When should you play Moneyline Underdogs?

dynamite140 · Aug 30, 2008

Had Utah +3.5 today and they won alright. I saw the ML was around +140 or so but i always play the spread -110.

Right now i have LA Tech +7.5 and they are winning outright though they can still lose the game. LA Tech Moneyline is +240 and looks very good now.

ECU was a 9.5 dog and was +335 underdog but i didnt play the game.

I know it feels good when you have an underdog and they win outright but of course most of us wished we took them ML as well or just ML. My question is what is the line you should take for Moneyline underdogs ? I think taking teams that are dogs of 3 to 9.5 point are fine but any dog more than 10 points is throwing money away. If you do take them, how much should you put on spread versus the ML? Or should you just take everything moneyline?

krk1030 · Aug 30, 2008

I'd take +3 ml. Odds are they will win SU or not cover. Don't think there is value much higher unless you have a good reason to believe they will win outright.

kreitmaster · Aug 30, 2008

If I think an underdog I like has a real shot at winning the game outright, I'll bet .75 unit on the spread and .25 on the moneyline.

itsallabouttheloot · Aug 31, 2008

I do .8 per unit on the spread and .2 on the money line. I usually feel if I'm taking points esp. under 14 or so - they should have some chance of winning the game. The problem is not all books have ML for everything. eg.
today I had three dogs: Lafayette, Bowling Green, and Northern Ill. I would have been happy to play ML on all three and would have had a profit on the three ML due to the BG straight up win. However, Northern was the only game that had one at my book. Thus, I lost the ML play.

seriousaddiction · Aug 31, 2008

My advice is what someone said above...its most likely a safe bet when the spread is around 3...anything more than that is risky business...linesmakers are for the most part pretty sharp as the season goes on...now is defineatly the time to take ML plays...the lines arent as sharp as they will be in a couple of weeks because everyone is getting a feel of what teams actually have to offer...If you do your homework you can make some good coin in the first few weeks of pro and college football. college more so. An example of this today would of been UTAH...I understand that this game was in Michigan and that is (I guess) why the line was where it was at. The fact of the matter is UTAH is a FAR better team than Michigan this year and would beat them 9/10 times. Michigan has NOOOOO qb and is deep deep deep shit this year. Big 10 is strong this year and I honestly dont see this Michigan team winning more than 5 games but thats a whole other topic. Got way off on a tangent but hope something I said was useful

BOL this year