Upon some feedback I thought I would create a reference article for some commonly used betting terminology for those not familiar with it.

The end of the article will also have a legend for the short-forms the articles will use from now on.

Sportsbook Odds

American sportsbooks will always give odds such as -150 or +200, for example.

If the odds are less than 0, it means you have to put $X to get back 100. For example, if the odds are -200, you have to place a $200 bet to get $100 back. Lets say you bet exactly 200$ on a -200 odds bet. If you win you would end with 300 (initial 200+100 from winning the bet). If you lose the bet, you would just lose the 200$.

If the odds are positive, it means if you bet $100, you get $X back (basically flipped). So let’s say that again, you bet 200$ with the odds at +300 this time. If you win the bet, you would win $600 (so you would end with 800, the 600 from winning the bet and the initial 200 stake).

Spread

This is one of the most common bets in the NFL (And other sports as well). Let’s say two teams are facing each other, the New York Jets and the Minnesota Vikings. In this game, the Vikings will likely be heavily favored to win as they are the much better team (theoretically, but in real life too!). So let’s assume a hypothetical spread of -7. There are 3 options if you bet the spread at -7.

Outcome 1: Vikings win by more than 7, you win the bet

Outcome 2: Vikings lose OR win by less than 7 points, you lose the bet

Outcome 3: Vikings win by exactly 7, the bet gets voided and you get your initial stake back but no profit

Essentially, the spread is a bet to make the outcome of the game more even given that one team is better than the other. The odds on this are usually -110, which I explained in a previous article allows the sportsbooks to profit regardless of the outcome of the game.

If a team has a positive spread, then they must lose by less than the spread OR win for the bet to win. For example, if a team is +10 then there are again 3 outcomes:

Outcome 1: team loses by less than 10 points OR team wins, you win the bet

Outcome 2: team loses by more than 10 points, you lose the bet

Outcome 3: team loses by exactly 10 points, the bet gets voided and you get your initial stake back but no profit

Moneyline

This one is more simple, a money line just refers to a team winning. If I bet on the Vikings money line from the previous article, the Vikings no longer have to win by more than 6 points, they just have to win. The odds on this are likely to be a lot lower compared to the spread since the Vikings are the superior team; so, if you made this bet instead of the spread you would make less profit, but it is a much safer pick as well.

So using that same example, a moneyline would typically have something like -400 odds.

Parlays

This one is also easy, a parlay is just a combination of teams. For the bet to win, every team involved in the bet must win. So if I parlay three teams together, ALL 3 must win in order for me to win the bet. Even if only 1 team loses, I would still lose the bet. The odds are much higher than betting on those games individually although it obviously comes with a higher risk.

Units

As mentioned in a previous article, 1 unit refers to anywhere between 1-2% of your total bankroll. When betting, you should set aside X amount of dollars you chose to invest at the beginning of your season, and each bet will be a small proportion of your bankroll. The season will start with smaller bets (ie <1.5 units) and progress to reach 3-5 units each by the middle of the season, so my personal recommendation is 1 unit should be 1.5%, but this is up to each individual.

Over/Under

This is another common bet and much easier to explain. The over/under is simply the expected points in a game both teams combined are predicted to have. If you bet the “over” on 45 in a game for example, you would win if there was over 45 points scored by both teams. If it was exactly 45, you would get your money back without any profit, and if it was under45 you would lose the bet.

Legend

U: Units

ML: moneyline

O: Over; U Under