FanDuel is proud to partner with The Gist, a female-driven company that's shaking up the male-dominated sports industry by providing accessible, fan-first sports content.
If you're thinking about getting into sports betting but don't know where to start, below are some basic terms and definitions that The Gist and FanDuel have put together to help you get in on the action!
ODDS
The most important part of sports betting is the odds, because that's how you determine how much money you can win on a bet. Cha-ching.
American odds — the format you'll see most often on North American sports betting sites — begin with either a minus sign (-) or a plus sign (+).
Odds are the measure of how much you can win per $100 wager. The - and + next to the odds are used to show the potential payout and whether the wager is more or less likely to win.
The "-" wagers have a higher chance of paying out and the "+" wagers a lower chance.
The "-" odds show how much you'd need to bet to win $100. For example, if you see the odds are -120, that means if you wager $120, your potential profit is $100 (plus your original stake).
The "+" odds show the amount of money you'd win if you bet $100. For example, if you see the odds are +120, that means if you wager $100, your potential profit is $120.
TLDR; The less likely an outcome, the higher the odds, and the more a bet will pay. Bet less than $100? No sweat. Your winnings will be calculated as a ratio of those $100 odds.
Moneyline
A moneyline bet, the most basic bet in sports betting, is simply picking the winner of a game.
For example: You bet on the Toronto Maple Leafs moneyline; if they win, you win! If they lose, well… you get the picture.
UNDERDOG/FAVORITE
Our brains have been trained to think of "minus" as negative and "plus" as positive, but in sports betting it's flipped! A plus sign (+) before a team's odds indicates they're the underdog, while a minus sign (-) indicates they're the favorite.
Pro tip: Think of it like a bet on the underdog has the chance to win you more money (ie. plus money).
SPREAD
When you bet the spread, you're betting on the team's margin of victory or defeat. So, if you bet on the favorite ("-"), they have to win by more than the number shown. If you bet on the underdog ("+"), they have to win outright or lose by less than the number shown.
We'll set the scene with an NFL football example:
The surging Tampa Bay Buccaneers are playing the struggling Dallas Cowboys. The moneyline is set at "Buccaneers -320" meaning the Bucs are heavy favorites and you'd have to bet a whopping $320 just to win $100.
Alternatively, you can bet the spread. It's set at "Bucs -7 (-110) / Cowboys +7 (-110)." So if you were to bet on the Bucs, they would have to win by more than 7 points for your bet to also win. But a bet of just $110 would net you $100 in winnings. High risk, high reward.
PUSH
A push is kind of like a draw or tie, and occurs when a bet neither wins nor loses. For example, if a game happens to end in a tie and you bet on the moneyline (aka bet on a certain team to win), the bet becomes a push and you get your money back — no losses, no gains.
If you've ever seen a betting option with a .5 (like will a quarterback throw more than 2.5 touchdowns), this doesn't mean half of a touchdown, this is so a sportsbook can eliminate the possibility of a push. Two touchdowns is less, three touchdowns is more — meaning this bet either wins or loses.
COVER
It's not just what you pay to get into your favorite bar. In sports betting, this relates specifically to point spreads. When a team "covers," it means they have beaten the point spread attached to the bet.
So if the Green Bay Packers were favored by 4 (that would read as Packers -4) and won by 5, they covered the spread and turned a profit for those who bet on the spread
Parlay
Think of a parlay like a layered bet. A parlay combines two or more bets to greatly increase your possible payout but…it greatly decreases the chance of actually winning.
Let's say you want to bet on the Maple Leafs to win (-225) and the total score of the match to be more than 6 goals (-118). For this parlay to be successful, each of the individual legs (or selections) must win.
You can also parlay bets across sports (a Maple Leafs and the NBA's Toronto Raptors bet, perhaps?).
Prop BET
Put simply, a prop bet is any wager not tied directly to the outcome of the game. With FanDuel, you can bet on both player props and game props.
Player props are tied to an individual player's performance in an event.
Example: Player totals: A set number for points/assists/shots on goal, etc. and you can bet the over or under, e.g. "Auston Matthews of the Maple Leafs will score over 1.5 goals."
Game props are tied to another specific aspect of the game (other than player performance).
Example: Will the game go to overtime? Will the team that scores first win? Is the total score going to be an odd or even number?
