Betting Advice

Money Line Dogs are a must play

The old adage that you must hit 57% winners to show a profit in sports betting is a myth and a thing of the past. It used to be that way before the onset of online wagering and money lines in all sports but that is no longer the case. In fact, when wagering on sports, laying juice will be a detriment to your bankroll and sooner rather than later, you’ll go broke. It’s simply impossible to overcome the vig over an extended period of time and anyone that tells you anything different is misinformed. So let’s have a look at betting on money-line dogs as opposed to laying a juice. 

We’ll use a money line favorite of –140 as an example with a take-back of +130.

Let’s assume you’re wagering on three baseball games a day at an average of -140 per game for $100 each game and let’s assume you do that for an entire season. For six months or 180 days that would be 540 bets per season at an average of –140 per game. Of course, that’s a generalization but most bettors agree that laying –140 isn’t so bad when they believe they have a great chance of winning the bet. Ok, now let’s assume that you hit 60% of those, an unlikely scenario when you consider that the best teams in baseball play about .600 ball. But let’s assume that you have a great year and hit 60% winners. 

Therefore we have 540 ball games with 60% winners would see you go 324-216. 

Now we’ll multiply 324 x $100.00 = $32,400.00 worth of winners. 

Then we’ll multiply 216 x –$140.00 = $30,240.00 worth of losers. 

$32,400 (winners) less $30,240 (losers) = a relatively small profit of $2,160, spanning 540 bets. That’s based on a very solid year, hitting 60% winners. A more likely scenario is you go somewhere between 45%-55% and when you add those numbers up when laying juice the results are staggering and they’re not in your favor. 

Let’s assume now you have a decent year and hit 52% winners with the exact same wagers. 

560 games x 52 % winners = 288 winners and 272 losers. 

288 x 100 = $28,800 in wins 

272 x –140 = $38,080 in losses, which is an eye opening $10,080 loss for the season. 

In other words, if you’re a hundred dollar unit player, laying an average of  -140 per game and hit 52% winners, you’ll lose more than $10,000 for the season. 

Now, let’s say you wager strictly on dogs at an average of +130 and you hit that same 52%. 

288 losses at –$1.00 = $28,800 in losses 

272 wins @ +130 = $35,360 in wins for a total profit of $6,560.00 (or plus 65.6 units) for the season, which is a staggering difference of close to $17,000 for the year. 

The more juice you lay, the more difficult this equation becomes to show a profit. Moneyline underdogs win every day, especially in baseball and hockey and it’s for the above shown examples that you should never lay juice consistently or you’re guaranteed to lose. 

Consider that every team in baseball will win at least 60 games and lose at least 60 games with rarely an exception to that. What they do in the other games will ultimately decide whether they have a good or bad record at the end of the year but the point is that it’s more proof that dogs win daily. 

So, if you’ve been laying juice it’s time to break that habit. When you play underdogs, you don’t need to hit a high percentage to show a profit and even if you have a bad year, the losses will be limited. A bad year laying juice will destroy your bankroll and until you change your habit, the same results will emerge. Einstein defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results". If you're a chalk player, we can guarantee you that you have been losing forever. You don't want to be considered insane, do you?