some sort of prediction based on the information at hand.

Betting Odds Explained

So, how do baseball betting odds work? It’s a little complicated, but let’s break it down.

Moneyline

The most common way that betting is done for the MLB is with money line odds. In other parts of the world, these are known as American odds.

Theoretically, it’s sort of similar to percentages. Let’s say that someone tells you that there’s a 75% chance that it may rain tomorrow. That could also be written as -300 that it may rain. It’s the same thing with baseball, to some degree.

We have a baseball game coming up. The New York Yankees - 160 vs the Houston Astros +140. Wait, what do those numbers mean? 

Well, as you can see, the Astros are +140. That little plus symbol essentially tells you that they aren’t favored to win. They’re basically the underdogs. The Yankees, on the other hand, are favored to win. If you bet on Houston, then you’re going to get $140 in profit for each $100 that you bet. Pretty neat, huh? Of course, you don’t have to bet 100 - this is just a little easier to understand since the $100 is used as an easy reference point.

If you bet on the Yankees, on the other hand, then you have to bet $160 for each $100 that you are looking to win. So if you want to make a slightly smaller bet, then you’d need to bet $16 for every $10 profit that you want to make. Because they are more likely to win, you’re not going to get as much money. Boo!

Other Kinds of Bets

You can vote on which team you want to win, but you can also bet on other parts of the game. They will usually all be expressed in moneyline odds.

For instance, you can bet on totals. These are the run amounts that are expected for the game. You can also bet on run lines. For instance, with this kind of bet an underdog team may have +1.5 odds, meaning that if they lose the game by just one run you could still potentially have a winning bet. If the odds for a team are -1.5 then the team in question would need to win by two runs if you wanted to have a successful bet. 

You can also bet on alternate run lines which are just a level up from this. Finally you have prop bets, and these are bets that you can make on something specific happening on a game. You may wish to bet on how many strikeouts a certain player may have, for instance. It’s worth looking into all of these bets, but if you’re just getting started it can help to stick to the basic moneyline bets for which team you think will win.

Baseball betting odds are complicated, but they don’t need to be rocket science! Now that you know all about baseball betting odds, you can make an informed decision about where you want your money to go!

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