The negative aspect of moneyline bets is you will have to bet more money on the favorite than you stand to win. Perhaps most alluring with moneyline bets is the way they offer the chance for larger returns because the payout is always higher for the underdog based on the odds. Furthermore, they are easy to understand, which can be particularly helpful to the novice gambler. A correct bet on the underdog Celtics to win the game would result in you receiving $150 for a $100 bet.Īnother reason some gamblers prefer moneyline bets is because the underdog does not have to win the game and it gives you two ways to win. Because the - sign tells you the Knicks are favored, you would need to wager $150 to win $100. Using an example of how an NBA moneyline bet could appear on a sportsbook, suppose you see the New York Knicks listed at -150 and the Boston Celtics at +150. Once again, this does not apply to a moneyline bet. Many bettors prefer spread bets because you can increase your earnings by correctly predicting the winner or loser, and the margin of victory. The more points an underdog is listed to lose the game by, the more it will pay out if it finds a way to win.Īll of this stands in stark contrast to a spread bet in which oddsmakers assign a specific amount of points the favorite team must win by.

The bigger a favorite a team is, the less it will pay out on a winning bet. Lest one thinks that this is going to be easy money because some teams are clearly better than others, the bookmakers get around this by controlling the size of the payouts for winning bets. If the team you picked loses the game, you lose the bet no matter if it's by one point or 50.

As such, it doesn't matter if the team you selected wins by one point or 100. To collect your winnings on a moneyline bet, you just need to correctly pick the winning team.

With a moneyline bet, you are not betting on the spread, which is a wager based on the projection of the difference in points between the two teams in the final score. A minus (-) sign tells you which team is favored while a plus (+) sign is placed next to the name of the team that is the underdog. Very popular for its simplicity, a moneyline bet in basketball is a wager on which team you think will win the game.

What does moneyline mean in gambling