This is called the 'juice'' or the 'vig,'' from the Russian/Yiddish word 'vigorish.''īecause you have to pay that extra $10, it means you'll need to win 52.38 percent of the time to break even. In either case, you generally must pay an additional 10 percent to make the bet. You can either take Tampa Bay at -7.5 (which means they have to win by 8 points or more for you to win the bet) or New Orleans at +7.5 (which means they have to either lose by 7 points or fewer, or win the game, for you to win the bet). For example, if the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are favored by 7.5 points against the New Orleans Saints. Let me start out with the absolute basics: there generally are many ways to bet, but the main one is spread betting.

The simple answer is I'm not getting any younger and I want to give something back to sports fans. Friends ask me why I'd want to give away my secrets now. The truth is, until I decided to write this book, I would not have taken $20 million to share the details of my system. If we had not updated our computer models and I hadn't reinvented how I think about sports at least fifty different times, I would have been out of business way back during the Reagan administration. I also have spent countless millions of dollars trying to stay ahead of the game. It's safe to say that, over the course of my sixty-plus years of betting, I have wagered billions of dollars (yes, billions).

Welcome to my master class for sports betting.įrom that moment until now, I have been through more trials and tribulations than anyone could ever imagine. I didn't realize it then, but when I went broke the first time in my life - betting on the 1955 World Series at the age of nine with the Munfordville town grocer - I was taking the first step toward preparing myself to write this chapter.

This excerpt is from 'Gambler: Secrets from a Life at Risk,' an autobiography by Billy Walters, who is widely considered the GOAT of American sports bettors. How to bet on football: Billy Walters' tips for NFL, NCAA You have reached a degraded version of because you're using an unsupported version of Internet Explorer.įor a complete experience, please upgrade or use a supported browser

How does spread point betting work nfl