Sports betting is big business in Nevada, the only state in the country where you can legally bet on the outcome of a sporting event. But sports wagering doesn't generate the huge profits the machines and table games bring in. Casinos report that the 'hold" at their sports books is less than 5 percent, which means they keep as profit about 5 percent of all the money wagered. In contrast, the hold is more than 60 percent for slot machines and about 15 percent for table games. Because sports betting requires more skill than luck, astute gamblers and sports handicappers often find ways to beat the house. To compensate, sports books do everything possible to tilt the percentages in their
favor. The first method is charging a commission on a sports bet. Commonly referred to as the house
vigorish, the commission is usually 10 percent. This means that a bettor must risk $1 10 to win $100 betting football or basketball games. (If the bettor wins, the original $1 10 is returned to him.) Sports books also set up point spreads to make predicting the outcome of a game more difficult. The point spread, used mainly for football, basketball, and hockey betting, is the amount of points a favored team must overcome in order for a bettor to win his bet. For instance, if a football team is favored by seven points, the team must win by eight or more. If it wins by less than seven points, or loses outright, the bettor loses. If the final score falls at, say, 21-14, it is a push, or tie, and the bet is refunded. The flip side is that underdogs receive the points and needn't actually win the game for the bettor to win his bet. In the above example, the underdog can either win the game or lose by up to six points for its backers to win. For baseball and hockey bets, the books set odds, or a money line. (For hockey, most players must contend with a point
spread-usuauy not more than two goals-as well as a money line.) The money line is a decimal version of betting odds. It is most commonly used in baseball and hockey bettin& but it is frequently offered on football bets in lieu of the point spread. instead of listing a team as a 3-2 favorite or a 6-7 underdog, the sports books use a plus or minus dollar figure to represent a team's odds of winning. A team with a negative money line is the perceived favorite, and its payoff is less than the amount risked. Conversely if a team has a plus money line, it is considered the underdog and pays more than the amount wagered. For example, a team with a -1.80 money line means you must risk $1.80 in order to win $1.00, which, added to your original bet, gives you a payoff of $2.80. If the team's money line is +1.80, a win is 46 / GAMING GUIDE worth $1.80 for every $1.00 bet for a like payoff of $2.80 but at a risk of only $1.00. If you're a mathematician, you will have figured out that the plus money line represents odds on the underdog winning and that the negative money line is the inverse of the odds on the favorite winning. In the above example, the odds on the underdog are 1.80 to 1, and the odds on the favorite are I divided by 1.80, or 0.55 to 1. If this is as confusing to understand as it has been to write, just remember you have to bet the amount of the minus money line to win $1.00 (or multiples
thereoo, and that each $ 1.00 bet on a plus money line pays off at the stated amount.
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