Bet on Major League Baseball

Baseball is very different from the majority of athletic activities, and we use the word “athletic” very loosely. There is a lot of running back and forth in most sports. A lot of jumping and many other things happening. Baseball, on the other hand, mostly consists of standing around not doing much of anything. Accordingly, MLB betting is also quite different than betting on other sports. Hence, it would be a good idea to start with a baseball bet that is actually the same across most, if not all sports. And that’s the moneyline.

• Boston Red Sox -200
• Chicago White Sox +170

This familiar territory for even the most casual bettor. Two teams play one another. One is favored to win. The other is expected to lose. It may go without saying, but the favorite doesn’t always win and the underdog doesn’t always lose. However, that’s not enough to convince bettors to bet on the latter. That’s why online sportsbooks like CashBet strive to make the underdog more attractive. In the example above, the White Sox are likely to lose to the Red Sox. Chicago’s allure is that they would pay, should they upset Boston, $170 for every $100 you bet on them. Meanwhile, the Red Sox are a surer bet, but you would have to bet $200 on them in order to win $100. Now that we have established how the moneyline works, let’s move on to the run line.

• San Francisco Giants -1.5
• Los Angeles Dodgers +1.5

This is what a run line looks like. Actually, this is what the run line looks like. The baseball run line is, with a few exceptions, always going to be 1.5 runs. Some online sportsbooks do offer you to bet lines of 2.5 or sometimes even 3.5 runs. The bottom line is that this is baseball’s equivalent of a point spread, and works very similar to the puck line in hockey and the goal line in soccer. As with the moneyline, there is a favorite and an underdog. The Giants and the Dodgers respectively in the preceding example. If you bet on the Giants, they must win by at least two or more runs. If you bet on the Dodgers, they must win outright by any number of runs or lose by fewer than two runs.

The run line is 1.5 because baseball games tend to be low-scoring. They also tend to be extremely long. No one would blame you if you didn’t last the full nine innings. Fortunately, betting websites like CashBet offer betting on the top half of the game. That is, the first five innings. This is just like a moneyline wager but you’re only betting on the first five innings. This means that you only need to handicap the starting pitchers and look into their performance for five innings. This sort of bet is less risky because you don’t have to worry about the entire pitching staff. You need concern yourself only with the starters.

Totals

The total refers to the number of combine runs scored by both teams in a single baseball game. An example of a total is 7.5 runs. You would bet on the over if you think eight or more runs will be scored in the game. You would bet on the under if you think that seven or fewer runs are going to be scored. Stadiums play a big role in how totals are determined. For instance, in a ballpark like Wrigley Field in Chicago, wind will probably be a very important factor. As is the Green Monster in Fenway Park, which favors right-handed batters.

Futures

Like the games that compose it, an MLB season is almost interminably long. Notwithstanding that, you can bet on division champions and the World Series winner before the season even begins. You can also place wagers on who will win the Cy Young Award as well as on team win totals.

Prop bets

These bets allow the bettor to wager on very specific occurrences, in particular during the postseason. Prop bets revolve around a particular player or team achievements that may or may not directly influence the result of the game. Examples include how many RBIs will a certain player have, how many bases will a given player steal, how many home runs will this player hit, and how many strikeouts will that pitcher have.