Money Line Bet: What It Means and How It Works

What Is a Money Line Bet?

Money line bets are wagers placed on a game’s outcome. In essence, they are bets on which team or competitor will win any given match.

As the wager is on who will win, usually with two teams or competitors, money line bets have only a couple of possible outcomes. Either the team selected will win, in which case the bettor will receive a payout on the odds, or the team will lose, in which case the bettor chose unsuccessfully. Some events, such as fights, may have a third possible bet option: a draw. 

Along with the point spread and the over/under, the money line is one of the more traditional available betting options and is considered one of the more basic forms of betting. There are also more complicated teaser bets which are a type of parlay where the bettor can change the point spread.

Understanding Money Lines

The “money line,” in betting terminology, refers to the integers that show the payoffs for betting on a game. Bookmakers separate teams into favorites and underdogs. There’s a negative integer for the team considered more likely to win (the favorite) and a positive integer for the one considered more likely to lose (the underdog).

If, for example, a football game had a money line of Team A (+150) and Team B (-170), then the bettor immediately knows a couple of things: Team B is expected to win, and a bet on it will also pay out less, because it is favored.

The numbers next to the teams, such as +150 and -170 in the example above, represent the money line payouts, and they’re connected to the calculated odds. The negative number shows how much has to be risked to win a $100 payout. Thus, if the money line for the team that you picked was -400, it means that if you placed a successful $400 bet, you would gain $100 on payout. This means that the bettor would have risked $400 and ultimately gained $100. The positive number shows how much would be gained on a successful $100 bet. A +300 money line, for instance, would mean that if you place a successful bet of $100, you would win $300.

With the rise of online gambling, the industry is becoming more profitable, more permissible, and more popular, advocates say. Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia have legalized sports betting since the U.S. Supreme Court threw out a federal ban on it in 2018. Prior to that, it was already legal in Nevada, which had been exempted from the law due to the legacy of legal gambling in that state.

According to the gambling advocacy nonprofit American Gaming Association, recent data suggests that a majority of Americans see gambling as acceptable entertainment, with many also suggesting that it has an overall positive impact, especially economically. Others worry that gambling addiction and “problem gaming” are becoming more common. Despite this, projections show that gambling, especially online, will continue to grow. And money line bets are considered a comparatively easy way for newbies to bet. 

Money Line Bets vs. Point Spread Bets

A point spread bet considers not only which team wins but also how much. In this sort of bet, the favorite has to win by a set amount of points or more. The underdog team, in comparison, doesn’t have to win; it only has to lose by less than the spread. To manage risk, bookmakers use point spreads to evenly distribute bettors on both sides of a bet.

Money lines and point spreads use the same information when they’re calculated, and both of their payouts are tied to the odds of a team winning or losing. In fact, both try to account for the relative strength of each team. However, they do this in different ways. Money lines change the amount charged for bets on a team, while point spreads change the team scores that would count as a win. The information in money line markets may be more precise than that in point spread markets, according to some financial studies.

The Bottom Line

Money line bets, one of the simplest kinds of bets to place, allow bettors to select who they think the winner will be of a competition. How much any particular bet would win will depend on the odds of the team or competitor winning, which is represented by numbers next to the name.