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Getting Started with Baseball Betting for Beginners

Sebastian Langer 0

Even though baseball has long been associated with betting as it’s considered to be one of the easiest sports with which to find betting success, it is in fact one of the least popular sports to bet on in many countries.

If we were to hazard a guess as to why this is, it may be because the wagers look foreign and many punters don’t know how to interpret them.

Run Line Baseball Betting

When deciding upon where to set the run line, the online sportsbooks will look at the teams competing and decide on which of the two is favoured to win and then offer a wager in which the underdog will be given an advantage in terms of runs.

This advantage is usually set at 1.5, but it could be more.

Let’s say, for example, that the Blue Jays are set to play the Yankees – a historic favourite. The wager would likely be listed as follows:

Blue Jays: +1.5 -125

Yankees: -1.5 +105

As such, you would have to wager $125 on the Blue Jays in order to win $100 and your wager would only be successful if either the Blue Jays win the game, or lose by a solitary run as the +1.5 covers this. If you backed the Yankees, you would need to wager $100 to win $105 and your wager would only be successful if the Yankees won the game by 2 runs or more.

Money Line Baseball Betting

A money line is a wager placed on the team you think will win a given game. The more heavily a team is favoured, the wider the difference in odds offered by the online sportsbook (for example Australian betting apps) will be.

Considering the facts from our previous example, in which the Yankees are favoured, the money line wager may look as follows:

Blue Jays: +155

Yankees: -170

If you were to wager $100 on the Blue Jays and they won the game, you would have a return of $155, but would have to wager $170 on the Yankees for a $100 return.

Overs/Unders Baseball Betting

Also known as totals, with overs/unders wagers you are betting on the total amount of runs made by both teams combined.

Online sportsbooks will look at historic stats to come up with a number they believe will accurately reflect a predicted number of runs.

As with our current example, an overs/under wager may be listed as follows:

Over 8.5 -110

Under 8.5 -110

In this example, the online sportsbook believes that there is an equal chance of going over or under the 8.5 total combined runs, so the odds are the same.

However, it must be stated, that in many cases these odds vary due to the low run-scoring nature of baseball.

Parlay Baseball Betting

Parlays are popular wagers to make in baseball as you will allowed to bet on up to 12 teams at a time. Parlays are simple – pick your teams and if all of them win their games, so do you!

However it’s important to note that while parlays can be highly lucrative if they’re successful, these types of bets can add up quickly and if just one team loses their game, you’ll lose your entire parlay.

You could make more on parlay bets, but single bets are the safer option.

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