Bet types: a complete reference

Every sportsbook offers the same handful of bet types. Sharp bettors lean on one or two and avoid the rest. Casual bettors usually do the opposite. The structural difference between these bet types determines what edge is available, where, and at what cost.

Moneyline

A bet on which side wins, straight up. No spread, no margin. The simplest market. Pricing varies widely by sport. Baseball moneylines are commonly tighter than football because run scoring is closer in the middle of the distribution.

• Best for low-juice sports (MLB, NHL) where books price near efficient.
• Less efficient on heavy favorites in basketball and football, where casual money piles into -300+ favorites.
• Pushes are rare. Most sports do not allow ties on the moneyline at full time.

Point spread

A bet on whether the favorite wins by more than the spread, or the underdog stays within the spread. The dominant market in NFL and NBA. Standard pricing is -110/-110, with the spread number adjusted to attract balanced action.

Sharp bettors care intensely about half-point movement on key numbers (the spread values that final scores cluster around). In the NFL, 3 and 7 are the highest-leverage numbers. See key numbers in NFL.

Total (over/under)

A bet on the combined score relative to the book's number. Pricing is structurally similar to spreads. Both sides pay -110 at standard juice. The book moves the number, not the price, when one side attracts heavy action.

Totals are the market most affected by external information that the public underweights: weather (NFL, MLB), pitching matchups (MLB), rest and travel (NBA), and lineup integrity. A sharp totals bettor is paid for noticing those inputs faster than the market.

Player and team props

A market on a specific within-game outcome. Patrick Mahomes throwing for over 287.5 yards. LeBron grabbing under 6.5 rebounds. The Yankees scoring in the first inning.

Props are the highest-juice market on the board (often 5% to 8% hold) and also the easiest place for a sharp bettor with a model to find structural edge, because the books cannot price every prop with the precision they apply to the side and total. The trade is: high friction (book limits, juice) for high opportunity (frequent mispricings).

Parlays

A single ticket combining multiple legs. Every leg must win. The advertised payout is the product of each leg's price minus a small extra cut taken by the book on the joint product.

FAIR PARLAY MATH (no juice)
  three independent 50% bets
  prob(win) = 0.5 × 0.5 × 0.5 = 0.125 (1 in 8)
  fair price = +700 (1/0.125 - 1 = 7.0)

TYPICAL BOOK PARLAY PRICE
  three independent -110 legs
  book pays  +600  (less than fair value)
  effective hold ~12% on the ticket

Parlays compound juice. The hold on a three-leg parlay of -110 legs runs around 12%, more than double the hold on each individual leg. The reason parlays exist: customers love them, and the book makes a higher margin per ticket. The reason sharp bettors avoid them: every leg adds variance and juice without a corresponding gain. See parlays: the truth.

Futures

Long-dated bets on season-long outcomes. A team to win the World Series. A player to win MVP. A team to make the playoffs. Held until the season ends.

The book hold on futures is high (often 20% to 40% across the field). The capital tied up is locked from the day of the bet to the day of resolution, sometimes six months later. Futures are usually a worse use of bankroll than rolling spread/moneyline action across the same period, but they have one advantage: the lines are set early, with limited information, and an early-mover with a real probability estimate can find significant edge.

Teasers

A multi-leg ticket that allows you to move each spread or total a fixed number of points in your favor in exchange for reduced odds. A 6-point teaser in the NFL moves every spread 6 points your way and is priced at lower odds than a straight parlay.

Teasers are mostly bad bets, with two narrow exceptions where the math works out: 6-point teasers across NFL key numbers (3 and 7) and certain low-total NFL games. Outside those Wong-style spots, teasers carry house edge similar to parlays without the upside. The 6-point NFL teaser at standard pricing has historically been a positive-EV bet only when both legs cross both 3 and 7.

Alternate spreads and alternate totals

The same market at a different number, with a corresponding price change. Buying the Chiefs from -3.5 to -2.5 gets you a better number at worse price. Selling them from -3.5 to -7.5 takes a worse number at better price.

Alternates are useful when the standard line sits on or near a key number and you have a view on the distribution of likely outcomes, not just the expected value. They are also where some of the most accidentally mispriced lines on the board live, because alternates get less attention from line movers and book modelers than the central line.

Live betting

In-game betting. The book reprices the market every few seconds based on the score, time remaining, possession, and other live state. The book's pricing engine has to operate at sub-second speed and inevitably runs slower than the actual game state. That latency is the source of edge for sharp live bettors.

Live betting carries higher juice than pre-game (often 6% to 10% hold) and lower limits. The trade is the same shape as props: high friction, high opportunity. A bettor with a working in-game model and the speed to act can find consistent edge. A bettor without one will be eaten alive.

Round robin and round robin variants

A bookkeeping convenience that builds every possible parlay combination from a list of selected legs. Books offer it as a packaged product. Mathematically it is just a basket of parlays. The hold on a round robin is the weighted average of the hold on each ticket inside, which is to say: high.

What sharps actually bet

There is no single answer, but the gravitational center of sharp action is: low-juice main markets (sides and totals) where line shopping makes a meaningful difference, plus selectively-modeled props or live spots where the bettor has a quantitative view the book has not priced in.

What you almost never see in sharp portfolios: large parlays, large futures, retail teasers, or one-tap same-game parlays advertised in book promotions. The reason is structural. Those products were designed to be margin-positive for the book on average.

What to read next

Markets and odds are mechanical; the question of which markets are worth your time is strategic. Edge and expected value and closing line value cover the framework most operators use to evaluate a bet before placing it.