Moneyline Bets: What They Are and How to Maximize Them
Moneyline bets are one of the most straightforward and popular ways to bet on sporting events. They are ideal for both beginners and more experienced bettors looking for clear and profitable opportunities. In this article, we explain in detail what they are, how to read them, what strategies exist, and how you can use tools like BetOven to take your results to the next level. 📈💥
What are Moneyline bets?
Moneyline bets are one of the simplest and most direct ways to bet on sporting events: you just choose which team will win the match. It doesn’t matter how many goals, points, or sets are scored. If your team wins, you win. If it loses, you lose. It’s that simple.
This format is especially popular in sports where a tie is uncommon or not possible, such as baseball (MLB), basketball (NBA), or American football (NFL). But it’s also used in other sports like tennis, hockey, or even esports.
How to Read Moneyline Odds 👀
Moneyline odds might seem confusing at first, but once you understand the logic, they are very intuitive.
Negative odds (−) indicate the favorite. Example: -150. This means you would need to bet €150 to win €100 (plus your stake back).
Positive odds (+) indicate the underdog. Example: +150. This means that by betting €100, you would win €150 (plus your original stake).
👉 In summary: The more negative the number, the bigger the favorite. The more positive, the higher the risk, but also the higher the reward.
This system is widely used in the U.S., and for many bettors, it represents the most accurate way to measure the true value of a bet, as it directly reflects the implied probabilities calculated by the bookmaker.
What About Ties in Moneyline?
In sports like soccer or hockey, where ties are possible, bookmakers usually offer two variants:
3-way Moneyline (1X2): You can bet on Team A to win, a draw, or Team B to win.
2-way Moneyline (Draw No Bet or DNB): You can only bet on one team. If there’s a draw, your bet is refunded.
The choice between one or the other depends on your risk profile. The classic Moneyline (no draw) is better for sports where a binary outcome (win or lose) is guaranteed. In soccer, however, the DNB version becomes a safer way to apply the Moneyline strategy.
What Is a 'Pick'em' in Moneyline Betting?
A Pick’em occurs when both teams are so evenly matched that the bookmakers don’t dare to designate a clear favorite. In these cases, the odds are around +100 / -110 on both sides. It’s an ideal situation for:
Finding value bets by comparing odds from different bookmakers (one might have Team A at +105 while another has Team B at +110).
Spotting surebets, if the odds differences are large enough to cover both outcomes with a guaranteed profit.
Advanced Strategies for Your Moneyline Bets 📊
Although Moneyline bets seem simple at first glance, they hide a world of opportunities if you know where to look. One of the most powerful strategies doesn’t just rely on analyzing matches before they start, but on spotting mispriced odds in real time, during the event.
1. Finding Mispriced Odds in Live Events
During a match, bookmakers constantly update the odds based on what’s happening: goals, fouls, cards, possession, injuries, substitutions, etc. But here’s the key:
Not all bookmakers do this at the same time, nor with the same accuracy.
This creates brief moments where a team’s odds are mispriced relative to what’s actually happening.
For example:
A team suffers a red card, but one bookmaker takes 10 seconds longer to adjust the odds.
Another case: the favorite starts losing, but the on-field performance is still superior (more shots, better possession). The odds may react exaggeratedly and offer a value bet.
A missed penalty, an unseen injury on the scoreboard, or even the streaming delay for the bookmakers.
These small errors are pure gold for the smart bettor: they allow you to place bets with actual probabilities higher than the odds suggest. That’s a live value bet, and it’s one of the most profitable opportunities available.
In this video, we explain how value bets work:
2. Misalignment Between Bookmakers: Surebets and Value Bets Opportunities
The other big tactic is based on taking advantage of misalignments between different bookmakers. Since each bookmaker calculates probabilities independently (with their own algorithms and margins), it’s common during live events for:
One bookmaker to offer Team A at odds of 2.20
Another to offer the same outcome at odds of 1.85!
This difference may be due to reaction time, different data sources, or simply human error. And that’s where the opportunity lies:
If you bet on Team A with one bookmaker and Team B with another (when the difference allows), you can cover both outcomes and guarantee a profit no matter what happens: this is a surebet.
Or simply take advantage of the bookmaker that hasn’t yet corrected its odds and get a value bet with a clear mathematical advantage.
🤔 The Big Problem with Live Odds
Now, if everything we’ve mentioned so far sounds good, let’s be realistic.
These windows of opportunity (the mistakes made by the bookmakers) usually last literally milliseconds or, at best, seconds.
For a manual bettor, even with experience, spotting these errors in real time is almost impossible. The reasons: The reasons:
Events are updated in fractions of a second. ❌
You would need to have dozens of tabs open, comparing live odds, without making mistakes. ❌
Plus, placing a bet manually (clicking, entering the amount, confirming) takes several seconds, enough time for the bookmaker to correct the error. ❌
And finally, it’s not always easy to detect which odds are mispriced and which are properly adjusted without real-time mathematical analysis. ❌
👉✅ The True Winning Strategy in Moneyline Bets
Taking advantage of these opportunities in real-time —whether value bets from mispriced odds or surebets from misalignments between bookmakers— requires a speed of analysis and execution that’s beyond human capability. You can try with a thousand tabs open, with alerts, or even with intuition, but the reality is these errors last milliseconds and disappear before you can react.
To consistently capitalize on these kinds of advantages, you need something faster, more precise, and more constant than you. That’s where BetOven comes in.
This automated AI is designed to do exactly that:
✅ Scan thousands of odds in real-time across multiple bookmakers. ✅ Instantly detect when an odds value is mispriced compared to the global market. ✅ Calculate if there’s statistical value or if a surebet can be constructed. ✅ And, most importantly, place bets automatically for you, without error, right before the market corrects.
All of this happens in fractions of a second. What would be an invisible opportunity for you is simply part of the constant automated flow for BetOven. A tool not only designed to detect value, but to capitalize on it before it disappears.
BetOven uses artificial intelligence to scan in real time hundreds of matches and thousands of odds across various markets, including Moneyline bets. When it detects that a bookmaker has made an error in setting a line or an odds value, it
places an automatic bet before the bookmaker corrects it.
You don’t need to look at stats, keep an eye on the game, or calculate anything. The AI does everything for you.
In the case of Moneyline bets —where errors are frequent and fleeting— using AI makes the difference between winning systematically or just having streaks of luck.
With BetOven, you can be betting on dozens of events at the same time, without manually analyzing anything. The AI handles identifying and exploiting those errors that humans couldn’t even see. You can see it yourself in this video:
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