Kentucky Basketball Money Line

Money line betting is the most common type of basketball bet. Money line betting is especially popular in NCAA basketball games. It is considered to be straight betting. In money lines you are simply betting on who will win the match; it is very straightforward, it does not even matter what the score is, what matters is who wins – period. That said, different money lines are applied to reflect the strengths of the teams.

Three Types of Odds

In most of all sports betting, the odds can be presented in three different ways: American Odds, Decimal Odds and Fractional Odds. American Odds are presented in whole numbers format like 100, 200, and so on; these are mostly used in the U.S. and most of Canada, and they are also especially popular when it comes to American football. Decimal odds are presented in a decimal format such as 1.4, 2.1, and onwards; decimal odds are mostly used in Europe and parts of Canada too, and especially popular for soccer betting (commonly known as football betting in EU). Finally, fractional odds are presented by fractions like 1/3, 2/4, 3/2, etc.

*Basketball is very popular in the U.S., with the NBA and NCAAB, hence, we will use American Odds for all of our basketball examples below.

Calculating Basketball Money Lines

* Please see illustration below to help understand money line bets, text explanation follows.

Kentucky Basketball Money Line Chart

Let us say UCLA is playing Notre Dame at the NCAAB. Notre Dame is the favorite in this case and the UCLA is the underdog (less likely to win according to the experts). The odds are listed as:

• Notre Dame (-110)
• UCLA (+110)

If you are betting $110 on Notre Dame and they win, you will get $100 back. If you are betting $100 on UCLA and they win, you will get $110 back. The (-) sign represents a favorite and the fact that you have to bet more on it to win less. The (+) sign represents an underdog and the fact that you have to bet less on it to win more.

DonBest its the NCAA Basketball Premier betting portal with information that includeds picks, gambling, articles, and more NCAA basketball betting information. Avery Skinner and Alli Stumler slammed 15 kills each with Azhani Tealer stuffing a career-high nine blocks to lead the No. 3 Wildcats to a 3-0 sweep over LSU on Saturday at Memorial Coliseum.

Different Money Lines

The reason why there are different money lines for different teams is, basically, to provide an incentive for players to bet on underdogs. Without money lines, most of the players would bet on the favorites since the favorites are more likely to win. If all people bet on the favorites, a sportsbook will not be able to pay off all of the players in case they win. By providing more advantageous underdog money lines like in an above example, online sportsbooks create a market for both underdogs and favorites.

Basketball Money Line Betting Tips and Strategies

You should really go out there and compare money lines across different online basketball betting sites. Researching different basketball sportsbooks is one of the most widely used basketball money line strategies out there. Find the best possible odds for yourself; for example, if you are sure that the Chicago Bulls will beat the LA Lakers in a certain game, then look for the best possible odds for Chicago. If you see that one sportsbook offers +110 and another one offers +105 for Chicago, then go for the former as it will get you $5 more for every $100 bet you make – if your bet wins of course.

Basketball Stars

When it comes to basketball, particularly NBA, research latest news about different teams’ star players. In basketball, star players can score between 20%-40% of the team’s points. They can make or break the team. In fact, many teams’ strategies are simply based on passing the ball to their star players. Such players like Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant (now earning around the likes of $23M, the current highest paid in NBA), Shaquille O’Neal, LeBron James and others have played a vital role in performance of their teams. For example, if you are looking to bet on the Miami Heat, try to look at LeBron’s form in their upcoming game. If he is not playing or is injured, then Miami Heat might really not perform that well.

I know not everyone is familiar with moneyline betting. Taking a team on the moneyline means you are wagering on a team to win the game outright. The money lines are adjusted based on who is more likely to win the game (based on the point spread).

Let’s use an example. A 4-point favorite in NCAA basketball might be listed at -204 via the money line. This means that you would need to wager $204 to profit $100 on the favorite.

On the flip side, an underdog of 4 points would be listed at +166. This means a wager of $100 on the under would pay you $166 if they won the game outright.

Kentucky Basketball Money Liner

True Money Line: How to use our College Basketball Spread to Moneyline Converter

The chart below plots what the true money line on a game should be based on the posted spread. This was found looking at data on over 20,000 college basketball games and finding out how often the favorite or underdog wins outright at that number (see the table on expected win percentage below for even more detail). What this gives us is what the true money line of a game is given a fair market (e.g. no juice applied by the sportsbook).

Using this data, you should be able to identify when your book has a money line that isn’t properly priced based on historical results. It is obviously possible for these probabilities to change year to year, but with over 1,500 games sampled at each common line, we are confident that our true money line pricing is accurate. Once you get to less common spreads, of course, you have a smaller sample and the numbers won’t be as reliable, but the main goal here is to identify market inefficiencies on the money line on common point spreads.

Another way to use this to your advantage is when picking upsets in the tournament. You won’t always see the lower seed viewed as the favorite. Sometimes Vegas sees “the underdog” in the committees’ eyes as the team more likely to advance. I definitely use this trick for my own NCAA bracket predictions.

Spread to Expected Win %

The table below uses historical data to calculate the true win percentage and money line at each spread. The numbers represent pricing based on a fair market, meaning there would be no advantage to the books. Depending on both the spread and the book you use, a books pricing will incorporate an edge to the money line price. For example, we show a -3 point favorite with a true, fair market money line of -159 and a +3 point dog at +159. In a real-lift situation, the pricing will be more like +130 on the dog and -150 on the favorite. In this case we see some advantage to taking a -3 favorite on the money line at -150 with a true money line value at that number listed at -159.

The fewer games you have at a line, the less accurate the data will be, so we’ve excluded spreads without at least 100 occurrences in our sample. Also note that the higher the money line, the more of an advantage the book applies. In our first example, the book used a 20 cent difference between the favorite and dog price, at a higher spread like -12.5 you are going to see a much bigger difference, like -1100 on the favorite and +650 on the underdog (a 450 cent difference). Using this example, there is no advantage to taking the money line as the built-in advantage for the book is too great.

Kentucky Basketball Money Line Calculator

I don’t think this data is skewed by teams covering more often at a given line either. This shows just wins and losses. If there are enough games in the sample, it should give you the true winning percentage predicted by the sports books.

Kentucky Basketball Money Line Odds

More Moneyline Conversion Charts