One of the most popular football bets at the sportsbooks is without a doubt the over/under and today we will talk about this very easy to place wager. Whether you bet at the online sportsbooks or the Vegas ones, the over and under odds will be popping up quite frequently across the board. If you are just beginning with sports betting, you may have a few questions about this type of bet, which is quite easy to grasp, relative to some of the more complex betting schemes, such as the teaser bet, for example.
Over/Under Explained
As the name of the bet suggest, you would place a bet on whether an event outcome would be “over” or “under” the one suggested by the sportsbook. The most common example of over-under bet is on the football total score. In this example, the sportsbook will post a predicted total score of an NFL game, that is the added final scores of both teams, and you will have to decide if the actual score will be “over” or “under” the one predicted by the sportsbook. As you can see – it’s rather easy bet to place. Let’s throw in a made-up example to help drive the point home:
Let’s say the Lions and the Packers are playing and your preferred sportsbook has posted a total for that game at 60 points. At this time you must decide whether the final score of the Lions, plus the final score of the Packers will total over or under the 60 points posted by the sportsbook. If the game finishes 28 to 35, that would make the total 28+35=63, in which case those who have wagered “over” will win their bets and those who have wagered under will lose. Nothing really complicated about the over/under bet. Of course, some of you may be asking at this point – what if the total of the game actually matches exactly the total posted by the sportsbook, there would be no over or under in that case? Well, if this happens, the bet will simply be graded as “push” which means that you get back your original stake and nothing more (or less), i.e. the sportsbook gives you back the money you initially wagered on the over/under bet.
Naturally, the over and under is not only used for football
scores, it could literally be used for any sport in countless fashions.
For example, it could be used to place an over-under bet on the total of
the first half of a basketball game, the number of games in a tennis
set, how many rounds a boxing match will go, etc. The possibilities are
near endless, but the basic premise of betting on whether something will
be over or under the prediction of the sportsbook remains.
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