Tipsters judge how well a baseball team is doing compared to the number by what is called the “money line.” This is in contrast to point scatter sports like football and basketball which use what are called “units”. Money line bets are present in basketball and football, but most players prefer to use what they call the point spread. It is through point spread that most sportsbooks match the game. Either team is expected to have roughly equal chances of winning the bet.
With the money line, you bet on whether or not one team will win. This is because a -110 point differential doesn’t exist in baseball because the scores are so low. With the money line comes many complexities that the average player is not aware of.
If you analyze a game, laymen would look at a team, say the Yankees, and think they are sure to win. And then when he or she places a bet, he or she will look at the odds and not understand what they mean. The Yankees may be a good team to bet at -150 but a good team to bet against at -210.
You may wonder how the same team can be a good bet at one spread and a bad bet at another spread. Well, the same goes for basketball. If a team was favored by only 2 points, they may be very eligible to bet on it. But if the same team was a 10-point favorite, it would be better to avoid them.
With the money line, it’s all about probability. The layman does not have the ability to calculate the probability that a team has to win.