Saturday, October 24, 2009

Point Spreads - An Explanation

By Simon M Skinner

Every sport that you are able to bet on will have a point spead system.

Inexperienced bettors who do not understand college football point spreads may not understand the system. Point spreads are of interest because sports analysts often refer to these although one must bear in mind that you are not legally allowed to bet in all areas of the US.

A knowledge of point spreads will increase your understanding of the sport and of the teams and this will also increase your chances of maximizing your betting wins.

If you understand sports betting in general then you will be able to grasp the concept of point spreads more easily. All major sports have some form of point spread. Point spreads change regularly as they are determinged on a game by game basis.

Let me give you an example, if the University of Oklahoma is playing the University of Texas then there will be a point spread associated with that game.

Any two sports teams are never equal in skills, playing ability and competition experience. One team will always have a chance of being winning the game and this difference is represented by a poiint spread.

In a game between OU and UT, then the spread is going to be lower because the teams are relatively close to each other in terms of skill and competition level.

Because it is often obvious that there is one team that is much better than another, there is the point spread. If you were allowed to simply bet on the better team, then 50% of the time all bettors will win. The point spread means that the team has to win the game by a certain number of points.

One final example would be if UT is favored, on the point spread by 8 over OU, then UT would have to win by 9 points. If UT wins by 8 then it is essentially a draw, also known as a push. You would neither lose nor win if they won by 8 points.

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