With NFL and CFB around the corner I wanted to touch on playing the point spread vs. the moneyline.  I only believe in playing the moneyline day in and day out in two sports: Hockey and Baseball, where moneyline dogs cash daily, which in turn increases your return on investment (ROI).  There for some reason there seems to be a trend to play the moneyline in sports like NFL, CFB, NBA and CBB.  In sportsbetting, it’s important to get the greatest return on your money and in no way do I believe in laying my money on a -400 favorite day in and day out in a spread sport (NFL, CFB, NBA, CBB).  I am going to break it down right here for you:

Moneyline:

Just pick the winning team, seems easy enough, yet underdogs upset everyday.  Is it smart to bet high juice favorites on the moneyline?  Personally I don’t believe in wagering this way, I look for opportunities to get the most return on my investment and betting these high juice favorites is not my style.  For some, eliminating the spread is the way to go and the way to ease the stress of that one free throw away from a cover.  If you are inclined to risk a lot in high juiced fav’s here what you need to know:

Giving you an example betting high juiced favs as opposed to underdogs:

Let’s use -200 with a take back of +170 and let’s go with the $100 bettor to make this easy

Assume you play two games a day at -200 for a NBA season which is 200 days so you have made 400 wagers.  Let’s assume you win 65% of those bets which is a very unlikely scenario considering there are currently only 5 out of 30 teams with win percentages over 65%.  Just an example so let’s keep assuming:

260-140 (65%)

260 x $100 = $26 000

140 x -$200 = $28 000

There fore you had $26 000 in winners and $28 000 in losers for a loss of $2000

Keeping the same numbers say you played underdogs, but could only manage winning 40% of those games

160-240 (40%)

160 x $170 = 27 200

240 x $100 = 24 000

There fore you have a small of profit of $3 200

The greater juice that is laid the more difficult it is to show a profit.  Moneyline dogs win everyday especially in the NHL and MLB.  I don’t believe in laying consistent juice and here’s a table to show you the break even percentage you need to achieve in order to show a profit betting moneyline fav’s/underdogs.  No need to go higher than -320, you get the picture:
Moneyline
Loss
Win %
Required
-320 -320 100 76.19%
-300 -300 100 75.00%
-280 -280 100 73.68%
-270 -270 100 72.97%
-260 -260 100 72.22%
-250 -250 100 71.43%
-240 -240 100 70.59%
-230 -230 100 69.70%
-220 -220 100 68.75%
-210 -210 100 67.74%
-200 -200 100 66.67%
-180 -180 100 64.29%
-170 -170 100 62.96%
-160 -160 100 61.54%
-150 -150 100 60.00%
-140 -140 100 58.33%
-130 -130 100 56.52%
-120 -120 100 54.55%
-110 -110 100 52.38%
-105 -105 100 51.22%
-100 -100 100 50.00%
105 -100 105 48.78%
110 -100 110 47.62%
120 -100 120 45.45%
130 -100 130 43.48%
140 -100 140 41.67%
150 -100 150 40.00%
160 -100 160 38.46%
170 -100 170 37.04%
180 -100 180 35.71%
200 -100 200 33.33%
210 -100 210 32.26%
220 -100 220 31.25%
230 -100 230 30.30%
240 -100 240 29.41%
250 -100 250 28.57%
260 -100 260 27.78%
270 -100 270 27.03%
280 -100 280 26.32%
290 -100 290 25.64%
300 -100 300 25.00%
 So, if you’ve been laying juice it’s time to break that habit. When you play underdogs, you don’t need to hit a high percentage to show a profit and even if you have a bad year, the losses will be limited.   A bad year laying juice will destroy your bankroll and until you change your habit, the same results will happen, so STOP LAYING CHALK.