Reading the Football Board

 

By Tom Wilkinson

 

When a sports bettor takes a look at the football board at a casino sportsbook or sports gambling house he will see numbers to the left of each team posted on the sports betting odds board. That umber to the immediate left of the team is their assigned number by the sports gambling house for the “rotation” that the sports gambling house posts. sports bettors identify the number, rather than the team name, that identifies the side of a sports betting line that they are going to make a sports betting wager on.

A sports bettor will also notice numbers to the immediate right of the two teams posted on an sports gambling house’s rotation. The smaller of those numbers is the sports betting line, or pointspread. That sports betting odds number number is posted to the immediate right of the team that is favored in the matchup. The larger sports betting odds number that is posted to the immediate right of the team name of the underdog is the over/under or total. The over/under sports betting odds is the total combined score between the two teams in a football game that sports bettors can wager on either going over or under that posted number on the online sports betting board.

There is yet another number listed on the online sports betting rotation, usually to the immediate right of both the pointspread sports betting odds number and over under sports betting odds number and that is the “moneyline” which may also show on the online sports betting board as “M/L.” The money line is posted on the online sports betting board for sports bettors that prefer to bet on a team to win a football game “straight up” rather than against the spread. The difference with these sports betting football picks is that the sports bettor will lay money instead of points. A typical sports betting odds money line would read something like Kansas City -180, Oakland +160. This means that a sports bettor wanting Kansas City would lay out $180 to win $100 plus his $180 back from the sports gambling house. A sports bettor that wanted Oakland would lay out $100 to win $160 plus his $100 back from the sports gambling house. Unlike the sports betting odds pointspread, the sports bettor is simply making football picks based on his team winning the game “straight-up”, regardless of the points that they win or lose by.