Question by florida fan: How do you read the odds on the money line?
Example; Rays-$ 168 Royals ,so what:s it mean ?
Best answer:
Answer by Eddie K
The moneyline is used to balance the differences that comes from one team being stronger than another team. If two teams on unequal strength were playing against each other, it wouldn’t make sense to pay the same amount for either team.
In the American style of writing odds, the moneyline wager will have either a – sign or a + sign and then a number.
The – sign means that the team is the favorite to win the game.
The + sign means that the team is an underdog to win the game.
The number afterwards determines by how much the team is a favorite or an underdog.
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If there is a – sign, then the percentage you would win is 100 divided by that number.
Let’s take your example of the Rays/Royals game from today. I’m seeing that 5dimes closed at Rays -180.
100/180 is equal to 0.556 which means that you would win 55.6% of your wager. For example, if you bet .00 on the Rays and win, you would get your original .00 returned to you plus a profit of .11 (this is 55.6% of the original bet).
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If there is a + sign, then the percentage you would win is that number divided by 100.
The Royals closed at +170. For example, if you bet .00 on the Royals and win, you would get your original .00 returned to you plus a profit of .00 (this is 170% of the original bet).
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You will notice that the – number and the + number are not the same. (In our example, -180 vs +170.) If those numbers are the same, the bookmaker would not make any money and go out of business. The difference in the – number and the + number is what we call the “juice”.
The smaller the juice, the less money that your bookmaker is profiting, which means the more money you will win!
In baseball, it is typical to see a 5 point juice (“nickle line”) on the night before a game, and a 10 point juice (“dime line”) on the day of the game. With one exception: if one team is a heavy favorite, such as -200, then you can expect the juice a bit larger.
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