Soccer Lines Explained

Football betting explained, how football odds work

  1. Positions In Soccer Explained
  2. Soccer Betting Lines Explained
  3. Soccer Explained For Kids
Soccer explained for kidsLines

Football bettors world-wide have a good understanding of how the football odds work, but for those of you who are absolutely new to this area of gambling, we have done our best to explain football betting to you in the simplest way possible. Before we begin, note that this is a brief and a basic guide to football betting and the works of the odds. If you are past the beginner stage, you should skip this guide as it will not teach you anything new - visit our betting tips section for intermediate and expert advice. But if your are a newbie in the sports betting, read on to learn about the football odds and how betting on football works.

Positions In Soccer Explained

Ok, if you are a beginner bettor, you have two big questions ahead of yourself - how the whole football betting thing works and how the odds, spread, totals etc. work. We will answer theses questions below in the simplest way possible; don't worry, examples will be included.

Odds are you’ll find one of the three different ways of listing odds explained above easier to understand than the others. Those raised around fractional odds, for example, can easily see that the numerator represents how much profit they stand to make based on a bet of the denominator’s value.

Let's begin with football betting explained. Football betting is basically risking money on one or more football games with the purpose of guessing the correct outcome of the football game or games. You place a wager with a sportsbook on a football game and if your prediction is correct - you win money relative to the odds on the correct outcome, and if you are wrong - you lose your wager. In this way football betting is not much different than betting on any other sport. The difference comes when we look at the odds:

How football odds work - this is where the complicated part of football betting comes. When wagering on a football game, you will have three basic choices - line, point spread and total, all three commonly referred to as 'odds'. Let's look at all three types of football odds with an example. Here are the odds on the Indianapolis Colts vs. Green Bay Packers football game at the online sportsbook Bookmaker:

column 1234
INDIANAPOLIS-1-110 o47-110-120
GREEN BAY+1-110u47-110 EV

If this is your first time looking at football odds, the numbers probably mean nothing to you, so let's break them down. In the first column are the football teams competing, in this case the Colts and the Packers. The second column shows the point spread on the game, the third column is the total and in the forth column are the betting lines. We now know what the odds arrangement means, but still have no idea what the terminology stands for. So let's go ahead and explain each of the football betting odds we just mentioned.

  • Soccer Futures Explained Because of the fact that there are many international leagues in the sport of soccer, we can see plenty of futures odds to win different tournaments. The biggest futures line that is formed is the World Cup. It's the biggest tournament in the world, and warrants plenty of.
  • Goal Lines are similar to Puck Lines in hockey and Point Spreads in football or basketball. A Goal Line is typically 0.5 goals but for games with big favorites, the Goal Line may be 1,1.5, 2, 2.5, 3 and so on. A World Cup match between Argentina and Iran looks like this: Argentina -2.5 goals (+110).
  • Spread betting is any of various types of wagering on the outcome of an event where the pay-off is based on the accuracy of the wager, rather than a simple 'win or lose' outcome, such as fixed-odds (or money-line) betting or parimutuel betting. A spread is a range of outcomes and the bet is whether the outcome will be above or below the spread. Spread betting has been a major growth market in.

The point spread (column 2) - the football point spread is the most popular form of odds on football. In its simplicity, the point spread is a points handicap for the team with the plus '+' sign. In the above example, the plus sign is for the Green Bay Packers and the value is '1', which means that the odds makers are giving the Packers one point advantage, i.e. the game starts from the result 'Indianapolis 0 - Green Bay 1' and then you ad the points scored in the game. The number '-110' behind the spread is the payout on that bet. If you bet the spread on the Colts and they win the game by more than one point (i.e. final score-1), your wager will pay out on -110. Here is the best place to explain what that -110 means. In betting, using American odds, the payout takes the form '-' or '+' and then a number, in this case -110. If the sign in front of the number is minus, the number shows you how much you have to risk in order to win $100. In the above case, if you bet on the Colts covering the spread (i.e. the Colts win by more than 1 point) you have to bet $110 to win $100. If the sign in front of the number was '+', the number shows you how much you will win if you bet $100. For example, if the payout on the odds was +190, this means that for every $100 you bet, you will win $190.

