re: The Official Georgia-Clemson PreGame Thread

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What are spread point things , like over under 5 points or something?

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It's a system for betting houses or bookies to draw up interest and bets on games. We all know that if Alabama play New Mexico Polytechnic State University, bama would win. However, a bookmaker will give himself or the house an opportunity to make money by setting a line (saying that bama is going to win that game by 21.) It would look like Bama (-21) vs NMSPU (+21).

The house or bookmaker cover the losses to people that bet, but they are also making money b/c they have a charge or fee to make the bet in the firstplace. When you bet online you often have to pay $110 to have a chance at winning $100 if you picked your team and spread correctly. That $10 goes to the house/bookie and that's how they make money.

Bookies and Houses take a lot of bets on many games and they try to make money on the charges/fees and hopefully with big upsets that people bet on
Like if Ceasars was saying USC (-35) vs UNC (+35) and everybody thought there was no chance of USC beating UNC by 5 TD's, so $1 million was bet against USC covering the spread and $1000 was bet for them to cover it, then USC actually beat UNC by 50 points... The bookie/house would use those winning to cover other losses on other games and keep whatever's left for profit.