When you're betting on football or basketball, you have two different types of bets you can make on a team you want to bet on. You can back them on the moneyline, or on the spread. Spread betting is far more popular in those other two sports, while baseball moneyline betting is the way that things work in baseball more often than not. However, the run line is where things can get awfully tricky, as it is the MLB's version of "the spread."
Though a spread in football could be any number in the world, the number is always -1.5 for favorites and +1.5 for underdogs. Though you might think it is a slam dunk for your team to win a game by more than one run, don't be so certain. Approximately 30 percent of all games are decided by one run! Even if you want to say that half the time, it is the favorite that wins by one run (which we know isn't really the case because the favorites will win more often than the underdogs), that's still 15 percent of your bets that will be wiped away with a one run win for your team.
Let's do some quick math on this. Take a game where the home team is -150. You'd need to win this game 60 percent of the time to break even. It's only 45 percent of the time, at best that the team would win by more than one run. So even though you might be getting +120 on the run line as opposed to that -150 on the moneyline, you have to remember the percentages!
One final tip: Remember that home teams, who are favored quite often over road teams, would only get eight at bats instead of nine to win by more than one run. The +1.5 option is one of the most underused aspects of MLB betting and sports betting as a whole.
Keep these tips in mind, and you'll be cashing in on MLB run lines in a heartbeat!
