How to Bet on MLB (feat. Kurt Long)

Source: wsn.com/betting-guide/how-bet-mlb

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Video Transcript:

Americans love baseball and we love betting on it too. In fact, over a billion dollars is wagered on Major League Baseball every year in Las Vegas alone.

Baseball’s great for betting on because there are tons of teams, a long season and more games than any other major sport.

The regular season features more than 2400 games you can bet on and that’s not to mention playoffs and the World Series.
This video is your introduction to the ins and outs of betting on MLB baseball.

Even if you’ve never seen a betting line in your life, when this video’s over you’ll have all the tools you need to start making bets and to feel confident that you know what you’re doing.

We’ll cover the most popular ways to bet on baseball including moneylines, over/unders and runlines, and we’ll also touch on a few key strategies that you can study further for free on WSN.com.

Let’s get started.


MLB BETTING ODDS

Like we said, baseball is one of the best sports to bet on and if you’re already passionate and knowledgeable about following it, you’re ahead of the game.

But even if you know baseball, the betting lines and odds can be confusing at first.

The first thing you have to learn is how to read odds. Sportsbooks in the US use what are called American Odds.

Odds are used in all kinds of bets and they tell you how much you win compared to how much you wagered, as well as which team is favored and by how much.

American odds are shown using a plus or minus sign, followed by a three digit number.
Here are some simple rules for reading American Odds.

When you see a negative number like -150, for example, it means THAT team is the favorite. The number tells you how much you have to bet to win $100 in profit.

So if you bet $150 on the favorite, it would pay out $250 total, $100 in profit plus your original $150 bet.

The plus sign, on the other hand, shows you which team is the underdog and the number is the amount of profit you’ll win for every $100 you bet.

A $100 bet with odds of +200 pays out $300 total, $100 in profit and your original $200 wager.

You don’t have to bet $100. You can bet any amount you want and the sportsbook will use the odds to calculate your payout.

When you place bets online, just type in how much you want to bet and the site will calculate the odds automatically and tell you how much you stand to win, before you have to actually make the bet.


MLB MONEYLINE BETS

Moneylines are one of the easiest bets you can make and they’re great for betting on baseball.

To bet the moneyline, just pick which team you think will win. That’s it. If your team wins the game, you win your bet.

Since one team is usually better than the other, sportsbooks use odds to even things up.

When you bet the moneyline, you’ll always get better odds and a bigger payout when you bet the underdog. On the other hand, when you bet on the favorite the payouts are smaller since they’re going to win the game most of the time.

Let’s look at example using the American odds style we explained before.

This is a moneyline for a game between the Twins and the White Sox.

The Twins are listed at -160 which means they’re the favorite, and you have to bet $160 to win $100 in profit.

The White Sox odds are +150 which means they’re the underdog and for every $100 you bet, you’ll profit $150.


MLB RUNLINES

You’ve probably heard of point spreads before. The runline is baseball’s version of the point spread and it’s basically the same thing.

The runline is a way to level the playing field since one team is always better than the other.

Essentially the Runline takes one and a half points from the favorite and gives it to the underdog.

Unlike point spreads in other games, the Runline is always 1.5 points.

Going back to our example from earlier, here’s what the Runline might look like.

The Twins are at -1.5 because they’re the favorite. That means they have to win by two more more runs for runline bets on them to win.

The White Sox are at +1.5 which means they can lose by one point, or win the game outright in order for runline bets on them to win.

You’ll hear people say they “covered the spread” or “covered the runline” which is just another way of saying they won the game even with the runline’s margin of victory taken into account.

The second part of the runline are the odds and they work the same way as the odds in our earlier examples.

The favorite has negative odds which tells you how much you have to bet to win $100 in profit.

The underdog has positive odds which tell you how much profit you’ll win for every $100 you bet.

Find out more about Kurt Long here: imdb.com/name/nm1273767/