When I first started with sports betting, I honestly had no clue about the terms. I thought it was just about picking who wins, and that’s it.
Then I saw people talking about spreads, juice, parlays, and I was like, “what?”
For example:
Moneyline .. this one I understood easily, just betting who wins.
Point Spread .. this confused me at first. I lost a few bets because my team won the game, but didn’t “cover the spread.” That’s when I realized it’s not just about winning, but by how much.
Over/Under .. also called totals, where you bet on the combined score. Took me a while before I got comfortable with this.
Parlay ... I tried this early on thinking it was an easy jackpot, but the risk is crazy. All your bets have to hit, or you get nothing.
Juice/Vig ... didn’t even know this existed when I started. Basically, the house edge that makes sure the book earns no matter what.
Now it makes more sense, but I wish I knew these sooner.
How about you guys? What betting terms confused you at the start? Any tips for newbies on which ones they should master first before placing serious bets?
As I started betting, I had someone who was guiding me, so with that, I was not that confused. There are different options in sports betting, but at first despite knowing about the different options the only one I would always go for was the win or draw option. From there, I gradually started trying other options.parlay betting, that is what I started with. We hardly bet on single game in my society, almost everyone deal with the idea of parlay betting. This was because we always used a very small amount of money to bet. So, if you decided to bet on only a single game, even if you won, the returns would be very small. That’s the reason why we like combine betting.
One thing I have noticed is how easy it is to find betting mentors and guides as compared to finding trading mentors. That's why most of us would have been betting for a long time now without actually knowing any of the basic terms or definitions unless those we learnt from word of mouth mostly from our mentor or close friends and associates.
Am also guilty of learning some of the terms from a mentor that is my friend and that is how it went until I could forecast games and make my own bets.
While it is important to know the basic terms associated with betting or gambling, what's more important is the strategy that's involved and deployed, above even what the terms mean.