Feb.04 - Yun Sun, senior fellow and co-director of the East Asia program and director of the China program at the Stimson Center, a Washington think tank, discusses the political uncertainty in. Social Distancing Out of California – What Does the Migration out of California Mean for the future of Real Estate. As we embark on a New Year, we can now look back on 2020 and conduct an analysis on what is happening on the ground here in California. In this particular example, the Oklahoma City Thunder are the outsider or underdog as they have odds with a plus sign at the front (plus money). This means if you bet $100 on OKC then you would collect $105 profit, a total return of $205. Clearly the bookmakers considered the game to be potentially close and therefore odds were reasonably tight. What Does -110 Mean in Sports Betting? The minus and plus signs are really important to pay attention to. Along with the number, they tell you tons of information about the bet and the match. Keep reading for more detailed explanations of what the plus and minus signs mean and how to read them. If you like betting on the go, check out which are. What do + and - mean in sports betting? The plus (+) and minus (-) in sports betting can refer to either the point spread or betting odds. In terms of the spread, the ' - ' always refers to the favorite and the ' + ' always refers to the underdog. For example, you can bet the Dallas Cowboys as a -7 point favorite to beat the Green Bay Packers.

1. What Does Plus 1200 Mean In Betting Against
2. What Does 160 Mean Betting

We think it's important for you to understand how we make money. It's pretty simple, actually. The offers for financial products you see on our platform come from companies who pay us. The money we make helps us give you access to free credit scores and reports and helps us create our other great tools and educational materials.

Compensation may factor into how and where products appear on our platform (and in what order). But since we generally make money when you find an offer you like and get, we try to show you offers we think are a good match for you. That's why we provide features like your Approval Odds and savings estimates.

Of course, the offers on our platform don't represent all financial products out there, but our goal is to show you as many great options as we can.

This article was fact-checked by our editors and Christina Taylor, MBA, senior manager of tax operations for Credit Karma Tax®.

Betting on sports is part of the fun for many sports fans — even if their wagering hasn’t always been technically legal.

Until a May 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision opened the door for every state to legalize sports betting, just four states allowed wagering on sports — Nevada, Delaware, Montana and Oregon. Legality, however, hasn’t stopped Americans from betting on sports. In fact, the American Gaming Association estimates that Americans spend more than $150 billion a year on illegal sports betting.

Since the Supreme Court’s ruling, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Mississippi and Rhode Island have legalized sports betting. And other states are considering laws to permit wagering on sports.

But when you gamble on sports, it won’t matter to the IRS if your winnings came from a legal bet or from one that’s off the books. Your winnings are taxable income either way.

If you plan to do some wagering in a state that’s legalized sports betting, it’s important to understand how tax on your winnings will work. Let’s take a look at how the IRS treats gambling winnings of any kind.

Sports-betting winnings are taxable income

The big question for sports gamblers: Are your winnings taxable income? As we said above, the answer is yes.

“Gambling winnings are fully taxable and you must report the income on your tax return,” the IRS says. “Gambling income includes but isn’t limited to winnings from lotteries, raffles, horse races and casinos. It includes cash winnings and the fair market value of prizes, such as cars and trips.”

Although sports betting isn’t one of the examples, it’s still covered by “gambling winnings.”

Whether sports betting is legal in the state where you place your bet doesn’t matter to the IRS. If you win, you have taxable income, which should be reported when you file your tax return.

These rules apply only to casual sports bettors. If you’re a pro — “in the trade or business of gambling,” as the IRS puts it — different rules apply.

How much tax you’ll owe depends on your personal tax situation and tax bracket.

You might also owe state income tax on any money you win from betting on sports, depending on which state you live in. For example, Nevada doesn’t have a state income tax. But Maryland does, and it considers winnings from gambling taxable income. If you win money betting on sports, check with your state to see if it taxes gambling winnings.

