Of course, because moneyline and point spread wagers are so absurdly popular, they often get confused for another. And if that's not an issue, it can also be tough to decide which bet to place depending on the situation. Complicated still, even the most thorough betting guides only loosely touch on the differences and merits between the two. Favorite Answer. On a pk you might push if the game ends up as a tie. (so you get less of a payout) If you bet the moneyline, you might need the team to win (and then would lose on a tie).

• Difference Between Puck Line And Moneyline One
• Difference Between Puck Line And Moneyline Parlay
• Difference Between Puck Line And Moneyline Meaning

Basic line for NHL is a moneyline - all you do is pick the straight up winner. Usually a team is favored somewhere between -110 to as high as over -200 for good teams playing at home. What does a three-way puck line mean? A three-way puck line is like the moneyline with the exception of overtime and shootout play is not there. What is the difference between puck line and money line? The money line needs punters to select a team to win outright. Puck line depends on goals that are scored and not wins and losses.

We’re about to make the transition from the time when baseball is the primary sport people are paying attention to to when football takes over. That means that sports bettors will be making the transition from primarily betting using the moneyline to primarily using the point spread. Most people seem to prefer the point spread – it’s certainly more calmly discussed and understood – but I always have and likely always will prefer the moneyline. It’s an interesting exercise to look at the benefits and weaknesses of both kinds of bets:

Benefits of Point Spreads

Cost is almost always constant – For the most part you know that each point spread bet you make is going to cost you -110. Sometimes it might cost -120 to be on a popular side, and you may find -105 or even +100 if you are lucky, but the prices you will pay operate within a small range regardless of whether you are going to be betting primarily on favorites, underdogs, or a mix of the two. That makes budgeting easier, makes it easier to keep track of meaningful records, and makes it less risky to play on heavy favorites than it is on the moneyline.

Harder to make a bad bet – The betting public generally likes the favorites. As a result, the odds on favorites are often skewed in favor of the books. If you bet on a point spread favorite that doesn’t have any value the worst you are out is whatever you have bet at -110 or -120. If you are on a heavy favorite on the moneyline, though, you might be facing a price of -250 or -300. That’s far more damaging to the bankroll if things go poorly, and far less beneficial f things go well.

Easier for most people to understand – The moneyline is actually quite simple, but for most people who are new to betting the point spread is easier to embrace and become comfortable with. That’s most likely because the point spread is discussed so often in popular culture, and because the media is increasingly discussing the bet.

Key numbers are useful – The concept of key numbers – the spreads that are most commonly hit in the results of football games like 3 and 7 – are powerful and useful in handicapping. Key numbers are not applicable to the moneyline.

Middling – Even casual bettors can occasionally happen upon middling situations – situations where the odds are set up so that you can bet on both teams at different sports book in the same game and ensure a great result either way – either a very small loss or a very large win. Though theoretically possible with the moneyline this tool is far less common.

Can easily have a strong winning percentage and still lose money with moneyline – As a general rule if you win 55 percent of your games betting on the point spread you are going to make some money. If you are betting moneyline favorites, though, you could easily hit 65 percent of your picks and still lose money.

Benefits of Moneyline

Just have to pick a winner – For the teams that are involved in a game the only goal they care about is winning the game. They don’t care how much they win it by, or how many points the two teams combine to score. It’s all about the scoreboard. Moneyline betting is only about who wins as well. It can be pretty or it can be ugly, but a win is a win. By betting on the moneyline, then, you are associating yourself with the same goal that the team you are betting on has, and you don’t have to be an amateur psychologist to think about motivation nearly as much. When you bet a favorite on the point spread you have to think not just about who is going to win, but when your team is likely to take the lead, how hard they will try once they get that lead, what personnel moves getting the lead may cause, and so on. Moneyline betting involves fewer variables, and simplicity is a good thing. The flipside, of course, is that moneyline underdogs have to win the game, while point spread underdogs have a cushion. I’ll give up that cushion for the payoff as we’ll discuss next.

