How To Bet The Right Number For Baseball Totals

One of the most important aspects of making a substantial profit betting on baseball totals is to do the necessary shopping. Whether you're betting at Bookmaker or Bovada, you have to find the best available lines. The majority of sports betting sites will have identical lines posted early on in the day. Those lines can vary as the sportsbooks start to take action throughout the period leading up to the actual games. The closer it gets to game time, the more likely it is that bettors will be able to find different numbers at different sportsbooks.

Here is a look at how to bet the right number for baseball totals.

How It Works

The nature of baseball totals results in the odds actually being adjusted before the actual number is changed. For example, if the over-under for a game opens at 9.5 and the sportsbook receives a ton of action on the over then instead of raising the number to 10 the book will likely shift the odds first. In this situation, the line could move from 9.5 -120 to 9.5 -160 rather than moving the line to 10. Some sportsbooks will ultimately shift the line to 10.0 or to even 10.5 if they get enough action and that creates the perfect situation for those that are shopping for baseball totals.

Finding The Right Number

Any bettor that wants to bet the over in the situation talked about above will do their best to find the sportsbook that still has the line at 9.5. If the line opened at that number, there is a good chance at least one site will still have that number available. However, those that wanted to bet the under will be able to capitalize on the opportunity that the line moved to 10.5 by betting the under with that sportsbook.

If the final score adds up to 10 runs, it will be the perfect situation for the public since those that bet the over will have won their wagers and those that bet the under will have won their bets simply by shipping around for the best baseball totals.

Outlook

One other factor that the public will want to consider is the fact that while the lines will shift by 0.5 points, the bettor actually needs a difference of one run to win their wager. The fact that baseball scoring is much lower than football or basketball means that buying a half-run costs a little bit more money than it would in other sports. In the majority of cases, sports bettors can avoid needing to win by extra runs. You can mitigate that by simply shopping around for the best available lines.

One of the biggest misconceptions amongst the sports betting public is that they are limited to betting with just one sportsbook. The reality is that it is actually better to be a member with multiple sportsbooks. That willallow you to shop around and find the best available lines. And that's not just for baseball totals but for all sports betting lines in general.