When Betting What Does The Line Mean
The legal sports betting world is changing. Quickly.
What Do the + and – Mean in Sports Betting? The – and + on a sports betting line indicates both your prospective payout and whether you’re betting on the favorite or the underdog. Negative numbers signify the favorite on the betting line. The negative number indicates how much you’d need to. After oddsmakers release their opening lines at sportsbooks, the betting public almost immediately reveals which side of the number they like more and moves them accordingly. But while these early line moves may show where the public money is initially going, it does not obviously tell the whole story until we can see where the closing odds end up.
New states are opening their arms to the world of legal sports betting and are opening opportunities for you to take part in making legal sports bets on your favorite teams in casinos, race tracks and through online betting.
Part of our goal at SportsbookWire is to educate the new and/or casual sports bettor on the typical terms around legal sports betting and the various nuances that go into making a sports bet or wager.
In sports betting, a negative money line (represented as -200, -300, -400, etc.) represents the amount of money that you need to bet in order to win $100 if your bet is correct.
Here are some negative money line examples:
The New England Patriots are -500 against the Buffalo Bills. If you’re betting the Patriots, you would need to wager $500 in order to win $100 if your bet is correct with the Patriots winning.The New York Yankees are
-200 to beat the New York Mets. If you are betting on the Yankees, you need to wager $200 to win $100 if your bet is correct with the Yankees winning.The Tampa Bay Lightning are 
-400 to beat the Detroit Red Wings. If you’re betting on the Lightning to win, you need to wager $400 to win $100 if your bet is correct with the Lightning winning.It’s actually pretty easy and we’re sure you get the point here.
Fractional odds of 1/2 and decimal odds of 1.5 are also equivalent in this scenario.
A negative money line is also considered as the favorite – or chalk pick – by the oddsmakers.
We’ll get into that more in other pieces, but the heavier the team, player, situation or bet in general is favored to succeed, the higher the negative money line.
For example…
In the first round of the 2018-19 NBA Playoffs, the Golden State Warriors money line was -20000 to beat the Los Angeles Clippers. That means you would need to have wagered $20,000 to win $100 if the Clippers won.Kind of ridiculous, right? That’s how heavy the Warriors were favored over the Clippers … the sports books don’t want you making that bet, because it was expected to be an easy Warriors win.When Betting What Does Money Line Mean
If you’re looking for more educational information on sports betting and terms around such, be sure to check out our How to Bet on Sports 101 section for a variety of betting definitions, betting terms and sports betting strategies to help you build your bank account.