Spread Betting – A Look at How Your Bet Works

The exciting thing about sports betting is not so much following a team wins. It’s the different types of bets that you can play which can bring you the payouts. So when you decide to bet on sports like football or basketball, you can count on a variety of betting types and systems that can work for all betting strategies, level of knowledge, and risk levels. One popular system that you can use is spread betting, a type of wager that’s popular among football fans and punters. It’s available in most sportsbooks for Indian punters and offers an exciting way to bet on matches. But before you bet real money, make sure to check out how this bet works.

Principle Behind Spread Betting

This type of betting is a popular offering in many sportsbooks and there’s a big chance that you have already encountered these. For example, an online sportsbook may display Team A as -4.5 and Team B as +4.5. At first, some beginning punters may wonder about these numerical displays and its meaning. This may be difficult at first but by knowing its basics, spread betting becomes easier and exciting.

In online sports betting, spread betting is considered as an ‘equalizer’. As they say, teams are not created the same. And players have their skills and the coaching staff boasts different strategies. Since competing teams are not the same, operators try to create a balance so that punters may consider a bet on either of the two teams. The result is the creation of a point stream for a game so that each participating team will have an almost even chance of winning the game. In a way, spread betting evens the field for both teams.

In spread betting, each team is designated as a favorite (-1) and the underdog (+1). So, you may want to check out this first before completing your bet. Let’s say that the football spreads show a +1 for Team India and -1 for Team Pakistan. In this example, we can say that Pakistan is the favorite to win. To win your bet with the favorite, the team should win by at least 2 goals.

Example of Spread Betting in NFL

In the US, football betting is a leading sport with point spreads as a popular way to bet. For example, a bookmaker will offer a spread of -7 and +7. This means that the team with a minus (-) is the one that’s favored to win. In this example, your bet on the favored team can win if it wins by at least 8 points. Now, if the team wins by 7 points only, then the result is a push and your wager is refunded. Also, a spread of +7 means that the underdog team must win the match or lose by fewer than seven points to win the wager. If the underdog team loses by seven points, this will result in a push.

Example of Spread Betting in Basketball

The point spread basketball betting is also popular among many punters. Again, this type of bet aims to level the playing field especially if there’s a heavy favorite going into the game. For example, a bookmaker lists the Boston Celtics at +4.5 and the Dallas Mavericks at -4.5. We can say that the Mavericks are the favored team. And another way to look at it is that the Mavericks team is favored to with the game by at least 4.5 points. To win here, you need your team to cover the spread. For example, for a Dallas bet to win, it should win by more than 4 points. As you can see, there’s no possibility for a tie since it’s displayed as a decimal.

Results in Spread Betting

There are three potential outcomes if you participate in spread betting sports online. If you bet on a point spread, you can win, lose your bet, or push (or a tie). In football point spreads, a push will happen if there’s a tie. However, some sportsbooks use decimals instead of whole numbers to ensure that no tie or push will happen.

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