How To Interpret And Take Advantage Of Vegas Lines Set On Sports Bets

By Author: Groshan Fabiola
Total Articles: 2678
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With a variety of sports that allow wagering, most of the betting action these days revolves around pointspreads and money line bets. When it comes to determining which Vegas line offers the best value at a particular time, a rigorous comparison-shopping is always useful, although sometimes you may also need to consult a money line-to-spread conversion chart in addition to that.

The internet is an endless source of information with respect to sports betting, whether it takes the form of sports scores, sports odds, statistic trends, handicapping tips, spread-to-money line conversions charts, or news and gossips for instance. While in most situations you should be able to find said charts online (with sportsbooks and other dedicated sports betting resources), learning how to do your own conversions doesn't hurt either. Generally, you can create your own charts by examining each spread on a game and comparing the teams' wins-to-losses record. For instance, the money line for a favorite against a particular spread can be determined using the following algorithm: -100 * wins / losses.

More often than not, home teams ...
... perform slightly better at any given spread, so you should always try to speculate that in your betting ventures. Also, as the totals decrease, the moneyline for a given spread generally increases. Therefore, a seven-point favorite in a game with a total of 30 points might in fact be -330 instead of -280 for a regular game with a 42.5 total.

Occasionally, bookmakers may come up with faulty projections on certain games, which would become apparent in the Vegas lines issued for those games, as well as in all sports odds derived from them. A telltale sign of that is a clear discrepancy between a spread and money line set on the same game, which would obviously produce an inaccurate money line-to-spread conversion. Spotting such a sign in a timely manner will allow you to take advantage of the error before the bookmakers get to intervene and redress the problem.

The typical trend in the sports betting scene is to bet the underdog on the money line and the favorite on the pointspread, which may sometimes result in forcing both the spread and money line set for a game to go out of alignment. Irrespective of whether this happens due to a last moment change in public betting or a poorly researched sports line, alert gamblers can and should profit from that as soon as possible. And one of the safer ways of doing it is this:

When you notice something suspicious about the Vegas lines announced on a bet, but are unable to determine which one is off, the best way to play your cards is to attempt middling the bet by wagering on both the money line favorite and the underdog on the spread. Although there is little potential for profit in middling, if you move quickly enough, you are guaranteed a win on one of the bets no matter what. You may not walk away with much, but a win is still a win!

For more resources about Sports Odds or about Vegas Lines or even about Sports Scores, please review these links.