The beauty of underdogs – There is nothing better than picking underdogs winners on the moneyline. What makes it so nice? Simply, you get back more money than you bet. On small underdogs you might get $110 or $120 for every $100 you bet, and for serious underdogs you can sometimes get two, three or four times as much as you bet. That’s a good thing for several reasons. First, because you get back more than you bet you can make a profit even if you lose more bets than you win. That’s always a good thing. For example, betting moneyline underdogs is great when you are betting two games on a day and you split them. On the point spread going 1-1 on the day would mean a small loss, but on the moneyline it would mean a small profit. Profits are better than losses in my eyes. Besides that, the biggest advantage of moneyline underdogs is psychological. I like that when you bet them and win you get nice payoffs, and you can get especially nice payoffs when you win all of your bets on a day. Successful sports betting is all about the right mindset, and I find it easier to maintain a successful state of mind this way.

Fairer parlays – The odds books offer for point spread parlays should be criminal. The odds they set are at a fixed level, and that level is far lower than the actual mathematical risk of making the bets. Over the long term, then, the expectation is that even a good bettor would lose on parlays. They are a profit factory for books just like roulette or blackjack is for casinos. Using moneylines parlays are calculated simply by multiplying the risk of the bets you are parlaying together. It’s a bigger debate whether parlays are good bets, but there is no denying that parlays using moneylines are a much fairer bet that are conceptually and mathematically easier to show a profit with over the long term.

Parlays are the Frankenstein’s monster of sports betting. They are wagers that consist of other bets glued together with one another.

They are also a high-risk, high-reward opportunity for the daredevil sports bettor. If you are a Colorado resident who feels like kicking things up a notch, make sure you read this guide to parlay betting first.

How parlay betting works

The first thing to understand about parlays is that they consist of multiple choices. Where other types of sports bets involve your choice of a single variable, parlays require players to predict outcomes on several different bets.

Each selection in a parlay is known as a leg. These bets can all be the same type of wager, or they can be varied. The exact composition of each parlay is entirely up to the bettor.

Why parlays are so risky (and well-paid)

The escalated source of risk in parlay betting is the fact that a bettor must be completely correct in his or her selections to get paid. Even one mistake causes the entire wager to be lost.

Naturally, as you increase the number of legs involved in a parlay, the chance of an incorrect prediction goes up. So, sportsbooks offer increasing payouts to compensate for the risk.

In fact, parlays with many legs are capable of producing some incredible wins for you. For instance, a successful 20-leg parlay in 2019 allowed a Mississippi bettor to turn a $25 wager into more than $104,000.

Of course, these stories drive more people to give parlay betting a try. However, it’s important to realize that successful parlays make the news because they are so unusual.

In a sense, these outsized payouts are not unlike lottery winnings. A bettor who successfully predicts a string of unlikely events has beaten very long odds, indeed.

Sportsbooks are, of course, more than happy to allow you to take such a risk. Truthfully, if the money you bet on parlays does not affect your lifestyle or living conditions, then they can be a fun diversion for a sports bettor seeking to get the blood pumping.

Parlay betting examples

Building a parlay is exceptionally easy, particularly on an online sportsbook. For mobile app or laptop users, they will usually need only to select the bets they want in their parlay and click a button on their bet slip to set things up.

In the following examples, the wagers we’re using are actual bets offered on DraftKings Sportsbook.

2-Leg Parlay

Bet #1: Moneyline @ +160
Bet #2: Over 230.5 points @ -113
Overall odds: +321

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The first thing to notice is that neither of these choices have particularly long odds. The moneyline is only an 8/5 underdog, and the chosen over was the favorite.

Still, their combined chances of happening are more than 3 to 1. So, even if things are looking good individually, the odds of both events occurring are much less likely, and you will get paid far less often than if you bet each element individually.

3-Leg Parlay

Bet #1: Moneyline @ -195
Bet #2: Moneyline @ -455
Bet #3: Moneyline @ -165
Overall odds: +199

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Just to ram home the point about the odds involved, we chose three moneyline favorites to populate our parlay here. To reiterate, each of these choices is expected to win their game.

