If you believe in the saying 'time is money' then watching a three-hour football game only to get your money back is one of the most frustrating things to do. However, depending on how that result came to be, a push could be a positive result if your team pulled off the back-door cover.
Rules for Point Spread Betting When placing a spread bet, the odds you take at that time are the odds that are used to determine your payout. Point spreads are either whole numbers, or they can. Rules Respecting Lottery This Web site is for the use of adults in the Province of Ontario, Canada. Lottery and charitable gaming products are only available to those persons 18 years of age and over, while. With the point spread, you're making a fixed odds wager on a game. In this type of wager, the favorite is effectively deducted points (or goals in the case of soccer) and the underdog is awarded points. That taken care of, we can now continue with hockey point spread betting, which by definition, a point spread is the scoring difference between the game's two opponents (the two teams).
What Does Push Mean?
When you hear someone use the term 'push' they are referring to the result of game or event that ends right on the listed point spread or finishes in a draw. Pushes are the most common in sports that use the point spread like basketball and football. However, a push can also happen when betting on certain run lines in baseball or spreads in soccer.
Point Spread Betting Example
How Does a Push Work?
A push isn't the worse thing in the world since you get your money back if your game happens to land right on the listed point spread. The most frustrating thing about a push is the time spending watching the game only to break even. Fortunately for bettors, sportsbooks don't penalise you for making a bet that 'pushes', so you do receive all of your wager back.
Let's use an NCAA basketball game as the first example. If your looking over the card and decide to bet the Baylor Bears -2 over the Oklahoma Sooners, this means that in order for you to cash your ticket, the Bears would need to win by three or more points. A 52-49 win would be just as good as a 90-87 win. If the Bears won by a mere two points (90-88, 52-50, etc.), your bet would be a push and you would receive your money back. If you like the underdog Sooners, a two-point loss would result in a push as well.
The second example comes in the form of a parlay. Obviously if you bet more than one game with a listed spread as a whole number, the chances of more than one game pushing are high. This is where you need to be careful and do your due diligence to understand how sportsbooks treat 'pushes' on a parlay.
Some books simple reduces the number of teams in a parlay when there is a push – say you have a four-team parlay and one game pushes, your parlay simply becomes a three-team parlay that's still in play. Other sportsbooks will treat that entire parlay as a loss.
Knowing how sportsbooks operate and understanding their unique set of rules is crucial to avoiding costly and unexpected losses.
How to Avoid a Push
One way to avoid the possibility of a push is to bet lines with a hook. A hook is the extra half point sportsbooks add to ensure there is a winner and a loser on both sides (also to attract balanced action). Another way to avoid a 'push' is to move the line buy buying a half point up or down depending on which side you are backing. In football, moving a line from -3 to -2.5 has the ability to win you more money over time should the favorite actually win the game. The best times to move the line in football to avoid the push is when the point spread is -3, -4 or -7. These are the three most common margins of victory so getting a half point either way will turn your pushes into potential wins.
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Understanding the different types of betting options is crucial when you're getting a start as a first-time sports bettor.
The Point Spread: Betting the spread
For those new to sports betting, the point spread is the simplest, most straightforward approach to placing wagers.
Sports books set a predetermined margin of points on a game and a team must win – or not lose – by that set number. That's why you'll often hear people say the team won, but they 'didn't cover the spread' so their bet still came up short.
It's not a matter of a team winning or losing like in a moneyline bet.
What Is The Spread In Betting
For a favorite: The favorite must win by more than the point spread.For an underdog: The underdog must outright win OR lose by fewer than the point spread.Sports books aren't in the business of predicting who will win or lose games. Their goal is setting a pre-game point spread with the intention to generate an equal amount of betting action/volume on both sides of the ledger – as much total money being bet on the favorite as on the underdog.
The vast majority of point spread wagers are made on football and basketball because of the proliferation of points that are scored in comparison to sports like baseball and hockey, where 1-0 or 2-1 games aren't that out of the question or out of the norm. There's one every night.
For example, the New England Patriots are playing the New York Jets and New England is a 9½-point favorite. Bettors typically have to spend $110 or so to win $100 with sports books, known as 'the house edge/advantage.' With a point spread bet, simply having a team win the game isn't the key. The critical factor to betting a point spread is how much a team wins or loses by. If a wager is placed on New England – 'laying' the 9½ points – the Patriots need to win the game by 10 or more points for that bet to pay off. If New England wins 28-20, those betting on the Jets plus 9½ points (points added to their final total) win the bet.
The same general rules apply for basketball and are quite easy to follow because of the inherent simplicity of the bet. When it comes to betting sports like baseball and hockey, the standard bets are made on the 'money line' – an established number for both teams to win the game outright.
What makes point spread bets attractive are the fluid nature of each game – it's a reality show that, when done right, is inexplicable. Games change on one play and momentum is a thing. But, when it comes to point spread betting, you know where you stand at every moment.
How To Bet On A Point Spread
For those just starting out, the simplest form of gambling is betting the spread because it's the easiest to explain and understand, which explains why it is the most popular form of sports wagering.
