College football is just around the corner. This is the time of year when a sports fan’s dreams come true. Soon after, we’ll see the start of the NFL season, as well as the baseball playoffs, and eventually the start of basketball and hockey. Many sports fans also enjoy betting on the games. It just makes a particular sporting event that much more exciting. This is a short article explaining the point spread aspect of betting. We’ll use a college football throw as our example.
A point spread is simply the point difference between the winner’s score and the loser’s score. The goal of the handicap (the person who sets the default point spread) is to receive an equal amount of bets for each side of a bet. Professional handicappers are extremely adept at determining spreads and take much more into account than the ability of the two teams. Spreads are often given in fractions of a half point to avoid ties, known in the industry as momentum. A nudge results in no action being taken, no money being won or lost for the specific bet.
For our point spread betting example, we’ll take a college football spread from last season. In the Rose Bowl, the USC Trojans faced the Penn State Nittany Lions. The default point spread was listed as -9.5 in favor of the Trojans. This means that USC had to win by 10 points or more to cover the difference. If Penn State were to lose by even 9 points, this would still be a win in the eyes of the bettors. The final score of the football game was 38-24 in favor of the Trojans. Therefore, with a 14-point victory, they won the game and covered the difference.
Hopefully now you understand how to bet on a college football spread. This information should help you when betting on any other sport.