Difference Between Puck Line And Moneyline One

However, the combined chance that all three bets will win is still almost 2 to 1 against. So, bear in mind that in parlays, there’s no such thing as a safe option.

10-Leg Parlay

Bet #1: Moneyline @ +145
Bet #2: Moneyline @ +145
Bet #3: Puck Line @ +118
Bet #4: Over 5.5 Goals @ +105
Bet #5: Moneyline @ +180
Bet #6: Moneyline @ -195
Bet #7: Moneyline @ -143
Bet #8: Moneyline @ -455
Bet #9: Over 231 points @ -112
Bet #10: Spread @ -112
Overall odds: +85379

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Here is an example of how outsized both the odds and payouts for a parlay can get. Here we have a collection of 10 wagers that are all going off at odds shorter than 2 to 1. Yet, the combined odds of all 10 events is a staggering 853.79 to 1!

One other thing to note is that, in order to construct this parlay, we had to choose from different games each time. In order for a parlay to be valid, there cannot be bets that are related to one another – for instance, you cannot bet both the moneyline and total for a single game.

Most Recent Betting Guides

Parlay variants

Along with standard parlays, sportsbooks commonly offer one or more variants of the combination bets. These variants each have their own appeal, so judge for yourself if you want to try them out.

Teasers

One of the most common parlay variants is the teaser. The teaser is the sportsbook’s attempt to lessen some of the risk that comes with parlay betting.

Quite simply, a teaser allows the bettor to tease, or move, the odds of the bets in a parlay in his or her favor. Teasers are only permitted for point spreads and totals – it wouldn’t really make sense to try and apply a teaser to a moneyline.

You must adjust each leg of a teaser by the same number of points. So, if you move one of your selections by five points, all of your selections must move by five.

However, the movement will always be in your favor. So, a bet on a favorite might reduce the spread, but a bet on an underdog would increase it.

Difference Between Puck Line And Moneyline Parlay

Of course, nothing is free in this world, and teasers come with a price. Specifically, a successful teaser will not pay out as much as a parlay with the same selections. The sportsbook charges a premium for the reduced risk.

Still, for a bettor who wants to try parlays but doesn’t like the risk profile, a teaser might be a way to slide into things. The odds will still be long, but maybe not as unacceptably so.

For more information about teasers, click here.

Pleasers

Difference Between Puck Line And Moneyline Meaning

Please be aware that sportsbooks will sometimes offer a parlay variant called a pleaser. While they are less common, they are simply the mirror image of teasers.

So, the odds in a pleaser will actually be worse than a standard parlay. However, the associated payout will be higher to compensate for the increased risk.

If a parlay just isn’t risky enough for you, a pleaser might be exactly what you’re wanting. Keep an eye out for them.

Round Robins

Round robins are a fascinating variant of parlays because of their margin for error. Almost every parlay requires perfection to pay out, but round robins have no such requirement.

Round robins are bets that are combinations of parlays. If parlays were a mathematical concept, round robins would be the next power of exponent to them – the cube to parlays’ square, so to speak.

Since they are composed of multiple parlays, it is possible to win a portion of a round robin even if one (or more) of the parlays fails. The different permutations mean that parts of the round robin might not be affected by the doomed parlay.

If you’re confused, don’t worry.

Example

You have 5 bets (A, B, C, D, and E) you want to make. You could make a single 5-leg parlay that would look like this:

• ABCDE

-or-

You could make a round robin with 10 separate 2-team parlays in it. Here’s how it would look:

• AB
• AC
• AD
• AE
• BC
• BD
• BE
• CD
• CE
• DE

Now…let’s say that you lose bet B.

In the case of the parlay, the entire bet is lost. However, in the case of the round robin, six of the parlays are still alive and well:

• AC
• AD
• AE
• CD
• CE
• DE

So, even though the loss would’ve been disastrous for the straight parlay, it’s not the end of the world on a round robin. If you want to do some parlay betting but want to have some backup options, a round robin might be the way to go.