Spread betting is any of various types of gambling on the outcome of an event where the pay-off is based on the accuracy of the wager, rather than a simple "win or lose" outcome, such as fixed-odds (or money-line) betting or parimutuel betting.
A point spread is a range of outcomes and the bet is whether the outcome will be above or below the spread. , spread betting was a major growth market in the UK, with the number of gamblers heading towards one million. Financial spread betting (see below) can carry a high level of risk if there is no "stop". In the UK, financial spread betting is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority rather than the Gambling Commission who regulate spread betting on sports.
Purpose The general purpose of spread betting is to create an active market for both sides of a binary wager, even if the outcome of an event may appear prima facie to be biased towards one side or the other. In sports, almost every contest has a favorite and an underdog, most obviously when a historically strong team is playing a weaker team. If the wager is simply "Will the favorite win?", more bets are likely to be made for the favorite, possibly to such an extent that there would be very few betters willing to take the underdog.
The point spread is essentially a handicap towards the underdog. The wager becomes "Will the favorite win by more than the point spread?" The point spread can be moved to any level to create an equal number of participants on each side of the wager. This allows a bookmaker to act as a market maker by accepting wagers on both sides of the spread. The bookmaker charges a commission, or vigorish, and acts as the counterparty for each participant. As long as the total amount wagered on each side is roughly equal, the bookmaker is unconcerned with the actual outcome; profits instead come from the commissions.
Because the spread is intended to create an equal number of wagers on either side, the implied probability is 50% for both sides of the wager. To profit, the bookmaker must pay one side (or both sides) less than this notional amount. In practice, spreads may be perceived as slightly favoring one side, and bookmakers often revise their odds to manage their event risk.
One important assumption is that to be credited with a win, either team only needs to win by the minimum of the rules of the game (i.e., 1 point), without regard to the margin of victory. This presumes that winning teams never unnecessarily extend a winning margin—and losing teams never uselessly narrow an inevitable loss. In other words, each team is only playing to win rather than to beat the point spread.
This assumption does not necessarily hold in all situations. For example, at the end of a season, the total points scored by a team can affect future events such as seeding of playoffs and positioning for the amateur draft; winning teams may "run up" the score, and losing teams may bench their starters in favor of developing less-experienced players for the future.
In virtually all sports, players and other on-field contributors are forbidden from being involved in sports betting and thus have no incentive to consider the point spread during play; any attempt to manipulate the outcome of a game for gambling purposes would be considered match fixing. The lack of tolerance for athletes and coaching staff engaging in this practice is so serious that the penalty is typically a lifetime banishment from the sport.
Spreads in sports wagering (U.S.) Spread betting was invented by Charles K. McNeil, a mathematics teacher from Connecticut who became a bookmaker in Chicago in the 1940s.Gambling Times: What are the Odds? In North America, the gambler usually wagers that the difference between the scores of two teams will be less than or greater than the value specified by the bookmaker, with even money for either option. An example: The bookmaker advertises a spread of 4 points in a certain game; If the gamblers bet on the "underdog", they are said to take the points and will win if the underdog's score plus the spread is greater than the favorite's score. The eventual score is Underdog 8, Favorite 10: 8 + 4 > 10, so the gambler wins; The eventual score is Underdog 8, Favorite 13: 8 + 4 < 13, so the gambler loses. If the gamblers bet on the "favorite", they give the points (sometimes called lay the points) and will win if the favorite's score minus the spread is greater than the underdog's score: The eventual score is Underdog 5, Favorite 10: 10 – 4 > 5, so the gambler wins; The eventual score is Underdog 8, Favorite 10: 10 – 4 < 8, so the gambler loses. Ties aka "Push" The eventual score is Underdog 9, Favorite 13: 9 + 4 = 13, so the gambler ties "pushes". The reverse is also the same; the gambler takes the favorite and it is 13 - 4 = 9
Spreads are frequently, though not always, specified in half-point fractions to eliminate the possibility of a tie, known as a push. In the event of a push, the game is considered no action, and no money is won or lost. However, this is not a desirable outcome for the sports book, as they are forced to refund every bet, and although both the book and its bettors will be even, if the cost of overhead is taken into account, the book has actually lost money by taking bets on the event. Sports books are generally permitted to state "ties win" or "ties lose" to avoid the necessity of refunding every bet.
