What Does It Mean to Take the Points?
In sports betting, “taking the points†is a phrase used to describe the spread you took for an underdog team. I will walk you through an example below:
Say the Raiders go on the road to face the Chargers. The Raiders are +3.5 while the Chargers are -3.5. If you want to bet on the Raiders spread, you would be taking 3.5 points. Taking these points means that the Raiders would have to lose by three points or less (or win outright) for the wager to hit, as you are essentially adding 3.5 points on the Raiders’ final score.
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Taking the points allows you to bet on an underdog and still win the bet even if that team does not win the game. If the Raiders are +3.5, you will pay the juice of (-110) but have the opportunity to win the bet even if the Chargers win outright. This bet is less risky than taking the Raiders moneyline, though betting the moneyline would be more profitable if the Raiders win as the sportsbook would give something around (+165) odds.
The opposite of taking the points is “laying the pointsâ€. Going back to the example above, if you bet on the favorite Chargers at -3.5, you are laying 3.5 points as the sportsbook is essentially taking those points from the Chargers’ final score.
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Tony Sartori is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Tony, check out his archive and follow him@tony_sartori.