What is an underdog in sports betting? How to bet the underdog

An underdog is a team not expected to win a match. Oddsmakers give them a lesser chance of winning the game.

An underdog is the opposite of a favorite. They’re the team more likely to lose based on their odds. Underdog stories always capture the hearts of sports bettors, and they happen every March with the NCAA Tournament. Underdogs don’t have to win outright to be profitable, and they can also turn a profit if they’re able to ‘cover’ the point spread. Every game will have both a favorite and an underdog, and the underdog will usually be the team with the worst record or the one that’s perceived as being worse. Other factors can change that, such as injuries or home-field advantage.

Identifying the underdog in any contest is easy. The underdog will have a ‘+’ plus-sign next to their odds, while the favorite will have a ‘-’ minus-sign. That’s true for both the money line and the spread. If an NFL team is an underdog of 6.5 points on the spread and 2/1 on the money line, their odds will look like ‘+6.5′ and ‘+200′. That’s for American odds. There are two other ways that odds will be displayed, fractional and decimal. Fractional odds will display what the underdog is over one. If it’s 3/1, that means the underdog will pay out three times the initial bet. So if you bet $100 on an underdog that’s 3/1 or +300, (or 4.00 in decimal format), you’d win $300. The underdog will always have a better payout than the favorite.

When betting on an underdog you’ve got multiple options. You can bet an underdog on the money line, where you’re banking on them to win outright, or on the spread, where you’re just banking on them keeping the game within a certain score margin.

If you bet an underdog on the money line, the team you’re betting on will need to win the game for your bet to cash. Money line underdogs can be appealing because of their potential for big payouts. Unlike on the spread where you’re likely getting -110 odds, an underdog on the money line will always have plus money. The size of underdogs varies widely. You can bet a slight underdog at +120, or back a team with odds longer than 10/1 depending on the sport. It’s riskier than betting underdogs on the point spread, but the pay out is higher too.

Conversely, the point spread has its own pros and cons. If you bet an underdog on the point spread they don’t need to win the game outright. They just need to cover the spread, and you will make money. At the same time, if you’re betting an underdog on the point spread, you’ll likely lay a -110 line, as you would with a favorite. Point spreads are common in football and basketball, and you’ll often see spreads ranging from +1 to +21. If the Atlanta Falcons are +3 against the New Orleans Saints, the Falcons have to lose by fewer than six or win the game to cash your bet. If they lose by exactly three points, your bet will push, and you’ll get your money back.

Betting on an underdog in baseball is different from football or basketball because those sports tend to have more points, which leads to a variety of spreads. In baseball, the typical spread for an underdog is +1.5 and called the run line. You very rarely see run lines greater than +1.5, but it is possible. Betting on an underdog’s run line means they have to lose by one or win the game to win your bet.

Betting on an underdog in hockey is similar to betting on a team’s run line in baseball. When an underdog’s spread is +1.5 in hockey, it is called the puck line. The puck line for most hockey games is +1.5 (like baseball), and the underdog will need to win or lose by goal to cover the puck line.

It’s not a simple yes or no answer on whether you should bet on an underdog or not. Underdogs will likely win less than 50 percent of the time, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be profitable. Recreational bettors often gravitate toward favorites, which can sometimes create value on the underdogs by inflating the lines. For example, underdogs cashed at an impressive 55.5 percent rate against the spread in the NFL for the 2020 season. That’s not necessarily something that will repeat itself in 2021, and you should wager on the underdog if you think a team is being undervalued by the market.

Betting underdogs is all about finding the right spots, which is true for both the money line and point spread. The key to betting underdogs is finding teams that are better than perceived by the general public. One way to pick good underdogs is to find teams that might have bad records that are misleading. If an NFL team is 4-9 overall but dealt with multiple injuries and had some other bad luck early in the season, they can be a great team to ride as an underdog down the stretch. A home underdog in a nationally televised game can also often be appealing since you know that team will come out with a chip on their shoulder and want to play well under the bright lights for their home crowd.

Betting an underdog in a big rivalry game can also often make sense because those matches will frequently be hard-fought and decided by a narrow margin. Betting underdogs, especially on the money line, will require discipline. If you’re betting money line underdogs you’re going to lose more often than not, and you need to prepare for that. That means practicing things like sound bankroll management to prepare for the cold spells that inevitably come. In the end, find reasons that an underdog might be better than the current narrative says they are, and you’ll be well on your way.

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