A baseball Over-Under bet is a wager on how many total runs are scored in a game. The game must go at least 5.5 innings to be official, and all runs count, even in games that go extra-innings. If a game is suspended due to rain or length of play, it will be finished later and your wager will be pending until it is finished. If a game is called due to rain (or other unforeseen occurrence) prior to 5.5 innings it will be made up at a later date.


In this case your wager will be refunded.

If you haven’t walked into a Las Vegas casino that offers sports betting you’ll be surprised how many bets are actually available, from hockey, football, baseball, golf and European soccer to tennis, college sports, motor sports and many others. However, during the baseball season from April through October, the majority of the bets on the boards will be baseball. And, you bet on run totals, pitchers, parlays, home runs, runs in an inning, strikeouts, fly ball outs, total hits, you name it and some Sportsbook will offer the bet.

Most baseball wagers are made on the winning team, and the books set a money line to even-out the wagers between players, so the favorite might be -1.50 and the underdog +1.30 As wagers on one side or the other dominate, the line will move. Suppose the Sportsbook gets lots of action on the underdog but not the favorite. When this happens, the line might move to -1.40 and +1.20 to again even out the wagers.

Sportsbooks rely on capturing a small piece of the total wages to survive, not on choosing who will actually win.

In other words, their job is to gauge how the public will bet. If two teams are really perfectly matched for a game, then the team with the most followers would be the favorite. Think of the Yankees versus the Padres. Who’s better known and has a bigger fan base? Right, the Yankee. If they were otherwise perfectly matched the line would still be something like Yankees-1.35 Padres +1.20 to even out the bets because more people will bet the Yankees so the Sportsbook tries to make a wager on the Padres more attractive.This happens all season long.

Many baseball bettors believe they should wait until after at least a month of play, since the season is 162 games and they want to have some historical background before making any bets. However, there are plenty of ways to make money with early season baseball bets. One of the keys to success is watching each teams talent during Spring Training, and by measuring one teams roster against another teams. If you study, you'll find plenty of games like the one above (Padres vs. Yankees) where the fan favorite isn't necessarily the game favorite and the line will offer you a good deal. This can even happen with point-totals, again, early in the season, when a team is expected to hit many home runs ans score lots of runs.

Over-Under totals

A baseball Over-Under total may start at -1.10 for both bets, so the Sportsbook gets to keep a piece of the action. That means no matter which side you choose you’ll be laying 11 to win 10 units. An $11 wager returns $21. That gives the bet a .9090909 return or a house edge of over 9-percent. Taking an underdog wager regularly is tough, even if you are wagering on baseball streaks.

If you use a simple system to guess a game's total runs (such as using the total runs scored for each team and dividing by the number of games played), you might find a game that looks good to bet. Suppose this time the game is the Minnesota Twins and the Baltimore Orioles and the two teams have scored an average of 4.6 runs and 5.4 per game respectively. With no other knowledge you might guess the game will be 10 runs (4.6 plus 5.4). Now you see the line on the game is Over/Under 10 runs.

Well, what to do. That's how many runs you expected, but will they actually score more, or less? Again, if you knew nothing else about the game, you'd look at the odds, which might be Over 10 -1.20 and under 10 +1.10 so now you get more than you wager on a win if you bet the under. Now you go through your checklist:

Things That May Reduce Runs Scored

• Big players are resting or hurt
• Rain and wet conditions
• Dominant pitcher or pitchers going
• Long road trips recently by one or both teams
• Night game with strikeout pitcher or pitchers
• Inter-league games where the AL pitcher bats instead of a Designated Hitter

Things that May Increase Runs Scored

• Poor defensive teams especially when replacements are being played
• Minor-league call-up pitcher going in first ML start
• Revenge games where a team wants to score many runs
• Off-speed pitcher or knuckleballer in windy weather
• Wind blowing heavily towards outfield walls

Yes, the Sportsbook takes these things into account. This list isn't for you to find great games to bet, it to help you understand why a game you thought might be at one run total is completely different and keep you from wagering heavily because you think the line is out of whack.

There are no perfect tried-and-true ways to beat the totals, but keying on a few teams and watching how they are playing this week, their momentum, their heart and their potential is probably more likely to make you a profit than any other system. As your ability increases, you can increase the number of teams you are watching and your wagers, but understanding casino odds is important before you plot your sports-wagering future.

You'll also likely find that most of the ideas for Over-Under wagers apply to 3-game series wagers and you can profit by using your new ability for more than one game during a series.