How To Bet Mlb Baseball
Baseball is called America’s pastime. And, for most of the 20th century, that was absolutely true as it was easily the most popular sport in the country. Babe Ruth remains perhaps the most iconic athlete in U.S. history. When talking about the greats in other sports, they are often referred to as the “Babe Ruth of football” or “Babe Ruth of basketball,” etc. Ruth’s former team, the New York Yankees, remains the marquee franchise in American sports and has won more championships than any other franchise by far in the four major pro sports leagues.
So if she bets $100 on the Yankees at 2/1 odds and they win the World Series, she’ll win $200. If she bets $100 on the Braves at 100/1 odds and they win the World Series, she’ll win $10,000. Proposition Bets (or Props) Prop bets are similar to future bets, but they happen in a much smaller time frame, such as a game, a series or a season. Runline Betting: Covering the Spread (Sort of) The runline is Major League Baseball’s version of the point spread. Before the game, one team is given the advantage of 1.5 runs to create a more even betting field. The reason the number of runs scored is always set at 1.5 is because baseball is generally a low-scoring sport. All of that adds up to make Major League Baseball one of the best sports to bet on. For sports betting enthusiasts, baseball has it all. With each team playing a lengthy 162 games per year, and with managers constantly shuffling through pitching rotations and bullpen changes, the potential for skilled wagering is abundant.
Shoot, the first major gambling reference most Americans probably remember was the 1919 Black Sox scandal. The 1919 Chicago White Sox were considered one of the greatest teams of all-time, led by “Shoeless” Joe Jackson. That team was heavily favored to win the ’19 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds, but a handful of players allegedly took money from a gambling syndicate led by Arnold Rothstein to throw the Fall Classic, and the Reds won it.
The eight players involved, including Jackson, were acquitted in a 1921 public trial but the first commissioner in baseball history, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, permanently banned all eight men from professional baseball. Jackson would be a lock Hall of Famer but still isn’t in because of the ban.
In modern history, the MLB hit king, Pete Rose, is also not in the Hall of Fame. In 1989, Rose voluntarily accepted a permanent place on baseball's ineligible list because it was proven he bet on baseball while manager of his Reds. Rose swears he never bet against his own team, but that’s hardly the point. Every year, Rose pleads for induction into the Hall of Fame, but it’s not going to happen in his lifetime.
Nowadays, baseball is no longer America’s pastime because the demographic skews so old. And popularity is waning each year. It’s a very regional sport now – extremely popular in individual markets (Boston, St. Louis) but not so much nationally. Younger generations find the game boring with a constant lack of action. MLB has talked about adding a pitch clock to speed things up; purists love that baseball is the only sport without a clock. However, a pitch clock has been shelved for now.
Baseball ranks third in popularity and in betting action these days in the USA behind football (both college and pro) and basketball (both college and pro). The one thing MLB has going for it, however, is that it owns the summer. The NFL season ends in February, and the NHL and NBA playoffs finish in June. That means MLB has the betting landscape largely to itself – compared to smaller sports like horse racing, MMA, tennis, golf, soccer, NASCAR, etc. – until football season begins in late August/early September.
Types Of Bets
Because many baseball games are decided by one run, there is no point spread to bet. There are three main options for wagering on a game: moneyline, runline and over/under total.
The moneyline is the No. 1 wager and that’s simply a bet on which team wins the game. Doesn’t matter the score and doesn’t matter if the team wins in a game called after six innings due to rain or in a 22-inning marathon. Let’s use the Chicago Cubs visiting the Los Angeles Dodgers as an example. All things being equal, a home team is going to be favored on a moneyline because playing at home is a huge advantage – that team bats last. No visiting team can win in a “walk off.”
All moneylines are based on a $100 wager, regardless of sport. In this example, the Dodgers could be -135 favorites with the Cubs at +115. That means, it takes $135 to return $100 on a Dodgers win, while $100 bet on a Cubs victory returns +110. Very rarely will a team be favored into the -400s on a moneyline. Incredibly rarely. Even -300s are somewhat rare.
The runline essentially is the spread and is always set at 1.5. In the above example, the Dodgers would be the favorite on the runline and thus -1.5 with the Cubs at +1.5. A moneyline price is attached to both options. Los Angeles at -1.5 would be around +150 with the Cubs at +1.5 at -180. The favorite on a runline is rarely also the moneyline favorite because so many games end by a one-run margin. It can happen, but the runline favorite will never be a massive moneyline favorite. If the Dodgers beat the Cubs 7-6, a runline bet on L.A. is a loser but a winner on Chicago. It’s that simple.