Form W-2G: Evidence of your sports-betting win

So you win a couple thousand bucks betting on your favorite sports team. How will the IRS know if you don’t tell it? Well, whomever you won the money from — a casino, racetrack, etc. — is supposed to report your winnings to the IRS on Form W-2G. The form tells the IRS some important information, including …

• Contact information for the payer who awarded you the winnings, including phone number, address and federal tax identification number
• Your name, address and taxpayer identification number
• How much you won
• When you won it
• What kind of wager you made
• And how much, if any, federal and state income tax the payer withheld from your winnings

Generally, the payer has to report your winnings if …

• You won $1,200 or more from a bingo game or slot machine
• You raked in $1,500 or more at keno
• Your poker victory tops $5,000
• You won $600 or more and your winnings are at least 300 times the amount of your bet (bingo, slots, keno and poker are exceptions to this rule)
• The payor withheld federal income tax on the winnings

Penalties for not reporting sports-betting income

Of course, the IRS wants you to report all your taxable income, and if you don’t you could face penalties and interest on any tax you owed but didn’t pay.

Generally, the penalty for not paying income tax that you owe is 0.5% of the unpaid tax. That rate is assessed monthly until you pay the tax you owe. Unpaid tax and penalties typically accrue interest, too — 5% compounded daily from the due date of your tax return to the date when you actually pay in full the balance of any tax, penalties and interest you owe.

However, if you’re caught intentionally omitting income — like gambling winnings — from your tax return in order to avoid paying tax on that income, it could mean additional penalties. According to the tax code, trying to “evade or defeat” tax you owe on income you’re required to report could be a felony with fines of up to $100,000 for individuals or five years in prison. Plus, people convicted of tax evasion can be held responsible for the costs of prosecution.

Lose a sports bet? It might be deductible!

Just as sports-betting winnings are considered taxable income, losses may be tax-deductible if …

• You itemize your deductions
• You keep detailed records of your winnings and losses

“To deduct your losses, you must keep an accurate diary or similar record of your gambling winnings and losses and be able to provide receipts, tickets, statements or other records that show the amount of both your winnings and losses,” the IRS says.

Any losses you deduct cannot exceed winnings that you report when you file your return. For example, if you reported winnings of $5,000, you could deduct losses only up to that amount. Additional losses would not be deductible. And if you lost $5,000 but didn’t win anything, you wouldn’t be able to deduct those losses at all.

If you’re eligible to deduct your sports-betting losses — or any other gambling losses — you’ll do so on Schedule A.

Bottom line

More than a quarter of Americans like to bet on football, 21% are interested in betting on baseball or basketball, and 20% would put some money down on a hockey game, according to Nielsen Sports. If you’re a fan of sports wagering, it’s important to understand that tax on sports betting is nothing new.

The IRS has always considered gambling winnings taxable income, and it expects you to report all your taxable income — even the money you win betting on sports.

If you’ll be reporting gambling winnings on your federal income tax return, or hoping to write off some gambling losses, be sure to keep detailed records of your wagers and losses.

Christina Taylor is senior manager of tax operations for Credit Karma Tax®. She has more than a dozen years of experience in tax, accounting and business operations. Christina founded her own accounting consultancy and managed it for more than six years. She co-developed an online DIY tax-preparation product, serving as chief operating officer for seven years. She is the current treasurer of the National Association of Computerized Tax Processors and holds a bachelor’s in business administration/accounting from Baker College and an MBA from Meredith College. You can find her on LinkedIn.

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Getting action on a game can add a thrill factor that is hard to find in any other aspect of life. Making some money while doing it, well, it doesn’t get much better than that. But what happens when you jump onto your favorite sportsbook and they bombard you with a series of numbers (odds) which are meant to represent the chances of your team winning, when all it really looks like is math on steroids!

If this is how you feel when your trying to place a wager, read on. The following is a simple guide on how to read sports odds and give yourself the best chance of taking home some cash.

What does +200 mean? +200 is a specific set of odds attached to a given sports event. These are in the form of ‘American’ odds’. The +200 represents the amount a bettor would win if they had wagered $100. A profit of $200 and a total payout of $300. Other types of odds are Decimal and Fractional.

What Types of Odds Do Sportsbooks Use?

Globally sportsbooks use one of three types of odds:

1. American
2. Fractional
3. Decimal

There are positives and negatives in the use of all of them. One thing is for sure, if you are going to bet on sport, you will run into one of these odds formats and you NEED to know how to read, understand and eventually capitalise on them.

This article will focus heavily on American odds.

How to Read American Odds

The basis of American odds is that they reflect two different aspects to the bet:

• in the case of the underdog: how much money a gambler will win if they bet $100,
• in the case of the favorite: how much a gambler needs to bet to win $100.

Quite a big difference between the two, and definitely a little tricky to navigate at first.

