Baseball Betting

Major League Baseball (MLB) is one of five premier sports in the USA. The others of course are American football, hockey, soccer and NASCAR.  But it’s the massive appeal of MLB that has players, fans and punters in a constant state of buzz. That’s because MLB is an adrenaline-loaded thrill-a-minute game. It features hard-hitting clubbers, rip-snorting pitchers and some of the most scintillating fielding of any sport. Baseball is truly a game of the fast and furious and when it comes to betting on baseball, it’s way different to anything else.

Baseball betting practice

The reason why betting on baseball is different to other sports is because baseball games are often determined by a difference of one or several runs. Thus the typical ‘spread betting’ scenario is not applicable to baseball betting. What is utilized in place of the spread is the money line. This is an interesting concept in baseball betting – and other sports – because it determines the total quantity of money wagered and won when bets are placed on either the underdog or the favourite.

The way in which the money line works is quite easy to understand. All the hot favourites receive the high negative money lines, while the low negative money lines go to the underdogs. All bets in this type of scenario are based on $100 wagers. If the Phillies are playing the Yankees, the money line may look like this: Phillies -150 Yankees +100. In this particular case, a punter wanting to place money on the Phillies (the hot favourites) would place a $150 wager to win a $100 profit. The risk in this instance is $150 for a total return (including the principal) of $250. A bet on the Yankees would cost $100 and the return would be $200 ($100 profit).

Now sportsbooks also make use of multiple other betting concepts that enable them to stay lucrative in the busy world of sports betting. One such concept is what is known as the Vigorish. This is basically a term which is used to define the commission that is garnered on every wager made. In the case above, if the Yankees win, the sportsbook will pay out $100 and they collect $150 from bets on the Phillies. So the vig in this case is $50 for the sportsbook. Recall that the Phillies are the favourites with odds of $150 wagers for a $100 return.

But there are many other betting options to take into account, the most important of which relates to the starting pitcher for each game. Pitchers determine games as much as big hitters do. So it makes sense that bets around the pitchers are taken into account. There are all manner of ‘action’ bets relating to pitchers. These include punters who are adamant about starting pitchers as well as those who are more flexible for one or both teams in the contest.  The run line in baseball betting is another important component. It states among others the minimum number of runs (1.5 to 2) that either a favourite or an underdog team has to win by. Baseball betting has many intricacies, but the aforementioned will serve as a good starting point for all punters.