Betting on baseball may not be as popular as football and basketball to the general betting public, but if you are a year-round avid sports bettor then you already know just how much opportunity Major League Baseball brings to the table over the course of a very long season. All you need to get started is a betting account at one of the top online sportsbooks featured on the Sports Betting Stats’ website.
Money line odds are the primary way to bet on baseball. Oddsmakers use this type of handicapping method to level the playing field between the favorite and the underdog in a particular matchup. Starting with a base bet of $100, the money line on the favorite is what you have to risk in order to cash-in on that $100 bet, while the money line on the underdog is what you can win if they pull-off the upset. A typical listing in a sportsbook for a MLB money line would read as follows:
New York Yankees +145 Boston Red Sox -155
In this example, the Yankees are road underdogs and if you bet $100 that they win the game you would win $145. Boston is the home favorite and to try and win $100 with a Red Sox win, you would have to risk $155 if they lose.
Another popular bet when it comes to MLB games is the “total line”. In this type of wager you are trying to win money on the total combined score of both teams either staying “under” a set total betting line or going “over”. Since scoring in baseball normally stays within a certain range, the total lines set by odds makers for the games normally stay within a certain range as well. On the low end you may find total lines set at 6 or 6.5. On the high end when two big hitting teams face off against one another the total line can be as high as 9 or 9.5. The key to winning money betting on a MLB total line hinges on the ability to properly handicap each team’s starting pitcher in relation to how they matchup against the opposing team’s batting lineup.
Baseball’s version of a point spread is referred to as the “run line”. The actual spread is set at 1.5 runs for every single game and, to cash-in on the favored team, it has to win the game by two runs or more. The underdog pays off in this bet if it wins the game outright or loses by one run. The big twist in this type of bet is an adjusted money line to reflect the 1.5-run spread. It now becomes more profitable to bet on the favorite, while you will have to risk more to bet on the underdog. Using the same example above in, the run line for this game would read as follows:
New York Yankees (+1.5) -160 Boston Red Sox (-1.5) +140
You now have to risk $160 betting on the Yankees +1.5 runs to win $100 and you stand to make $140 if the Red Sox win that game by more than two runs.
Some of the other ways that you can bet on MLB are in the form of team and player prop bets. Some sportsbooks specialize in MLB props and before each game they will release various betting prop for things such as which team scores first or the “over/under” on a starting pitchers total strikeouts in that game. These types of bets can provide an almost endless number of ways to wager on MLB games given the 162-game regular season schedule.
SportsBettingStats.com has a wealth of information on its website when it comes to inside tips and betting strategies for baseball, so be sure to check out these articles in the MLB section of the website to enhance your winning percentage betting on the games.