What Does Moneyline Mean in Betting?
A moneyline bet is one of the easiest kinds of bets you can make at a sportsbook. Simply put, it means betting on a specific team to win a game. While betting on a point spread is about who wins and by how much, a moneyline bet is solely about who wins.
Moneyline bets might seem confusing until you understand the essentials. Let’s take a look at a couple examples to illustrate how they work.
Moneyline Betting in Baseball
For a game between the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Yankees, the money line might look like this:
In the center column, you can see two numbers for the Yankees and the Blue Jays.
Yankees -165
Blue Jays +140
In this example, the Yankees are favored to win, as shown by the minus sign written in front of the 165, and the Blue Jays are the underdogs, as shown by the plus sign in front of the 140.
What these numbers mean is that if you bet on the favorite, the Yankees, you will have to bet $165 to win $100, while if you put your money on the Blue Jays, you’ll bet $100 to win $140.
The same principle applies to other sports, like MMA for example.
Moneyline Betting in MMA
In an MMA fight you might see odds like:
Daniel Cormier +140
Stipe Miocic -175
In this example, Stipe Miocic is favored, as signified by the negative number. It would cost you $175 in order to collect a $100 payout on a Miocic win. If you bet $100 on Cormier, the underdog, you’d collect $140 if he won. In other words, you’ll have to wager more money on Miocic than you would on Cormier in order collect on this bet.
Moneyline Betting in Hockey
A closer look at the odds displayed below, in particular the center column, shows you what you’d see placing a wager at Sports Interaction.
Hockey fans can also place moneyline bets on NHL games. Let’s take a closer look at the following example.
Ottawa Senators +120
Buffalo Sabres -140
Here, the Buffalo Sabres are the -140 favorites. The Ottawa Senators are the +120 underdogs. To collect a $100 payout on the Sabres would mean you’d have to bet $140.
