A Team Total Ignores The Other Team
Start with the line that appears four times tonight. Red Sox team total under 3.5. Mariners team total under 3.5. Royals team total under 3.5. Padres team total under 3.5.
Each one of those is a bet on how many runs a single club scores. The other team's runs are irrelevant. Boston can lose 9-3 and the Red Sox under 3.5 wins, because Boston scored three. Boston can win 4-1 and the same ticket loses, because Boston scored four. The final score never enters the calculation.
Beginner Note: What A Team Total Is
A team total is a number of runs assigned to one club, and you bet whether that club finishes above or below it. A game total, sometimes called the over under, adds both clubs together instead. Tonight's card has both types on it. Blue Jays and Mariners under 7 is a game total and needs the two clubs combined to score six or fewer. Mariners team total under 3.5 is a team total and only counts Seattle. The half run in 3.5 exists so there is never a tie. Three runs is under, four runs is over, and no result can push.
Why does anyone bet these instead of just betting the game total? Because they let you be right about one specific thing. Tonight the argument for the Seattle ticket is Dylan Cease, who has a 2.37 ERA and strikes out 13.03 batters per nine innings. Cease can only affect the runs Seattle scores. He has no influence at all on what Toronto does against the Seattle pitcher. A team total isolates the half of the game the argument is actually about.
The Same Game, Two Different Tickets
Look at the Mariners game closely, because it is the clearest teaching example on the card.
| Ticket | What it counts | Wins if |
|---|---|---|
| Mariners team total under 3.5 | Seattle only | Seattle scores 3 or fewer |
| Blue Jays and Mariners under 7 | Both clubs added | The two combine for 6 or fewer |
A 2-1 final wins both. A 2-6 final wins the first and loses the second. A 5-1 final loses the first and wins the second. They are related but they are not the same bet, and holding both is a deliberate choice to be paid twice for one opinion when it is fully right and paid once when it is half right.
Beginner Note: Correlated Bets
Two bets are correlated when the same event pushes both toward winning or both toward losing. The two Mariners game tickets above are correlated, because a quiet night in Toronto helps both. The four team total unders in four different cities are barely correlated at all, because four different pitchers in four different ballparks are close to independent events. Correlation is not automatically bad. It just means the two tickets should be sized as something closer to one position than two.
Twelve Units Quoted, 15.72 Units Put Up
Every number on this card is quoted as units to win, and every price tonight is a minus number, so every leg costs more than the figure next to it.
| Play | Price | Units quoted | Actually put up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mariners team total under 3.5 | -155 | 2 to win | 3.10 |
| Yankees moneyline | -149 | 1.5 to win | 2.24 |
| Blue Jays and Mariners under 7 | -120 | 1.5 to win | 1.80 |
| Royals team total under 3.5 | -120 | 1.5 to win | 1.80 |
| Padres team total under 3.5 | -118 | 1.5 to win | 1.77 |
| Red Sox team total under 3.5 | -135 | 1 to win | 1.35 |
| Guardians moneyline | -131 | 1 to win | 1.31 |
| Rays moneyline | -130 | 1 to win | 1.30 |
| Athletics and Orioles over 9.5 | -105 | 1 to win | 1.05 |
| Card | 12.00 to win | 15.72 |
Beginner Note: Reading A Minus Price
A price of -155 means you put up 155 to win 100. Divide 155 by 100 and you get 1.55, so winning 2 units costs 2 times 1.55, which is 3.10. A price of -105 means you put up 105 to win 100, so winning 1 unit costs 1.05. The bigger the minus number, the more expensive the bet. That is why the Mariners ticket costs almost three times what the Athletics ticket costs even though it only returns twice as much.
What The Card Has To Hit
Risk 15.72 to win 12.00 and the card needs to win 56.70 percent of the time to break even. Across nine plays that is a little more than five winners.
Beginner Note: Break Even Percentage
The break even is how often a bet has to win just to leave you flat. For a minus price, divide the price by the price plus 100. Minus 155 becomes 155 divided by 255, which is 60.8 percent. Minus 105 becomes 105 divided by 205, which is 51.2 percent. That gap is why cheap prices are worth so much: the minus 105 ticket needs to be right nine and a half fewer times out of a hundred to make the same money.
| Result | Roughly what the night pays |
|---|---|
| 9-0 | plus 12.00 units |
| 6-3 | plus 2.76 units |
| 5-4 | roughly flat, slightly negative |
| 4-5 | minus 3.4 units |
| 0-9 | minus 15.72 units |
The 5-4 row is the one worth memorizing. A card that goes one game better than half is not a winning card when every price is a favorite. That is the single most common way a beginner looks at a 5-4 night, feels good about it, and cannot work out why the bankroll did not move.
The Cheapest Bet On The Board
Athletics and Orioles over 9.5 at minus 105 for 1 unit. It costs 1.05 units, the smallest position tonight, and it needs to win only 51.2 percent of the time.
The Athletics play home games at Sutter Health Park in Sacramento, a minor league ballpark. There have been 66 home games there this season and they have averaged 12.02 combined runs. Forty three of the 66 finished with more than 9.5 runs, which is 65 percent. The Athletics pitching staff carries a 5.46 ERA and has allowed 204 home runs, both the worst figures of any club playing tonight.
Beginner Note: Why Ballpark Matters
Every ballpark has different dimensions, different altitude and different air. Some parks turn fly balls into home runs and some turn them into outs. Bettors call this the park factor. A total of 9.5 in a park that averages 12.02 runs is a very different bet than a 9.5 in a park that averages 7.5, even with identical teams. When you are learning, checking the park before the pitchers will catch more mistakes than any other single habit.
The Riskiest Bet On The Board
Royals team total under 3.5 at minus 120 for 1.5 units. It costs 1.80 units and asks Kansas City to score three or fewer.
Kansas City is 9-1 in its last ten games and has scored 5.40 runs a game across its last fifteen. That is the hottest offense on tonight's schedule. The case for the under is Tanner Bibee, who has held opponents to three runs or fewer in 20 of his 27 starts, and a Cleveland pitching staff that has struck out 1250 batters, the most of any club playing tonight. It is a bet that a season long pattern beats a two week hot streak, which is a real argument and also the least comfortable one on the card.
If You Only Take One Thing From This Page
A team total counts one club. A game total counts both. Four of tonight's nine plays are the first kind, two are the second and three are moneylines. Knowing which type you are holding is the difference between watching the scoreboard and watching the right half of it.
Every play on this card is posted before first pitch and graded when the games go final, wins and losses both. Nothing gets removed afterward.