Betting on sporting events has long been the most popular form of spread betting. Whilst most bets the casino offers to players have a built in house edge, betting on the spread offers an opportunity for the astute gambler. When a casino accepts a spread bet, it gives the player the odds of 10 to 11, or -110. That means that for every 11 dollars the player wagers, the player will win 10, slightly lower than an even money bet. If team A is playing team B, the casino is not concerned with who wins the game; they are only concerned with taking an equal amount of money of both sides. For example, if one player takes team A and the other takes team B and each wager $110 to win $100, it doesn't matter what team wins; the casino makes money. They take $100 of the $110 from the losing bet and pay the winner, keeping the extra $10 for themselves. This is the house edge. The goal of the casino is to set a line that encourages an equal amount of action on both sides, thereby guaranteeing a profit. This also explains how money can be made by the astute gambler. If casinos set lines to encourage an equal amount of money on both sides, it sets them based on the public perception of the team, not necessarily the real strength of the teams. Many things can affect public perception, which moves the line away from what the real line should be. This gap between the Vegas line, the real line, and differences between other sportsbooks betting lines and spreads is where value can be found.
A teaser is a bet that alters the spread in the gambler's favor by a predetermined margin – in American football the teaser margin is often six points. For example, if the line is 3.5 points and bettors want to place a teaser bet on the underdog, they take 9.5 points instead; a teaser bet on the favorite would mean that the gambler takes 2.5 points instead of having to give the 3.5. In return for the additional points, the payout if the gambler wins is less than even money, or the gambler must wager on more than one event and both events must win. In this way it is very similar to a parlay. At some establishments, the "reverse teaser" also exists, which alters the spread against the gambler, who gets paid at more than evens if the bet wins.
Sports spread betting In the United Kingdom, sports spread betting became popular in the late 1980s by offering an alternative form of sports wagering to traditional fixed odds, or fixed-risk, betting. With fixed odds betting, a gambler places a fixed-risk stake on stated fractional or decimal odds on the outcome of a sporting event that would give a known return for that outcome occurring or a known loss if that outcome doesn't occur (the initial stake). With sports spread betting, gamblers are instead betting on whether a specified outcome in a sports event will end up being above or below a 'spread' offered by a sports spread betting firm, with profits or losses determined by how much above or below the spread the outcome finishes at.
The spread on offer will refer to the betting firm's prediction on the range of a outcome for a particular occurrence in a sports event, e.g., the total number of goals to be scored in a football (US: soccer) match, the number of runs to be scored by a team in a cricket match or the number of lengths between the winner and second-placed finisher in a horse race.
The gambler can elect to 'buy' or 'sell' on the spread depending on whether they think the outcome will be higher than the top end of the spread on offer, or lower than the bottom end of the spread. The more right the gambler is then the more they will win, but the more wrong the byy are then the more they can lose.
The level of the gambler's profit or loss will be determined by the stake size selected for the bet, multiplied by the number of unit points above or below the gambler's bet level. This reflects the fundamental difference between sports spread betting and fixed odds sports betting in that both the level of winnings and level of losses are not fixed and can end up being many multiples of the original stake size selected.
For example, in a cricket match a sports spread betting firm may list the spread of a team's predicted runs at 340 – 350. The gambler can elect to 'buy' at 350 if they think the team will score more than 350 runs in total, or sell at 340 if they think the team will score less than 340. If the gambler elects to buy at 350 and the team scores 400 runs in total, the gambler will have won 50 unit points multiplied by their initial stake. But if the team only scores 300 runs then the gambler will have lost 50 unit points multiplied by their initial stake.
There is a difference between spreads in sports wagering in the U.S. and sports spread betting in the UK. In the U.S. betting on the spread is effectively still a fixed risk bet on a line offered by the bookmaker with a known return if the gambler correctly bets with either the underdog or the favourite on the line offered and a known loss if the gambler incorrectly bets on the line. In the UK betting above or below the spread does not have a known final profit or loss, with these figures determined by the number of unit points the level of the outcome ends up being either above or below the spread, multiplied by the stake chosen by the gambler.
For UK spread betting firms, any outcome that finishes in the middle of the spread will result in profits from both sides of the book as both buyers and sellers will have ended up making unit point losses. So in the example above, if the cricket team ended up scoring 345 runs both buyers at 350 and sellers at 340 would have ended up with losses of five unit points multiplied by their stake.
Bets on the total (over/under) In addition to the spread bet, a very common "side bet" on an event is the total (commonly called the over–under or O/U) bet. This is a bet on the total number of points scored by both teams. Suppose team A is playing team B and the total is set at 44.5 points. If the final score is team A 24, team B 17, the total is 41 and bettors who took the under will win. If the final score is team A 30, team B 31, the total is 61 and bettors who took the over will win. The total is popular because it allows gamblers to bet on their overall perception of the game (e.g., a high-scoring offensive show or a defensive battle) without needing to pick the actual winner.