Sports Betting: Moneyline bet explained

Moneyline bets

📈Moneyline Futures
💰Calculate Winnings on Moneyline Odds
🎯Calculate With Target Winnings
💡Moneyline Betting Strategies
📊Moneyline vs Point Spread
✨Moneyline Bets inParlays
✅Conclusion

First things first. No type of sports bet is more common or easier to understand than the moneyline bet. Welcome to this explainer.

In its simplest terms, a moneyline bet is simply a bet on which team or player will win the game, without considering any other betting factors (like the final score). Moneyline bets are established by sportsbooks, which analyze all the odds relating to a given match that will occur at any time in the future, using the available information. The closer to the match, the more refined the odds.

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Moneyline Futures

For a game/match occurring tomorrow, the sportsbooks generally have all the vital information concerning the teams and thus you can have a better sense of the odds. We’ll go with an example from Major League Baseball: at the time of this writing, The Detroit Tigers (moneyline odds of -156 at FanDuel) will soon face off against the Oakland Athletics (moneyline odds of +132 at FanDuel).

Assuming you already understand the basics of American betting odds, this means the Tigers are the favorite (indicated by the minus).

You will have to wager $156 on the Tigers to win an additional $100.
If you bet on the A’s and they win, you will win an additional $132 and get your original bet back.

For a soccer moneyline bet for a match taking place tomorrow, sportsbooks provide comprehensive details about the teams, allowing for a clearer understanding of the betting odds. Here's an example from the English Premier League: as of today, Manchester United (moneyline odds of -140 at BetMGM) is set to play against Tottenham Hotspur (moneyline odds of +115 at BetMGM).

In the context of American betting odds, this setup indicates that Manchester United is the favorite, as shown by the negative sign.

If you bet $140 on Manchester United, you would earn an additional $100 if they win. Conversely, a bet on Tottenham Hotspur would yield a profit of $115 plus your original stake back, should Tottenham win the match.

Often, the sportsbook will also present an option to bet on the moneyline in the futures section for that league’s championship at the end of the following season, based largely on the team’s performance from the previous season. Payouts tend to reflect this high degree of uncertainty. For example, the Los Angeles Dodgers are currently offered at +330 (most likely = lower payout) to win the 2024 World Series, and the Colorado Rockies are offered at +50,000 (least likely = greatest payout).

Moneyline bets for Racing?

Continuing with this same logic, some individual competitions obviously have more than two entrants, like a NASCAR race or the Kentucky Derby. Often in this situation, you might notice that many (if not all) of the competitors are offered at plus money odds. This is because it’s much more challenging to pick a winner from a larger field of entrants, making each competitor more of an “underdog” in the odds sense.

In general, moneyline bets are the bread and butter of the sports betting world. Contrary to a points spread bet, a moneyline wager can be made easily and you don’t have to know much about the game at stake. You can just bet for your preferred team and stand to still win if you bet smartly according to the presented odds. Moneyline bets are therefore among the most popular because of their accessibility.

Calculate Winnings on Moneyline Odds

When placing a moneyline bet, the calculation of winnings can be determined based on two factors, odds and the amount wagered. Sportsbooks will do this automatically, but you might want to do it yourself beforehand to calculate how much to wager, or if you have a specific target win amount.

If you only have $22 to put down, you can do that—you can always bet whatever you want! It’s often helpful to then think in terms of individual dollars, rather than the $100 mechanism by which odds are always presented. (-156) for the Tigers becomes $1.56 risked to win $1, and (+132) means that $1 risked on the A’s becomes winnings of $1.32.

Sticking with the example of the Tigers vs the A’s:

If you wager $22 on the Tigers winning, here’s what the computation would look like for your potential winnings: ($22 / 1.56) = $14.10
If you wager the same $22 on the A’s winning, you stand to gain ($22 x 1.32) = $29.04

Simple enough, right? Any number you plug in will work in the same fashion, whether you bet literally a single dollar, or ten thousand.

Calculate With Target Winnings

The other approach is if you have a target win amount, you can figure out what you’ll need to bet. More generally, follow these formulas:

For a Favorite:

Winnings x ((-1 x Moneyline) / 100) = Wager

For an Underdog:

Winnings / (Moneyline / 100) = Wager

As an example, in the 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship, UConn is the heavy favorite on the moneyline @ -290 and Purdue, less so, at +230.

Say you want to win $175 betting on UConn, the math would be 175 x (290/100) = a required wager of $507.50.

To win the same $175 betting on Purdue, the calculation would be 175 / (230/100) = you’d have to bet only $76.09.

