Money Lines are a type of wagering that is done with most sports. There is not a point spread involved in Money Line bets but instead the variance for a favored or an underdog team is addressed through betting odds. Very simply put a Money Line bet is a bet on a team to win straight up, without a point spread or a handicap.
Money Lines that begin with a + are Underdogs and Money Lines that begin with a – are the Favorites. An example of a Money Line of a Favorite would be -150 or -1.50. Both of these mean the same thing. The decimal point is just a personal preference of the sports book or oddsmaker but there is virtually no difference between the two, as far as betting is concerned.
In this example, for every $150.00 that you bet you could win $100.00. The way that the Money Line with the decimal point would be read is that for every bet of $1.50 you could win $1.00. As you can see they mean exactly the same thing.
An Underdog’s Money Line might look like this. + 200 or + 2.00. Again there is not difference between both numbers and the use of the decimal point is no more than a personal preference. In this example, with a bet of $100.00 you could win $200.00 or a bet of $1.00 could win $2.00.
It is important to realize the even if the Money Line is – 200, you do not need to bet $200.00. You could just as easily bet $10.00 for the chance to win $5.00. It is just the representation of the odds that can be applied to any size bet and not a minimum bet size increment.
Money Lines are used in almost all sports but in some they are used exclusively. These are sports where point scoring is not a factor such as boxing and auto racing. Money Lines are also predominant in lower scoring sports such as Hockey, Soccer, and Baseball.