The following is an example of the moneyline market using American Odds, which was offered by a sportsbook during the NBA playoffs

Note:As the Portland Trail Blazers are the home team they are listed second in this market. Interestingly in many international or offshore sports the home team is listed first. Perhaps in this case the home court advantage is what has led the sports books to install the Trail Blazers as the favoured team.

We can tell Portland has favoritism as the odds have a minus sign at the front. Any time a team has minus sign out front, the bettor knows they will be receiving less than a 2 – 1 payout figure. In fact in this case, to win $100 wagering on the Trail Blazers you would need to stake $128.

In this particular example, the Oklahoma City Thunder are the outsider or underdog as they have odds with a plus sign at the front (plus money). This means if you bet $100 on OKC then you would collect $105 profit, a total return of $205.

Clearly the bookmakers considered the game to be potentially close and therefore odds were reasonably tight. As it turned out the Trailblazers dominated the second half and ran out convincing winners 114 – 92. Moneyline bettors who took Portland, go to bed with a tidy profit. In actual fact the margin of victory is irrelevant as the Moneyline requires just one condition be met, a win.

How to Do the American Odds Math?

Despite the American odds looking confusing at first sight, the underlying math is not too difficult. Having said that it could be much more user friendly.

Another key point to remember is that American odds do not include the original stake in the calculation. They only reflect the profit from the wager. The original stake needs to be added to reflect the total payout or total return figure.

Referring back to the previous example the following math applies:

The issue with this way of reporting odds is that the bettor has to do more than one level of calculation themselves. While it’s all fairly straightforward it does affect the user experience negatively.

How are American Odds Different to Decimal Odds?

The decimal odds system, which is being increasingly used by sports bookmakers across the globe, removes the extra step of calculation required by the bettor when American Odds are in use. It is a much simpler method to offer odds on the identical market and immediately gives a total return or payout figure by using one simple multiplication.

The NBA example used earlier in the article using decimal odds would read as follows:

The payout calculation is where the ease of decimal odds is highlighted:

Underdog:

Favorite:

It is clear that the decimal method is a much simpler way for sport bettors to calculate their potential winnings than than the American odds system.

Another downside to using American odds is that they are almost unusable when working with parlay betting. A parlay or multiplier is where a bettor takes classic bet types and parlays several of these into one wager. In order to multiply the individual odds to create the parlay payout figure, the moneyline is first converted to decimal odds. Highlighting the extra step of math sportsbooks require bettors to do when they solely offer odds in the American format.

It is hoped that one day soon most sports books will offer decimal odds instead of American odds. As legalized sports betting explodes in popularity across the US and more mobile sports betting platforms come online, it is hoped that at the very least, functionality to switch between types of odds is added to all betting apps. After all, sports betting is about entertainment, and user experience should be the number one focus from all corporate bookmakers.

How to Identify Sportsbook’s Margin When Using American Odds

Sportsbooks clearly need to make money to continue to operate and therefore it is understandable that they will take a cut along the way. Understanding when that cut is too large is critical in giving yourself the best chance of turning a profit.

When dealing with American odds on 50/50 markets like total points or point spread the margin is quite simple to recognise.

For example the market on an NBA game may be offering an over/under points total of +/-214.5 points.

In this market, without any bookmaker edge, the odds would read +100 for each option. That is a doubling of the bettors money based on the market essentially being a coin flip. $100 invested would return a profit of $100. Clearly this is not the case in reality. If you spot a market like this through a sportsbook promotion (a rare occasion), then load up!

The sportsbook is only offering -110 meaning a bettor would need to invest $110 to return a profit of $100. This equates to approximately a 4.5% margin (vig) for the book. To be profitable long term the bettor would have to correctly pick this market 53% of the time. A tall order.

Some books will offer a smaller vig, for example -108 but others will be less generous and wind their margin out to numbers like -112. These numbers are often seen in live betting markets due to the greater perceived risk the sportsbook take on with live markets.

It is best, as a rule, to avoid markets where the market is skewed too far in the favor of the book.

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What Does Plus 1200 Mean In Betting Against

Before you hit the confirm bet button on your mobile sportsbook make sure you are fully aware of what price you are actually buying. While American Odds can at times be confusing there is still an art to spotting and cashing in on value. Best of luck!

What Does 160 Mean Betting

Good Luck and as always, gamble responsibly!