Moneyline Betting Strategies Explained

Navigating moneyline betting effectively involves a blend of discipline, research, and strategic timing. These foundational strategies, including bankroll management, flat betting, in-depth analysis of games, and timing your bets for the best odds, are essential for both seasoned and novice bettors. Embracing these approaches can significantly improve your betting outcomes and overall experience with sports betting. Here is a closer look at each of these aspects:

Bankroll Management – Set a budget and follow it. It’s even more important to stick with a pre-determined budget over a week or month. Know you will have losing streaks as well as winning ones. Keeping tabs on your personal results over a medium or longer term can help resist the temptation to just go for “one more” bet in hopes of correcting a short term losing streak
Flat Betting – spread your risk around by always betting the same amount on different matches, and generally not more than 5% of the total funds you have identified to play with (your “bankroll”). The more matches you bet on, but with smaller amounts committed to each one increases your likelihood of coming out ahead overall.
Research – familiarize yourself with the individual matches, leagues, teams, and players on which you want to bet! The most skilled betters KNOW the stakes on which they are betting as much as anyone can—even if any given outcome remains a mystery until it happens. Knowing the stats, history of meetings between teams, home/away performances and the like will all help you make better decisions and increase your edge.
Time Your Bets – the line can shift, sometimes significantly, depending on whether you’re betting well in advance of an unknown hypothetical match, or the same day! For a match that is beginning soon, the sportsbooks adjust the odds to keep the action relatively equal on both sides. With a keen anticipation for which way things might shift, you can use this to your favor to maximize the odds you bet at.

Bet the Moneyline vs Point Spread Bet

Popular sportsbooks like DraftKings offer two key betting styles: moneyline and point spread. As established, a $100 bet on a favorite in a moneyline wager would win if the team wins outright, making it a straightforward betting market for live betting enthusiasts. In point spread betting, the same $100 bet needs your team to cover the spread for the bet to pay out. This means favorites must win by a set margin, while underdogs can lose by less than this margin and still secure a win for the bettor. DraftKings caters to all, whether you're directly betting on a favorite or navigating the nuances of the spread in live betting scenarios.

For example, imagine you place a $100 bet on the Los Angeles Lakers as your favorite in a moneyline bet. Your bet would win if the Lakers win the game outright, perfect for straightforward live betting. Alternatively, if you opt for a point spread bet and the Lakers are favored to win by 8 points, they must win by more than 8 points for your $100 bet to cover the spread and payout.

How to Use Moneyline Bets in Your Parlays

If you add several moneyline picks together to make a moneyline parlay bet, the potential return increases in function with the number of picks you make because the risk is greater. But as with all parlays, you have to get all parts of it correct to get the payout. Let’s look at an entirely hypothetical NFL Sunday Gameday to better illustrate. Let’s say you decide to make a combined moneyline parlay bet on the following three games:

Baltimore Ravens (-120) vs Cincinnati Bengals (+100)

AND

Kansas City Chiefs (-260) vs Los Angeles Chargers (+210)

AND

Green Bay Packers (+160) vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-190)

If you pick all of the favorites to win, your 3-leg parlay bet might end up with a overall odds offer of +300—much greater than those of any individual matchup, but still not particularly explosive.

If for one match, you pick a lesser underdog—such as the Bengals to triumph over the Ravens—your odds drop a bit, but your offer might still only be +400. But say you pick a heavy underdog in one match, like the LA Chargers, your combined odds for the parlay might be +700 or even +800.

If you choose ALL the underdog teams, the combined odds offer could be +1500 or more. Remember, this is nothing more than the sportsbooks’ evaluation of the probability. You could hit and win some serious plus-money, but it’s not likely that any three underdog teams will all triumph against long odds in the same weekend.

Even in the least risky parlay, you could wager only $100 and win $300 more if all of the favorites prevail in each of the three matches.

In contrast, if you bet $100 each for the three favorites individually and not in a parlay, obviously you’d have to put down more to start ($300) and your overall winnings would be less. Using this same hypothetical scenario, the resulting winnings would work out to a total winnings of $174.42—if all three teams prevail.

You MUST remember, though, that even if one leg of your parlay doesn’t pan out, you lose the entire bet. Parlay bets simply offer you another avenue to explore, potentially spreading risk, minimizing, or maximizing it, however you feel comfortable!

A Word of Conclusion

Whether or not you’re new to sports betting, hopefully, this article gives you a bit more of a base of understanding on how moneylines work and ways you can use them. Despite the ease and accessibility of moneyline bets, that’s not to say that they’re a piece of cake or lack nuance! Seasoned sports bettors incorporate moneylines in all sorts of ways to maximize winnings or spread risk, and you can too. It takes time and experience—to start to grasp how lines can move, how best to analyze the odds in advance, or to understand the best timing for when to place bets—in order to really master the art of betting moneylines.

Moneylines could almost be considered the base of sports betting, and more likely than not, will form an integral part of your sports betting pursuits. That said, as with any sustainable endeavor, sports betting is a marathon—not a sprint. You might win big here and there, but that’s not necessarily a solid retirement strategy. Happy betting and good luck!