Choosing Between Betting Totals or Sides

 

Choosing between betting totals or sides can be tedious at some time. Totals and sides are two totally different types of wagers and thought processes. Some of the lines just look so good on both sides of the coin that it is hard to determine which is the quality wager.

Key Points

– Choosing between betting totals and sides is all dependent upon value.

– There are distinct advantages to betting totals compared to sides.

Choosing Between Betting Totals or Sides

There are a number of different ways that sports bettors can bet. In most sports, the two most common are betting totals or betting on a side.

Both types of bets are played effectively by many bettors, but one bet is typically a better choice than the other. The key, of course, is finding which bet offers the most value.

Understanding the differences between betting sides and totals will help you choose which ones are best for you. It will also help change your way of thinking so that you can be successful in both. Successful betting also requires a quality sportsbook that is safe, secure, and offers outstanding bonuses.

There are a few key factors that bettors should consider when determining which bet is better. Here’s how you can decide between betting on a team or betting on a game total.

FROM OUR PARTNERS: SPORTS BETTING – COMMON FALSE ASSUMPTIONS

Betting Sides – the Moneyline

Bettors must concentrate on which team will win when betting on the moneyline. They must pick one side or the other. The outcome of the game is the main concern.

This might seem pretty obvious, but when betting on the moneyline it is the only concern. You pick one team to win. That’s it. There is no concern about the final score, the margin of victory, or how many total points a team scored.

That said, there are only a handful of outcomes possible. In some sports, a tie or draw isn’t possible. In the NBA, NHL, and MLB, some form of overtime or extra period is played until there is a winner. Betting MLB totals is impacted by these extra innings.

College football and basketball are the same. In the NFL, it is possible for a game to end in a tie, though it is extremely rare. Soccer matches have the highest likelihood of ending in a draw.

Unless you are betting a three-way moneyline, you are betting on one side to win and the other to lose. That is one way of betting sides.

Betting Sides – Point Spread

Bettors can also wager on sides via the point spread. With a point spread bet, a bettor is choosing a side. In this case though, the bettor is choosing a side to cover a point spread, not necessarily win the game or match.

Take an NBA game as an example. We can bet on the Celtics to win on the moneyline at -125. If we bet $10 on Boston to win and they do, we win $8. Now, we can also bet on Boston to cover the point spread.

With a quality online betting portal, you check the latest odds and lines. You find that Boston is favored to win by 3.5 points. The odds are -110. Once again, we wager $10 on the Celtics, but in this case we not only need Boston to win, we need them to win by at least four points. If the final score is Boston 113, Philadelphia 108; the Celtics have covered and our bet pays out $9.09.

Betting on the point spread is simply another way to choose a side. When betting on an underdog, bettors don’t need the team to win. In the Boston-Philadelphia example, we could bet on the Sixers +3.5. If Philly loses 113-110, they have covered the spread and we win.

Keep in mind that oddsmakers develop their lines and odds knowing that the betting public affects betting strategy. Oddsmakers know that casual bettors love favorites. That leaves many opportunities for smart bettors to get in on strong underdogs and reap the benefits.

Whether betting sides or betting totals, the key is always to find the value before placing a bet.

Betting Totals

Sometimes, it’s too hard to find value in betting a side. That’s okay because you can always bet on a game total. When betting totals, winners don’t matter. In our game between the Celtics and Sixers above, we can bet on the total and it doesn’t matter which team wins the game.

While NBA totals are popular bets, totals are also one of the top football betting markets to target. Let’s stick with the NBA and say oddsmakers set the game total at 223.5. They often set totals in increments of 0.5 in order to avoid a push. In the example where Philadelphia loses 113-110, the total has gone Under the set game total.

Typically, odds on either side of a totals bet are -110. Oddsmakers can shift those odds to ensure they get an even amount of action on both sides of a bet. In many cases though, odds when betting totals are -110.If you had bet on the Under in the example above, a $10 bet would have paid out $9.09.

Advantages of Betting Totals

One of the big advantages of betting totals is that you can be wrong but still win the bet. For example, you could be wrong on which team wins, but that doesn’t matter. You can also be way off on a projection of a point total. You might have predicted the Celtics and Sixers would combine for 218 points. You were off by five, but still won the bet.

In a game between two of the higher -scoring teams in the league, bettors might predict that one team is due to have an outstanding offensive display. In our example, maybe that Philadelphia. As it turned out, the Sixers were a little off, but the Celtics poured it on. You were wrong on both teams, but still won the bet.

One thing to keep in mind when betting totals is that the public loves Overs. Casual bettors will favor offense in all sports. They like to see scoring, so they tend to bet on the Over. Too many bettors forget this, especially when betting the NBA playoffs.

Sportsbooks know this and build that into their lines and odds. Smart bettors know this and adjust accordingly.