How to Bet Major League Baseball Games
Scott Morris | July 26, 2016
Major League Baseball works well for many sports bettors just because of the number of games available to bet. Each day there are many options for bettors, which means there are more opportunities to learn the sports betting craft to maximize the value of each bet.
Moneylines
When a moneyline is bet on a baseball game the only thing a bettor does is bet on which team will win the game. In baseball, the most important factor for odds is who is starting on the mound for both teams. Researching pitchers is as important as anything is when betting on Major League Baseball.
The favorite on the moneyline will have a negative sign before the listed odds while the underdog has a positive sign before their odds. For instance, if the Red Sox are favored over the Orioles the Red Sox would be -165 meaning you must bet $165 to win $100. The Orioles may be +155, which means you must bet $100 to win $155.
Spread
When betting the spread in Major League Baseball, they use run differences. For example, using Boston from above, they might be +1.5 +165, while the Orioles would be +1.5 -155. This means that the Orioles are favored to lose at -155 but by less than 1.5 runs
The Red Sox in this case are an underdog to win by over one run at +1.5 +165.
Although the run lines are not nearly as popular as the moneyline when betting baseball, they can be useful depending up a few things such as when one of the top teams in the league is putting its ace up against another team so the spread might be a good way to go with the stronger team.
Run Totals
The over/under betting for MLB is when the bookmakers give a total number of runs they expect to be scored and the odds of the actual total either going over that or under that total.
Using the Red Sox and Orioles the teams might have a run total of 8.5, so the bettor will place a bet on whether the teams will score combined runs that exceed 8.5 or less than 8.5.
The majority of run totals are between 7 and 11, but some are lower when two strong pitchers face one another or higher if two strong hitting teams face one another.
