Aside from simple wagers—betting a friend that one's favorite baseball team will win its division, for instance, or buying a football "square" for the Super Bowl--sports betting is commonly done through a bookmaker. Legal sports bookmakers exist throughout the world (perhaps most notably in Las Vegas). In areas where sports betting is illegal, bettors usually make their sports wagers with illicit bookmakers (known colloquially as "bookies") and on the Internet, where thousands of online bookmakers accept wagers on sporting events around the world. (In the United States, the legality of Internet wagering is ambiguous, due to the fact that online bookmakers generally operate outside of the U.S. Some online bookmakers do not accept wagers from the U.S. due to these unresolved legal questions.) The bookmaker earns a commission or "vigorish" by regarding the money at risk as less than the size of the bet placed. A common line is a $110 bet on a fair coin which pays $210 to win and $0 to lose. On this line, it costs $220 to bet both sides of the same coin simultaneously, but the combined bet always pays $210. The $10 loss constitutes the vig. There are opposing positions on whether the winner or loser can be construed as paying the vig, but this debate is not especially meaningful.
If you view $110 to win $210 on a fair coin as $100 at risk, then it will appear as if the loser pays the vig; if you view the same line as $110 at risk, then it will appear as if the winner pays the vig. It happens that standard practice among bookies is to adjust odds so the amount at risk remains constant from the winning side of the proposition, hence the common perception that the loser pays the vig. Vigs expressed as percentages suffer from the same perceptual bias. On the line as given in this example, for a fair coin, the bookie has an expectation of making $5 for each $110 bet placed, which is often divided out and expressed as 4.5% Odds on teams or adversaries are quoted in terms of the favorite (the team that is expected to win, thus requiring a riskier wager) and the underdog.
Bookmakers generally offer two types of wagers on the winner of a sporting event: a straight-up or money line bet, or a point spread wager. Moneylines and straight-up prices are used to set odds on sports such as association football, baseball and hockey (the scoring nature of which renders point spreads impractical) as well as individual vs. individual matches, like boxing. For these sports, bookmakers in Europe and Asia generally use straight-up odds, which are quoted based on a payout for a single bet unit; for example, a 2-1 favorite would be listed at a price of 1.50, whereas an underdog returning twice the amount wagered would be listed at a price of 3.00.
For example, a baseball game between the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs might have a moneyline on Milwaukee (the favorite) at -200 and Chicago (the underdog) at +180. A bettor looking to take Milwaukee must risk $200 for every $100 he wishes to win over and above the initial $200 bet. A person wagering on Chicago will win $180 for every $100 he bets.
The +180 moneyline on Chicago includes a 20 cent "dime line". Bookmakers generally use a "dime line" with moneylines to calculate the vigorish they receive on losing wagers. Without the 20 cent dimeline in the example above, the Chicago moneyline would be +200.
Generally speaking, for favorites of -120 to -150, the difference between the favorite and underdog is 10 cents; i.e., the underdog to a -120 favorite is priced at +110. The discrepancy between prices generally rises for favorites of -160 or higher.
Unlike point spread bets, a moneyline wager requires only that the team wagered upon win the match. In sports such as baseball, where certain teams can be heavy favorites against weaker opponents (sometimes as much as -350 or higher), the moneyline system requires that a hefty sum be risked on the favorite, while enticing underdog players with a higher payout. Note, however, that moneyline wagers are really just special cases of point spreads bets, where the spread is assigned a value of zero.
In sports such as basketball or American football, betting on the point spread is more popular, although money line odds are usually offered as well. A point spread wager typically requires a bettor to risk $110 to win $100, the extra $10 being the bookmaker's vigorish if the wager loses. However, bettors backing the favorite collect only if their team wins by more than a specific victory margin, which is set at the time of the wager. This is called "covering the spread". Similarly, underdog bettors can collect even when their team loses, as long as they win against the point spread by losing by fewer points than were quoted by the bookmaker. For example, suppose that a college football game between Team A and Team B had Team A as a 27 point favorite (quoted as Team A -27, or Team B +27):
If Team A defeats Team B by more than 27 points, they have covered the spread and bettors on Team A would receive $100 on a $110 bet. Team B bettors lose the $110 they wagered.
