Buying Points Sports Betting
How to understand “buying points”?What does the betting term “buying points” mean?
- Buying points is when you sacrifice a small amount of value to effectively move the point spread on a particular team and offer yourself a better chance of winning the bet.
- Buying points are generally not considered profitable due to the increased price that bettors are paying when they buy them. It is hard enough to beat the sportsbooks when you are betting -110, let alone when you are wagering -120 or -130 after buying a point.
What characterizes “buying points”?
If you bet on the NFL or college football, you have likely come across the term «buying points».
The majority of online sportsbooks offer the ability to purchase half points off point spreads and totals. This is generally at 10 cents each. If a point spread is 5.5 you can bet the favorite -5.5 -110, -5 -120, or -4.5 -130 or the underdog +5.5 -110, +6 -120, +6.5 -130. The same can be done for over/under betting (NFL based). Many sportsbooks offer bettors the option to buy points on point spread bets in football and basketball. Buying points allows you to give away fewer points on the favorite or receive more points on the underdog. Most books that offer this betting option do so at a price of 10 percent per each half-point you decide to move the line. Apr 17, 2019 This page shows the fair price to buy or sell up to 1.5 points in the NFL, off of both the spread and the total. One practical use for this is when the sports book lets you change the point by up to 1.5 points. Of course, you'll have to lay more if buying points, and get more if selling them. Pinnacle sports book is a good example.
A typical line for a game may look like this:
- USC, -15, -110;
- Washington, +15, -110.
So, if you want to take Washington +15 points, you would receive a 90% return on your investment if they end up covering.
But if you want to «buy points» (for instance, you want 20 points and not 15), you can accomplish this by «buying» points. Let’s consider the following line on Washington where you are buying five points: Washington, +20, -275.
So, in this case, if Washington loses by less than 20 points, you would win your bet. However, the odds are significantly worse.
Giving Points In Betting
In the first case (Washington, +15), you would need to bet $110 in order to win $100 in profit back.
In the second case (Washington, +20), you would need to bet $275 in order to win $100 in profit back.
Sports Betting Odds
This is «buying points» – the more points you buy, the better chance you have of winning. Of course, when buying points you are also sacrificing return.