Betting Basics for Major League Baseball

With the arrival of summer, Major League Baseball takes center stage, with daily betting options covering every contest, and futures and props options that allow bettors to wager on the success of their favorite teams both during the regular season and the postseason.

With 30 MLB teams each playing 162 regular season contests there is no shortage of opportunities to place daily wagers on every game.

First off, moneyline betting allows you to wager on which team will win a game. With a moneyline bet, each team is assigned odds on their chances of winning that day, such as New York Yankees +125, Boston Red Sox -145.

In that example, Boston is a -145 moneyline favorite to defeat New York, which means a $145 wager is required to win $100, while the Yankees are +125 underdogs, and would pay out $125 on a winning $100 bet.

In runline betting, one team is listed as a 1.5-run underdog, evening the playing field for bettors in a game between two mismatched teams and occasionally improving the weaker team to a  favorite, such as New York Yankees +1.5 -120, Boston Red Sox -1.5 +140.

While the Red Sox were favored over New York in the moneyline example, it is the Yankees who hold the edge here in runline betting.

Totals betting then allows for wagering on the total number of runs scored by both teams in a game, such as OVER 9.5 -110, UNDER 9.5 -110. The total for the game in the above example is set at 9.5, with both the OVER and the UNDER sporting -110 odds. If the game were to end with a score of 6-5, this would produce a win for bettors taking the OVER, who would win $100 on a $110 bet.

 

Parlays, Futures, Props, and Live Betting

Parlays enable sports bettors to benefit from enhanced odds by combining several wagers into a single bet. For example, parlaying a moneyline bet on one game with a totals bet on another game.

As well, prop betting enables wagering on a wide variety of individual and team performances. This includes game-specific stats, such as total number of hits, margin of victory, and the batting performance of individual players. Season prop bets can focus on team stats such as total number of regular season wins, or individual player stats such as number of home runs hit in a season.

Futures let the sports bettor wager on which teams will win divisional and league pennants, as well as this year’s World Series. And finally, with live betting you can wager on games in progress, including lines that change dynamically as a game progresses and instant prop bets on how a team will perform during the inning in progress.