Betting over and under?

Question

i tried to find the odds of the teams that are going to win, but i dont know how they work. is under good or bad? cause all the good teams were under something. what does it mean?

Answer 1

I'm not exactly sure what your question is, but I'll try and help the best I can.  This is a sample line from the NBA for a game tonight between the San Antonio Spurs and the Chicago Bulls.  

SAN ANTONIO -4 -110 o190-110 -190

CHICAGO +4 -110 u190-110 +160

The -4 is the point spread, and means that San Antonio is favored by 4 points.  In order for a bettor to win against the spread with a bet on San Antonio, they must win by more than 4 points.  The -110 next to that number means that you must bet $110 to win $100 (or a relative amount, say bet $22 to win $20).  

The next pair of numbers in the column refers to the Over/Under.  The Over/Under is a number that refers to the total number of points scored when the game is completed.  In this case, the Over/Under is 190.  If the total score of the actual game is 195, and you bet the over, then you would win.  The -110 number is the same for pointspreads listed above.

The last number in the row is the moneyline.  This is just a straight bet, win or lose.  If you wanted to bet the moneyline for San Antonio, the line is -190.  That is, in order to win $100, you must risk $190.  Points do not matter with moneylines, just win or lose.  Whenever you see a negative number for a moneyline bet, this indicates the team is favored to win.  The plus sign indicates the underdog.  In this case, Chicago's moneyline bet is +160.  That is, for ever $100 you risk, you'll win $160.  There is a higher payout since Chicago is less likely to win.

This is just a sample line.  Each sportsbook might have a different order in which they publish lines, but it's easy to differentiate between the pointspreads, moneylines, and over/unders.  There's no real better or worse pick, it just depends on the bettor's preference.  I prefer to play the over/unders in basketball.  But for different sports, different picks are easier to make.  Check http://dagus-statistics.com for a list of free sports picks and a simple explanation of common betting terms.  Hope this helps.

Answer 2

You may be a bit confused. Some odds-makers list all of the bets for a game in a row. The bets usually include straight team bets (i.e., the Nets to win over the Knicks), point spreads (i.e., the Nets to win by more than 9 points [-9] against the Knicks) and the over/under (i.e., the total score of the game will be higher or lower than whatever number is set).

My guess is that the site or odds-maker sets up each game in two rows right on top of each other. It just so happens that the favorite is always listed on the same line as the Under bet, even though the over/under bet is not related to the favorite or the underdog. It's just bad formatting for someone who is not used to the sheet.

Good luck.