With new states legalizing sports betting seemingly every day, the market is flooded with new customers. Maybe it’s why you’re here right now. Even if you’ve just signed up with a sports betting app, maybe you’ve been around the block a couple of times and have a good sense of what you’re doing. If so, this article probably isn’t for you. Although, a nice refresher course never hurts.
This article is not advice or a list of rules to follow. It is simply information passed around that might give you some foundational knowledge to make your own best decisions or simply to just give you something to read at your leisure. Should you be interested to learn more and receive our full product, you can sign up here.
For the folks who are brand new to this arena, we wanted to use this space to briefly cover some of the common terms you’ll see thrown around a lot, whether in the industry or in the Discord. This list is by no means exhaustive, but should give you a solid foundation moving forward. As always, we’re happy to answer any additional questions in Discord, and we’ll expand this list when necessary.
Straight: A straight bet is a wager on any single event. Eg. “Chicago ML” or “o54.5”, or “Curry o3.5 3-pointers”.
Parlay: You create a parlay when you combine multiple events on a single bet slip. Combining these events multiples the odds and offers the promise of higher payouts, but you only win the bet if all of the events win individually. Parlays can be as few as two events combined or as many different events as you want (some books may limit the number of events you can combine, but it doesn’t happen often).
Moneyline: When you place a Moneyline bet, you’re picking a team to win their game outright. It doesn’t matter how (overtime, extra innings), they just need to win. If they win, you win. If they lose, you lose.
Spread: When you wager on the spread of a game, you’re taking into account a “handicap” that the books have assigned to either side of a game. The favorite will have a certain amount of points taken away (eg. -4.5) while the underdog will have points added to their line (eg, +4.5). In the case of this example, the “spread” is 4.5 points, and if you bet on the favorite, they will need to win the game by 5 or more points for you to win the bet. If they do win by 5+, then they have “covered the spread” because if you take 4.5 points away from them, they still come out winners. Conversely, if they only win by 3, then the opposite is true, because if you added 4.5 points to the underdogs, they come out the (theoretical) winner.
Totals (or “Over-Under”): For each game, the books set a line on how many points/goals/runs will be scored by both teams combined. You then have the choice of betting whether the game will go “over” or “under” that amount. You can also wager on either team’s individual totals.
Prop: A prop is an event within the game itself that can be bet on separately from the game’s result. You’re not betting on whether a team will win or lose, or how many points they’ll score, you’re betting on whether the quarterback will throw for x number of TDs, or a Center will have x number of rebounds. You can also bet on game props, for example, whether a game will go to overtime, or if a goal will be scored in the first 10 minutes of a period. With props, the betting opportunities are seemingly endless … if there’s a game element you want to wager on, chances are that some sports book has a market for it.
Round Robin: A type of parlay where you can simultaneously wager on smaller parlay combinations within a larger betting slip. This topic will be covered in more detail in its own article.
Unit: An integral component of bankroll management, this is covered in more detail in that article, but a “unit”, simply, is how much you typically put on a single wager. Your betting unit should be specifically tailored to the size of your bankroll and account for your level of risk tolerance.
Lotto/Lotto Ticket: A multi-leg parlay with inflated odds (eg. +8400) that promises a significant payout in the unlikely event that it hits.
Same Game Parlay (aka SGP): Also called “One Game Parlay” at some books. This is a feature of many sports books where you can combine events from a single game to create a parlay. Until recently, books wouldn’t allow a parlay to include more than one event per game because of the inherent correlation between many of those events, but platform algorithms have improved to the point where those correlations are now more easily baked into the total odds of the parlay, so the feature has become fairly common in the industry. FanDuel recently took the concept to the next level by introducing the “SGP+” where you can combine multiple same-game parlays into one mega-parlay.
This article is not advice or a list of rules to follow. It is simply information passed around that might give you some foundational knowledge to make your own best decisions or simply to just give you something to read at your leisure. Should you be interested to learn more and receive our full product, you can sign up here.