Finally, the over/under total. That’s total runs scored in the game, with both the over and under also given a moneyline price. Those prices are often the same (-110) or very close to so. In this example, the total could have been 8.5 runs, with the over at -120 and the under at even money. Totals are most influenced by each team’s starting pitcher. The weather (especially wind direction) and the home team’s ballpark also can influence the totals. Totals in MLB games generally are between 5.5-13 runs. The latter number usually only for games played in the thin air of Denver’s Coors Field.
Five-inning lines are another popular bet. This is simply which team is leading after five innings. The favorite to win the game will always be favored to be leading after five innings. It’s like betting on the first-half line in football.
Props/Futures Bets
No sport loves numbers more than baseball – so the betting options both in regards to futures and in-game are too many to mention. The primary team futures odds are to win the World Series, the pennant or a division. Over/under season wins. For individuals, popular markets are odds to win the MVP and Cy Young Awards in both the American and National Leagues. Which player leads the major leagues in homers? There are also over/under season totals (wins, homers, etc.) for a huge majority of players entering a season.
Baseball might be the best sport in the USA for live betting – simply because there is so much time in between pitches and the ball in play. It gives the bettor time to actually think, unlike in the NBA and NHL where the action is almost constant. Live betting could be the best thing to happen to baseball in decades. You can wager on just about everything live, whether a pitch is a ball or strike, will the batter get a hit, what type of hit, ground ball or fly ball, etc.
Betting Strategies
There is no one player in any of the four major American sports leagues that affects a moneyline than a starting pitcher in baseball. They are everything, even though starters are going shorter and shorter into games these days and some teams are using “openers.” Those are relievers who pitch the first inning, who then turn it over to the starting pitcher. Some managers believe it’s a statistical advantage for the starting pitcher to avoid the top half of the lineup one extra time if possible.
So, the No. 1 criteria for determining a bet on a baseball game should be each team’s starting pitcher, his current form and history against the opponent. The New York Yankees might have a much better overall team than the Boston Red Sox in a game, but if Boston’s best pitcher is going against the Yankees’ worst one, the Red Sox are going to be favored.
Certainly, the weather should be checked before betting on a total. No day-before totals are set at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, for example, because it’s a completely different park when the wind is blowing in as opposed to out. A very cold day is likely to lead to very few runs. No other sport in the USA is affected more by weather from a betting perspective.
One key term to remember for betting on MLB is a “getaway” game. This is when a team is concluding a long road trip. Let’s say the Yankees are on a 10-game road trip. Game No. 9 is played at 8 p.m. ET in Boston but the finale is at 1 PM ET the next day – and then the Yankees have to fly across the country for their next series. That matinee finale is a “getaway” game and when managers are most likely to rest a key starter or two because of the grueling travel and the fact the game takes place barely 12 hours after the previous night’s game. Very smart to bet against those road teams on a “getaway” game.
Notable Numbers
Since 2005, the largest moneyline favorite in Major League Baseball is believed to have been on June 4, 2016, when the Los Angeles Dodgers were -485 favorites over the Atlanta Braves. Why so high? Sure, the Dodgers were very good that year and the Braves not, but mostly because Dodgers ace pitcher Clayton Kershaw was on the mound and he was almost unhittable that year. Thus, it would have cost bettors $485 to win $100 on L.A. The Dodgers did win, 4-0.
There are countless methods for making MLB predictions that will lead to varying degrees of success. If you want to make money from betting on baseball you need to be able to make consistently accurate MLB predictions, but how do you do it? Read on for some expert insight into making MLB predictions.
What are the challenges with MLB predictions?
Making money from betting is hard, a lot harder than people think. While baseball is a completely different sport to soccer, basketball or tennis, it’s just as difficult to beat the bookmaker and make a consistent profit from betting on it. Each of the aforementioned sports (and many more) have differences that present their own unique challenges, but there are also some similarities between them.
If you’re betting on baseball with a bookmaker you are not only pitting your knowledge, model or strategy against that bookmaker, you are up against everyone else that is betting with them. A bookmaker like Pinnacle doesn’t have to make MLB predictions, they simply use the information provided by all the other bettors in that market to make the challenge of finding value a lot more difficult.
The large sample size (there are 2,430 games in the MLB regular season), the countless data providers and the format of the game are all very good reasons to bet on baseball. However, these are also reasons that will encourage a lot more people to bet on the sport - the more crowded the betting market gets, the sharper the bookmaker’s odds will become.
