Totals

Now that you understand the two ways to pick a winning team, we’ll look last at a fun one: the “total”, which is nothing more than the combined scores of both teams in a matchup.

Again taking a number of factors into consideration, oddsmakers decide what the most likely number of points scored in the matchup by both teams combined. Halladay is on the mound and has an ERA of 2.11, and Cleveland’s best hitter, Sizemore, just went on the 15-day DL. Thus, the oddsmakers think that Halladay will neutralize Cleveland’s offense, and they set the “total” at 8.0 runs.

Your job is to decide whether the total number of points scored in this matchup will be more than 8 runs (called “the over”), or less than 8 runs (called “the under”). 

If you picked the over and the final score was Cleveland 4 and Toronto 5, then you correctly picked that the total number of points scored in the matchup would be over 8.0.

If, on the other hand you picked the under, then your pick would be incorrect.

If the total number of points scored equals the total (in this case, 8), then it is known as a “push”. A push is basically the same thing as calling it a tie (not quite a winner, not exactly a loser), and the amount you risked is returned to you to use again.

Quite often, you will see oddsmakers set totals with half-points at the end. For this baseball game, they could have set the total at 8.5 runs. Adding a half-point to a total simply eliminates the possibility of a “push” outcome.

Takeaway: oddsmakers set the total number of points that they expect there to be in the matchup, and your job is to pick whether there will be more than that (“the over”), or less than that (“the under”).