The Moneyline for Beginners
I’ve been punting for most of my adult life and when it comes to moneylines I’m always on the button. These are among my favorite sports bets to make – and with good reason. Suffice it to say that even in a typical pointspread wager, there is always a moneyline in betwixt. What I’d like to do right here on playnbet.com is push the limits and explore the many exciting options that are possible with moneyline bets.
In its most basic form a moneyline can best be described from this example. Let’s assume that two of my favorite teams are playing – the BRS (Boston Red Sox) and the New York Yankees (NYY). I’m going to take the following random + and – signs for the purposes of illustration since these often confuse first time punters and sports bettors. Let’s say that a big game is taking place and the ‘odds’ show the Yankees as the preferred team to win.
Boston Red Sox +133 (Note the + sign here means that this is the underdog)
New York Yankees -156 (Note that the – sign here means that this is the favorite team)
Before I go any further I must stress how this numbering system works. You notice the – sign in front of the New York Yankees as -156. If this figure becomes more negative, then the team with the most negative figure is the favourite. So -199 is preferred over -133 and so on. Right – back to basics we go. All punters placing a bet on the Yankees will have to pay $156 to recover $100 in winnings. These are called negative moneylines and they reflect how much you need to lay out in order to win $100 bet.
Now let’s turn our attention to the positive money payments. A clear example can be seen from the above +133 on the Boston Red Sox. What this means is that in order to win $133 from a moneyline bet placed on the Boston Red Sox, you’d need to wager $100. It’s that simple 
In essence every bet placed on a positive number team will yield more than $1 payoff for every $1 wagered. Conversely, a bet on a negative number team will yield a fraction of a dollar for every dollar wagered – hence it’s a bet on the favorite team. I’ve given sound advice to all punters regarding moneyline bets. It’s clear that for sports like football and basketball the going ‘moneyline’ is around 110. A moneyline lets you bet on who you think will win with no pointspread.
It gets more complicated so for now let’s wrap it up and enjoy the moneylines
Finding the breakeven points in moneyline betting is all important. This tells you as the punter how many times (%) a team must win in order to break even. These figures can be found in charts and by way of example; a +100 moneyline can be translated into making a $1 bet to recover $1. But reading into what this means is critical. If you win a bet and then you lose a bet you have broken even. That means that there is a 50% chance you’ll break even here. If the odds are -200 then that means you have to wager $200 to win $100 or a ratio of 2/3. And so it goes. Join me next time for more exciting new on moneyline bets.