Additionally, baseball is quite unique in the sense that the way the game is played is very dynamic. Tactical shifts and approaches are commonplace in the MLB - the return of Lou Boudreau’s defensive shifts from 1946 in 2014 being one recent example of note. The unpredictability in how the game is played and what aspects of the game a team places value on mean a successful betting strategy can quickly become a redundant one.
MLB predictions: Why data can be a help and a hindrance
As mentioned above, there is an endless ream of data available in baseball - it is probably the most data heavy sport out there. The use of data has became more prevalent after the emergence of sabermetrics with teams being the first to benefit (Billy Beane’s Oakland A’s perhaps the most famous example). Now, the use of data extends to the betting market, fantasy sports and even the average fan.
Regardless of how accurate your MLB predictions are, if you don’t look after your money properly you’ll soon find that you don’t have any left to bet with.
More advanced metrics such as ERA+, FIP, WAR, wOBA and wRC+ (there are many, many more) are now regarded as a basic component of making MLB predictions. However, it is important to note that there is a distinction to be made between using data and using data effectively.
Once you have collected data, the next step is analysing it and building a predictive model. There are so many data inputs and model functions that can be used to make MLB predictions. Run scoring regression analysis could be used to find an edge on Totals betting, a ranking model with all manner of inputs can be used for Money Line matchups, individual team analysis can be used for season win totals projections and so on.
Making considerations for the unique aspects of baseball when using data to make MLB predictions is a crucial part of the process. Failure to account for things like the strength of schedule, the weather, where a game is played and at what point in the season it is played can have a major impact on your predictions and the results you achieve when betting on them.
- Read: Why basic data isn't enough when betting on MLB
Despite all the benefits that using data might bring, it’s important to remember that while a pattern may exist or an apparent edge might be found, only after thorough testing will you be able to distinguish whether these findings are legitimate and will hold up against the betting market. This can be summarised by the words of Mark Twain; “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
There are plenty of useful resources available to help guard against making the common mistakes that come with data analysis and modelling. Nassim Taleb’s book Fooled by Randomness provides a good explanation of (amongst other things) why “the more data we have the more likely we are to drown in it” and while this is true for most sports, it is especially applicable to baseball given the wealth of available data.
Joseph Buchdahl has written at length about the science of probability and uncertainty in Squares & Sharps, Suckers & Sharks and also has plenty of articles on Pinnacle’s Betting Resources covering things like the difference between correlation and causation. Those after literature more specific to baseball data analysis can look to Jim Albert and Jay Bennett’s Curve Ball (a collection of essays on baseball statistics).
What to do once you have your MLB predictions
Producing your own MLB predictions is all well and good but if you want to make money off of them, you need to able to invest in them. A bookmaker will provide odds on an event occurring (which over time will adjust slightly as new information enters the market). If your predictions are consistently more accurate than the one provided the bookmaker, you will be able to make a profit from betting on them.
There are three simple steps to follow if you want start betting on your MLB predictions. Firstly, compare your predictions against the market. The simplest way to do this, depending on what you are trying to predict, is to convert your predictions into percentage chance and compare them against the bookmaker’s odds (in percentage chance) - this will tell you whether you should bet or not.
Failure to account for things like the strength of schedule, the weather, where a game is played and at what point in the season it is played can have a major impact on your predictions.
How To Bet In Baseball
If after this first step you determine that you should place a bet on your prediction, you need to calculate how much money you should bet - using a staking method to optimise how much money you place on each bet. Finally, you need to measure the success of your approach by analysing results (and this doesn’t just mean over the course of 30, 40 or 50 bets).
Using our examples above, you might have a power rankings model that suggests the Chicago Cubs have a 66% chance of beating the St. Louis Cardinals (after all external factors had been considered). If the bookmaker posts odds of 2.33 (42.92%) for the Cardinals and price the Cubs at 1.694 (59.03%) this would provide you with betting opportunity that offers expected value (you think the Cardinals have a better chance of winning than what they are being given).
Once you have a means of finding an edge (expected value), using a staking method such as the Kelly Criterion will help you bet amounts relative to that edge and ensure that you don’t exhaust your bankroll. Regardless of how accurate your MLB predictions are, if you don’t look after your money properly you’ll soon find that you don’t have any left to bet with.
In addition to refining your approach, analysing the results is arguably the most important part of the process when betting on your MLB predictions. The question of luck vs. skill in betting is something all bettors should be aware of, but one many fail to recognise.
How To Bet On Mlb Baseball
Whether it’s comparing your bets against the closing line (Pinnacle’s is the most efficient available), using the t-test or Bayesian analysis, ensuring your results are down to your skill (method of prediction) rather than luck (randomness) is essential if you intend to succeed in the long term.