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Need a Basic Tutorial on Odds?
Ok, I've been hanging around this forum for a while and answering a lot of questions, but I'm more of a Poker gal than sports.
I'm in a casual office pool at work and I'm trying to fill out my NFL pick sheet so I tried to look up some odds on ESPN so that I'm making more than random guesses. However I just don't understand how to read the odds that are presented on most sites. Can someone knowledgable here explain how to read this:
Minnesota @ New Orleans
bodog.com SportsInteraction 5Dimes SBGGLOBAL
Open Current Current Current Current
51.5 O/U 48.5 O/U 48.0 O/U 48.0 O/U 48.0 O/U
-4.5 -6 -6 -5 -5
So, what do all those fancy numbers mean? I don't really care about point spreads. I just wanna know who's favored to win.
2 Answers
- pdqLv 71 decade agoFavorite Answer
What you are seeing is 5 different websites giving 5 different sets of odds.
Read it from left to right on each line.
bodog.com is offering 51.5 O/U with -4.5.
SportsInteraction is offering 48.5 O/U with -6
5Dimes is offereing 48.0 O/U with -6
Etc., etc., etc.
What do those numbers mean? the "51.5 O/U" is the "Over/Under" number. People can bet on the total number of points that will be scored that game. You could bet that the total will be "Over" 51 1/2 or you could bet it'll be "Under" that number of points.
The -4.5 is the spread. It is expected that New Orleans will WIN the game by more than 4.5 points. New Orleans is the favorite.
The only weird thing is that just based on what you listed, it's not clear at all which team is favored. Usually they will actually say, "New Orleans -4.5" or "New Orleans -6" or something like that. I happen to know that New Orleans is favored, but it's not clear just by what you typed.
Intertops currently has New Orleans as a -5 favorite.
In my pool at work, I picked Minnesota to win! (Going with my heart instead of my head!)
(By the way - I love your answers! Keep posting!)
