Are you great at predicting the final score of a team and want to put your money where your mouth is?
Over Under betting is a good way to do this very thing, and it is a wagering technique often overlooked by novice football bettors. On the other hand, professional gamblers are the first to tell you that it is a key way to make money from sports betting in addition to the other bets you place on your favorite team.
We explain the Over Under bets in detail with examples in American Football and European Football. Learn to read the odds and what strategies can you use.
Football Over Under Betting Explained
Most bettors are familiar with the classic win/lose bet, or the Money Line. With your basic money line odds, you can bet on whether or not a team will win. What emerges here is a favorite and an underdog which have their betting strategy perspective. However, this does not examine what the final score will be. Evaluating how many points the winning team will accumulate is the magic in football over/under betting.
How Over Under Betting is Played Online
Depending on which online sportsbook you use, the way that over/under betting will be represented is by placing a proposed final combined score next to the two teams before the game begins. Once the game begins, you will no longer be able to change your bet.
For example, it will list a game between the Indianapolis Colts and the Cleveland Browns as 55. This means that the game points totals from each team will combine to be at least 55 points. A bettor will decide to take the Over or Under of that score.
In European Football it could be be an Over Under 4 for Manchester United vs Liverpool. If a bettor selects the Over and the game ends Manchester United 3 – 2 Liverpool then you win the Over bet, as the combined final score is Over 4. Under bettors lose the bet.
Calculating Over Under Odds
With a win/lose bet, there is always a set of odds that have a negative number and a positive number when it comes to Vegas Odds or American Odds. For this reason, it can be confusing to see that in Over Under betting the two teams playing a game against each other may have odds that both have negative numbers.
For the example of the Colts vs. the Browns, the odds may be -150 Over or – 150 Under.
This is rarely the case but here is how sportsbooks determine odds. It is a game of supply and demand, If for example most bettors take the Under then the odds will increase for the Under reducing its payout or value, and making the Over more valuable or bigger payout. The odds could end up looking something like -200 Under and 150 Over. In other words, a $200 Under bet would payout $100 dollars and a $100 Over bet would payout $150. The more bettors take the Under the more the odds will shift.
If you understand the money lines system of odds, you should have no problem grasping the odds used in over/under betting. To recap, money lines have positive and negative numbers. Typically, the positive numbers are the easiest to calculate if you use a $100 bet. For instance, a +150 bet means that you will win $150, a +350 means you win $350, etc.
For negative money lines odds, the same is not true. Instead, you will always have math to figure out. Thankfully, we live in the age of the internet and this means we no longer need to write these calculations out by hand. Simply search for an online betting calculator for money lines and put in the numbers to see how much you will win.
To illustrate the point, -75 odds will give $133.33 on a $100 bet.
For other negative odds, you can expect $90.91 for -110, $40 for -250, $13.30 for -750, etc.
Which is the Value Bet of the two? That is were handicapping skills come in on any sport. It is an integral part of a betting strategy and the cornerstone of being profitable. Developing a handicapping system is the reason most bettors quit, it takes time a lot of it. That is why many programmers developed Handicapping Sports Betting Software for their successfull betting systems. What the software does is analyze all of the variables and reduce the handicapping time to seconds. The goal of using handicapping software is to analyze is the betting opportunity is 60% or more a Value Bet or not.
Point Spreads in Over Under Betting
Not every betting site will provide an option for point spreads in over/under betting. Regardless, when they do, it means that you have a likelihood of higher risk and therefore more winnings from the bet. You will be able to recognize point spreads because they will have an additional number next to the odds that have decimal points.
These decimal point numbers mean that the combined score must surpass the given number by a certain amount of points.
For example, if the Colts vs. Browns have 55 (-150 Over 3.5), then you know that the combined score must be four points above 55 (or at least 59) in order to win the bet. Point spreads added to over/under betting are typically 1.5, 2.5, or 3.5. In spite of this, do not be surprised if you see a 9.5 or 12.5 point spread. Clearly, the higher the number in a point spread, the higher the risk, and the bigger the payout.
And if you are asking why the point spread ends with a .5 it is to avoid a draw in the bet, if the final combined score is 58 then you lose, 59 you win.
Best Over Under Betting Tip
Most betting sites want your business and they do not want to tell you that one of the best wagering strategies is to go where you feel you will make the most profit. In other words, if you calculated the odds at one website and do not like the amount you will win, there is still hope. Simply log in at another wagering website and see if their Over Under betting odds are more profitable.
Clearly, sportsbooks already know that this is the strategy for most online bettors. For this reason, the websites will often over-compensate for bad odds. In order to keep you on their website and placing bets, they may offer you free bets or bonus bets on bad odds days. Depending on how they operate, it could be your chance to help them while helping yourself to an over/under bet that you never paid for — and therefore cannot lose.
Soon on our Homepage bettors will be able to check which betting site offers the best odds for the same bet.