Baseball betting odds may not be as popular as football or basketball odds, but professional gamblers sure do like them.Gamblers that look at baseball odds are far more informed than some of the gamblers that look at NFL or NBA betting odds. What makes baseball odds so appealing?
Baseball odds are based primarily on money lines that have gamblers laying odds on the favorite or taking baseball betting odds on the underdog. There is also something called the “run line” in baseball odds, which is gaining in popularity, as it serves as sort of a hybrid between the money line and a pure pointspread. Normally a gambler can take the favorite at a reduced rate and lay the 1.5 runs or take the dog at reduced baseball betting odds but gain +1.5 runs. Along with these baseball odds there are over/under totals posted on all of the games.
One of the first basics for a gambler to know in looking at baseball odds is that overlays are to be avoided at all costs, particularly with heavy favorites of over two-dollars plus. Normally in games in which the favorite is two-dollars or more, the baseball odds maker will increase the spread to a twenty, thirty, or even up to a forty cent spread whereas the normal range is a dime. For example, in a baseball betting odds pick’em matchup a gambler can take either team at minus one-dollar-five cents, (a ten-cent line), or at worse, minus one-dollar ten cents, (a twenty-cent line). But as the baseball betting odds go higher and higher, so does that spread between the chalk and the dog. When you hear gamblers complaining about twenty, thirty, and forty cent lines, this is what they are talking about in baseball odds.
The sportsbooks create thirty or forty cent lines on games in order to try and scare off action on either side, as they really don’t want a lot of action on baseball odds in games involving mismatches as they tend to get overloaded with action on the favorite. Therefore, they charge premium baseball odds to all gamblers looking to play those games. A gambler should really try and avoid these overlay situations and look for better values on the baseball odds board.