If Team B defeats Team A, bettors on Team B would receive $100 on a $110 bet. Team A bettors lose the $110 they wagered.
If Team B loses by less than 27 points, they have won against the spread. Bettors on both sides are then treated exactly as if Team B had won the game.
If Team A wins by exactly 27 points, the wager is called a "push", and neither side wins. Standard practice by U.S. bookmakers is to return the stakes of all bettors on the game in full. To prevent pushes and ensure that they receive their commission on losing wagers, bookmakers often set point spreads that include a half-point.
Another common wager available for sporting events involves predicting the combined total score between the competing teams in a game. Such wagers are known as "totals" or "over/unders." For example, the Kansas State/Kansas football game described above might have a total of 55 points. A bettor could wager that both teams will combine for over 55 points, and play the "over." Or, he could predict that the score will fall under this amount, and play the "under." As with point spreads, bookmakers frequently set the totals at a number involving a half-point (i.e., 55.5), to reduce the occurrence of pushes.
Many bookmakers offer several alternative bets, including the following:
Proposition bets
These are wagers made on a very specific outcome of a match. Examples include guessing the number of goals each team scores in a soccer match, betting whether a wide receiver in a football game will net more or less than a set amount of total yardage, or wagering that a baseball player on one team will accumulate more hits than another player on the opposing team.
Parlays
A parlay involves multiple bets (usually up to 12) and rewards successful bettors with a large payout. For example, a bettor could include four different wagers in a four-team parlay, whereby he is wagering that all four bets will win. If any of the four bets fails to cover, the bettor loses the parlay, but if all four bets win, the bettor receives a substantially higher payout (usually 10-1 in the case of a four-teamer) than if he made the four wagers separately.
Teasers
A teaser allows the bettor to combine his bets on two or more different games. The bettor can adjust the point spreads for the two games, but realizes a lower return on the bets in the event of a win.
Run line, puck line or goal line bets
These are wagers offered as alternatives to straight-up/moneyline prices in baseball, hockey or soccer, respectively. These bets feature a fixed point spread that (usually) offers a higher payout for the favorite and a lower payout for the underdog (both in comparison to the moneyline). For example, the above-described Brewers/Cubs baseball game might offer a run line of Milwaukee -1.5 (+100) and Chicago +1.5 (-120). A bettor taking Milwaukee on the run line can avoid risking $200 to win $100 on the moneyline, but will collect only if the Cardinals win by 2 runs or more. Similarly, a run line wager on the Cubs will pay if Chicago loses by no more than a run, but it requires the bettor to risk $120 to win $100. Bettors may also wager on so-called alternate run, puck, or goal lines, which offer decreased payouts on the favorite and increased payouts on the underdog.Oneca again using the Brewers/Cubs baseball game as an example, a sportsbook might offer an alternate run line of Milwaukee +1.5 (-300) and Chicago +1.5 (+270).
Future wagers
While all sports wagers are by definition on future events, bets listed as "futures" generally have a long-term horizon measured in weeks or months; for example, a bet that a certain NFL team will win the Super Bowl for the upcoming season. Such a bet must be made before the season starts in September, and winning bets will not pay off until the conclusion of the Super Bowl in January or February (although many of the losing bets will be clear well before then and can be closed out by the book). Odds for such a bet generally are expressed in a ratio of units paid to unit wagered. The team wagered upon might be 50-1 to win the Super Bowl, which means that the bet will pay 50 times the amount wagered if the team does so.
Head-to-Head
In these bets, bettor predicts competitors results against each other and not on the overall result of the event. One example are Formula One races, where you bet on two or three drivers and their placement among the others. Sometimes you can also bet a “tie”, in which one or both drivers either have the same time, drop out, or get disqualified.
Totalizators
In totalizators (sometimes called flexible-rate bets) the odds are changing in real-time according to the share of total exchange each of the possible outcomes have received taking into account the return rate of the bookmaker offering the bet. For example: If the bookmakers return percentage is 90%, 90% of the amount placed on the winning result will be given back to bettors and 10% goes to the bookmaker. Naturally the more money bet on a certain result, the smaller the odds on that outcome become.
See also Sports betting systems
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