Betting Major League Baseball

Last update: Apr. 7, 2010

Introduction

The page will endeavor to give the recreational baseball bettor advice on the various bets. I have no handicapping skill in baseball whatsoever, so the best I can do is steer you towards the best type of bets. There are three primary ways to bet on baseball, as follows.

• Money line: Bet on which team will win.
• Total: Bet on whether the total number of runs will fall above or below a stated number, usually between 7 and 12.
• Run line: Similar to a bet against the spread in football or basketball. However, in baseball the better team is always favored by 1.5. If the money line indicates neither team is favored, then either team could be the favored team.

Source of Data

The data this analysis is based on is from the Major League Baseball games played over the 10 years encompassing the 2000 to 2009 seasons. The data was purchased at sportsbettingdatabases.com. I had to remove some games for lack of information, and I corrected many typographical errors. Basically, I felt the data was a bit rough, so please take my analysis below with a grain of salt.

Fun Facts

The following table shows the average number of runs, hits, errors, and bases from 2000 to 2009.

Notes

1. Totals may not appear to agree with sum of the parts, due to rounding.

Following are some records from the "zeros" decade.

• Most runs: 36 (Rangers vs. Red Sox, Aug 12, 2008).
• Most hits: 43 (Marlins vs. Rockies, July 4, 2008).
• Most errors: 8 (tie between six games on Jun. 12, 2002, Sep. 13, 2002, Sep. 10, 2003, Sep. 8, 2006, Sep. 12, 2006, Sep. 16, 2007).

Money Line Bets

The following table shows the expected return on money line bets, according to every combination of home or away and favorite, pick or underdog. The table is crossed by whether the sports book uses a 10-cent, 15-cent or 20-cent line. For those unfamiliar with the term, a 10-cent line, for example, means the lines on the two teams are usually 10 points apart — for example +140 and -150.

It is not a typo that the table shows a player advantage for home underdogs of 2.07% against a 10-cent line. This may be partially due to a sampling error.

Total Bets

The following table shows the winning side of total bets in each game.

Assuming the player lays 110 every time, the house edge is 6.29% on over bets and 2.38% on under bets. Seldom do casinos have total bets with less juice than 10 cents.

Run Line Bets

Unfortunately, my data does not indicate the run line bets. However, I can offer the following tables to help determine the fair run line according to the fair money line (F.M.L.) and total. I used logistic regression to create these tables, which was no easy task.

The first table is for away underdogs +1.5 runs. To get the fair money line the other way, on a home favorite -1.5 runs, take the opposite line by multiplying by -1.

Let's take a look at an example to see how to use the table. On April 6, 2010, the Las Vegas Hilton offered the following bets on the Yankees vs. Red Sox game. As always, the home team is listed last.

The fair line on the Yankees would be +130, which can be found by splitting the juice between the two teams. Next, look up the value in the table for +130 and 9.5, which is -152. So fair run line bets would be:

Yankees +1.5 -152
Red Sox -1.5 +152

The actual run lines are -170 and +150. Assuming my analysis was correct, the house edge on the Yankees run line would be 4.20% and on the Red Sox it would be 0.79%.

By the way, the actual score of the game was Yankees 6, Red Sox 4.

The next table shows the fair run lines for home underdogs. The reason for the significant difference between it and the away underdog table above is because it is more valuable to get the extra 1.5 runs on an away team. This is because the game will be over after any winning play by the home team in the 9th or later inning. Thus, there are a lot of games where the home team wins by one run.

Total Runs, Hits, and Errors

Sometimes in the post-season, the casinos will offer an over/under prop on the total combined runs, hits and errors. I noticed there is a fairly linear relationship between the projected total and the actual total of runs, hits and errors. The least-squares regression line for the estimated total runs, hits and errors is 12.45 + 1.817 × t, where t represented the estimated total.

The following table shows the estimated and actual total runs, hits and errors according to the projected total runs.

Additional Data Wanted

I'm looking for baseball data that includes the money line, total, and full inning by inning box scores. The purpose would be to analyze 5-inning props, and whether a run will be scored in the first inning. Please contact me if you can be of help.

Other Rescources

A list of who offers 10-cent lines in Vegas can be found in my Sports Betting Appdendix 1.

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