There are 3 accepted schools of thought on baseball odds wagering and the argument for the best has been going on since time immemorial and will continue long after most of us are gone. The three basic concepts are:

1) Lay the juice with favorites, flat play the dogs. Undoubtedly the most commonly accepted, although most players learned that method from their dads, uncles, older brothers or bookies and have no real evidence to prove it is correct. Say the line on the favorite is -150. Most players will either play $150 to make $100 or play $100 on the dog to make $140. Although adjusting his lay figure on favorites, he makes no allowance of a similar nature for his underdogs.

2) Flat play all wagers. This player would bet $100 on the side he liked, accepting a profit of $66.67 on his risk if he likes the favorite and that favorite wins, and a profit of $140 on the dog if that is his choice and the dog wins. He accepts that he needs the winner (either way) and just because one side is favored does not mean they should be, or that winning probability is on their side. He controls risk, as opposed to player #1 that attempts to achieve a same, certain profit of $100 with every favorite, regardless of the odds.   

3) Add the juice – short play the dog. This fellow is the least common of the three and belongs in the Sanford Wong school of baseball wagering. In my opinion Mr. Wong should stick to card games, but that is another subject for another day. Utilizing this method, the same player would risk $150 on the favorite to make $100 or $66.67 on the dog to make $100. Those that play that way set the target profit as the control factor and justify it with the concept of “the higher probability of the favorite winning.” I don’t buy that at all personally and if so, shouldn’t the player just bet $57 on all favorites and $43 on all dogs, since favorites traditionally win 57% of all games played? My main objection though is that using the potential profit as the control factor seems unstable at best and contrary to the obvious fact that only risk is controllable, not profit.

OK, so how is the novice player to decide? I suggest tracking all three methods for at least a full season with a fourth category. Return on Risk.

The one great advantage to return on risk is that it cannot lie.

On a dime line a -150 favorite pays 66.67% for every dollar put at risk, regardless of which of the above methods of wagering are used.

On a dime line a +140 underdog pays 140% for every dollar put at risk, regardless of which of the above methods of wagering are used.

I have been involved in contests that used ROR as the winning criteria and the only competitors that really bitched were those that liked to lay a lot of heavy juice and claim they were making lots of “units”, although defining a unit is also difficult and can be different things to different people. Btw, the size or definition of the unit is also irrelevant to return on risk.

OK, now what is important about the offered odds number of -146? This is a very significant number in baseball dime line wagering. Someone that followed the drift of all this can solve that, or I will post the answer later.