Sports betting can be one of the best types of investments you can make, if you have the right information in front of you and you can successfully handicap a game. To get this information, though, you need to look at up-to-date injury reports, late training scratches, and last-second odds moves. However, none of this will do you any good if you don’t know how to effectively read sports betting odds.

Each sport has a different style of odds to master. Now, there are some similarities between baseball and hockey odds, as well as the same kind of similarity between basketball and football odds. In total, there are usually six main sports that people try to effectively handicap. Between college and professional football, college and professional basketball, baseball and hockey, there are numerous options throughout the season for the smart bettor to take advantage of.

Football/Basketball (both college and professional)

Soccer/Basketball offers three types of bets: spread, money line and totals. The most popular type of bet for these two sports is the spread bet. With this bet, you are giving your opinion on who you think will “cover” the spread. For example, let’s say you are watching the game between the Patriots and the Bills. The spread in this game is 8 points, which will read Patriots (-8) and Bills (+8). If you’re betting on the sidelines and you pick the Patriots to win, you’re saying they’re going to win by more than 8 points. By the way, betting on the Bills is saying that the Bills will lose by less than 8 points.

Money line bets on football/basketball are usually played by people with deep pockets who can afford the sometimes outrageous prices put on a team. With these money line bets, you are betting strictly on who you think will win the game, with no points being awarded or taken away. Be very careful because some money lines can be very expensive (eg -1500 for a great team, +1500 for a bad team).

Total bets are bets based on whether you think the combined scores of the two teams involved will be over or under the published total for that game. Totals typically fluctuate by 0.5 points. The more money you put into a game total of 57, the more that total will go up, say to 57.5 or 58. If the money goes in below that, the total will go down to 56.5 or 56.

Baseball/Hockey

Baseball/hockey offers three different types of bets: moneyline, runline/puckline, and totals. The money line totals are the easiest to understand because you are betting specifically on who you think will win the game. There is no margin that goes with a money line bet, so you just want to pick who you think is going to win and bet accordingly. Be careful, though, because the big favorites (Yankees, Red Sox, etc.) usually have very high prices that you’ll have to pay when they take on the perennial basement dwellers (Orioles, Royals, etc.). price” means that these teams usually have odds of -200 or more. The way you read this is that you will have to pay $200 to win $100, so as you can see the risk/reward ratio is much lower than if you were on the +200 price of the underdog, which means that every $100 bet you make will award you $200 if that particular team is victorious.

Runlines/pucklines in baseball/hockey are always -1.5, which is basically like betting spreads in football games. You’re choosing which team you think has a better chance of winning by over 1.5 runs/goals (you’d bet Team A -1.5) or losing by under 1.5 runs/goals (you’d bet Team B +1, 5). However, be careful here again, because sometimes the prices get very expensive and are not really worth the risk.

Totals are played exactly the same way as in soccer and basketball. The one exception with baseball/hockey is that the totals don’t move as often. For example, a total in the game between Red Wings and Flyers could have a total of 5.5 goals. The game total is unlikely to change much from this number; instead, you will see the individual prices for betting totals (-110, +105, -125) fluctuate throughout different points of the day.