Sports Betting

Baseball Betting (Money Lines)

Baseball is bet differently than football and basketball.

• The team listed second (Red Sox) is the home team.
• Navarro and Darwin are the scheduled starting pitchers.
• The Brewers are the underdog, denoted by the ‘+’. You wager $100 to win $120 or some multiple thereof, i.e., $10 to win $12.
• The Red Sox are the favorite, denoted by the ‘-’. You wager $130 to win $100 ($13 to win $10).
• The numbers preceding the team names should be used to make your bet.
• There will probably be an over/under line posted here also.
• Unless you specify otherwise, you will have ‘team action,’ meaning that your bet stands even if one or both starting pitchers is changed before game time.

The Casino Edge

Notice that the difference between the prices (-130 and +120) is 10. This difference is referred to as 10¢ or a dime; thus, this is called a dime line. The casino (bookie) advantage with this dime line hovers around 2%. Some sports books post wider spreads like -130/+115 (15¢ line) or -130/+110 (20¢ line). Do not bet into these lines; the casino edge goes up as the difference widens. The casino’s edge here is only about 1%. This is one of the best gambles you will find anywhere. A $10 wager buys you three hours of action for a total expected loss of about 10¢.

Race Betting

Most sports books also allow betting on horses (and sometimes dogs) in an area called the race book. If you enjoy betting the horses, fine; but it’s not one of the gambling games that rates high on my list for two reasons:

• If you are an unknowledgeable player, you face a high casino edge.
• If you are a knowledgeable player (good handicapper, have access to good information), the casinos won’t take your action.

One group of bookmakers tried to buck policy #2. They opened the Sport of Kings race book (located at the corner of Convention Center Dr. and Paradise Rd.) in 1992, and announced that they would accept wagers of almost any size without discriminating against certain ‘known’ horse bettors. Experts predicted that the race book was ‘going to get their brains beat out.’ They were right. The losses were early and heavy, and Sport of Kings went pari-mutuel (a system that reduced the handle but eliminated risk) in less than one month.