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For the serious sports bettor looking to take his/ her sports betting approach to the next level, it is crucial to get a good grasp of concepts like Vegas odds and sports lines. Whether you are playing for profit or just for the fun of it, understanding sports lines and odds is the first logical prerequisite to making informed sports bets, and can help you pinpoint and fructify the best wager value in the market.

To make the most of your sports betting ventures and to come up with a greater number of sports picks that win, follow the instructions shown below.

Step 1 – Learn to discern between the different types of sports lines. Most online sportsbooks let customers decide whether to have their lines shown in an “American Standard” or “Money Line” format. The “American Standard” sports line uses the “+” or “-” signs, depending on the case, and is generally easier to read and decipher than the “Money Line”. Although they are less common, two other variants you will likely stumble across in your sports betting endeavors are fractional odds and decimal odds.

• Fractional Odds – More often than not, fractional odds are attached to racing events. With this kind of sports odds, a 10/1 payout indicates a $10 earning for every $1 wagered. When situated to the left, the bigger number generally denotes the underdog in the race. However, there are instances where the placement of the bigger number is unimportant, and all that matters is the ratio per se (e.g. future bets that require predicting the winner of the Super Bowl in the NFL).

• Decimal Odds – Largely used in Europe, decimal odds can be confusing for US bettors, so they are best avoided if possible. For the sake of simplicity, you should stick by sports betting options displayed in the “American Standard”, “Money Line” or “Fractional Odds” formats.

Step 2 – Determine the favorite. As a rule, all sports lines with a “-” sign before the number next to a team’s name indicate the favorite, while all lines with a “+” sign indicate the underdog in the match. To make things easier to understand and convert, whenever you see a negative sign, consider reading that line in relation with 100 first. For instance, a line of -200 means that for every $200 you wager, in the event of a win you get to collect $100. When the sports line is expressed using the + sign (which indicates the underdog), all you have to do is reverse the reading; taking the same example above as reference and provided that this time it is the underdog that wins, for every $100 you wager you get to collect $200.

To improve your success rates over time, it is important to learn not to bet game favorites excessively. Although sometimes you may encounter very enticing Vegas odds for betting the favorite to win (-300 or even higher than that), this provides no actual guarantees that the favorite will emerge victorious in the match. No matter how certain you may feel about the outcome of a particular game, surprises do happen occasionally, and when they do, they can prove very costly. Having said that, back your sports picks with proper knowledge and try not to follow public sports lines blindly.