The total (column 3) - the total in football betting is the combined score of the game, i.e. the Colts points combined with the Packers points = total points. The odds makers employed by the sportsbooks evaluate past performance (betting trends) and current team conditions and choose a number that best reflects the possible total outcome of the football game. In the example above, the odds makers have decided that the most likely total of the scores by the Packers and Colts will be 47 points and you have to decide whether the final score total will be OVER 47 points or UNDER 47 points (Over is marked with 'o' and Under is marked with 'u'). Either way you chose, if you are correct you will win $100 for every $110 wagered (-110). If the final score total of the football game is exactly 47 points the bet is called 'no action', meaning you neither win nor lose, similar to 'push' in blackjack or a draw.

The betting line (column 4) - the betting line is he easiest to play, you simply have to guess which football team will win the game. In the above example, the betting line on the Colts is -120 - means you will have to bet $120 to win $100 if Indianapolis wins the game outright and the betting line on the Packers is 'EV', which stands for 'EVEN', or you will get even money if the Packers win the game ($100 for every $100 bet). Using the betting lines in football is the easiest way to call a team 'favorite' or 'underdog' - if the odds on a football team have the minus '-' sign in front, this means that the team is favorite to win the game (you have to bet more to win less than what you bet), if the football team has a plus '+' sign in front of its odds, the team is underdog (you will get even money or win more than your bet).

And here you have it - the football betting explained and how the football odds work. Note, this is just the basic explanation of football betting, read the rest of our free guides to learn the tips and tricks of betting on football.

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Soccer

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Money Line Betting is the most common and easiest way of betting on soccer games. When betting on money lines, you are making a straight-forward bet on who will win the match. As we have mentioned in Soccer Over/Under Bets, a lot of online sportsbooks will use decimal odds instead of American Odds, as soccer is so primarily popular in Europe, where these Decimal odds are mainly used by books and bettors.

Calculation of Decimal Odds Money Lines

Let us say Brazil is playing England in the World Cup – a very prestigious world tournament that is played every four years-. It is a group stage, and there is still a possibility of a draw (there are no penalties and no extra time like in the quarter-finals). Brazil is a favorite due to its higher ranking, the way it played this tournament and its famous players. England is the underdog.

* Please see illustration below to help understand money line bets, text explanation follows.

The odds are as follows:

Brazil 1.5
Draw 2
England 3

  • If you bet $100 on Brazil, you would win $50. To calculate that you need to subtract 1 from 1.5 and multiply by $100:
    (1.5 – 1) * $100 = $50 (getting $150 total back including your bet)
  • If you were to pick England, betting $100, you could potentially win $200. It is calculated as such:
    (3 – 1) * $100 = $200 ($300 total back)
  • You can also bet on the draw since this is a group stage. Thus, if you were to bet $100 on a draw, you could win $100:
    (2 – 1) * $100 = $100 ($200 total back)

You might ask, “Why do I win less money when I bet on Brazil than England?” This is because Brazil is the favorite as mentioned above, and hence, they are more likely to win the match according to their stats and previous results/appearances. It simply provides an incentive to bet for the underdog, which all in all, is not a bad team either.

Calculation of American Odds Money Lines

Many times you can choose to display decimal odds as American Odds, as all online sportsbooks will not give you this choice when viewing the available bets.

Soccer Lines Explained

Soccer Betting Lines Explained

Using the same example as above, the American Odds would be displayed as:

Brazil (-200)
Draw (100)
England (+200)

  • This way, you need to bet $200 to win $100. If you bet on a draw, you should bet $100 and win $100 ($200 total). If you bet on the underdog, England, then you would win $200 for a bet of $100 ($300 total)
  • That taken care of, we will now continue with decimal odds from here on

Soccer Moneyline Betting Tips

Moneyline betting is the most widely available form of betting. If you are betting on a match from a big event or a big league, you will likely find a great number of different money lines from online betting sites. You should utilize their availability and search for those money lines that you think will provide the best odds and potential wins. If you are confident that an underdog will win, look for the best underdog payoff. If you want to be safe and bet on the favorite but do not want to risk too much, you can look for the least expensive odds for the favorite.

Star Players

Soccer Explained For Kids

Another important online soccer money line betting tip is to pay close attention to the star players or mvp (most important player). Star players, particularly goalies and forwards, can break or make the game. This especially applies to average teams with a few star players during international competitions. If a star player is in his best form and has been doing well lately, then you should consider that the team might do well. If the star players are injured and their team is left with average players playing against a strong opponent, then it might make sense to bet on the opponent.