How to Bet the Total: Over/Under Betting Explained

Sometimes betting on a team to win or a 1×2 bet isn’t the right call. The profits from a win bet aren’t always worth the risk — what if you lose? — so looking for an alternative way to wager your money is necessary to win money. 

A totals bet, also known as over/under is another market for sports bettors. The total in any sports game or event is the combination of goals or points scored by both teams or competitors. The sportsbook will set a total number for the event. This number is determined by the oddsmaker as to how the event will unfold in terms of scoring.

As the bettor, your job is to determine whether the game will end with more or fewer points or goals than the oddsmaker set.

Betting on over/under

To win an over/under bet, you must predict whether the total score will finish lower or higher than the number set by oddsmakers. Let’s now look at an example from the NFL to get more of an idea of how the over/under works.

Let’s take an NFL game between the KC Chiefs vs Denver Bronco. The oddsmakers set the total at 48.5 points. You select the over as you predict the game’s final combined score will be 49 points or more. If you predict the score to have 48 points or fewer, you would select the under.

The sportsbook’s odds would be presented like this:

48.5 OVER -110

48.5 UNDER +105

Let’s say you bet $50 on the over and the game finished with a combined score of 56. In this instance, you would receive a payout of $95.45. The payout includes your original $50 along with a $45.45 profit.

Now, let’s say you bet the under with your $50 at odds of +105. If the game between the Chiefs and Broncos finishes with 46 points, then you would win the bet as it had under 48.5 total points. The bet would pay out $102.50. You would receive your $50 stake along with $52.50 in profits.

Things to consider for over/under betting

Most sportsbooks will set the total figure as a decimal. So, you will often see the total at 0.5, 1.5, 2.5, etc. The reason for this is if they give a whole number and the final combined score adds up to this number, then the bet ends in a push. This means the sportsbook pays back the stake of the bettors. No one wins in this scenario and most sportsbooks do not want that to happen.

Over/under betting can be used when it is difficult to determine which team will win a given game. It is also great when you want to improve the profits you will receive rather than simply betting on a win market bet. You may even add a few over/under bets to your accumulator.

The over/under is offered in most sports from soccer and NFL football to basketball and baseball. You can even get over/under betting for UFC and boxing. In combat sports, rather than betting on a combined score, you will wager on whether the fight will go over/under a specific number of rounds.

Zcode System tools

The Zcode System Totals Predictor is a great tool to use to make educated bets on over/under.

The Totals Predictor is a unique tool developed based on Jonathan Ma’s ideas.

For every team, we build two lines.

The blue line is the Over/Under line. We assigned a value of 1 for the Overs and a value of -1 for the Unders. For the purpose of this prediction tool, over/unders are based on 5.5. Any game with a push on 5 is considered an under for 5.5.

The red line is the differential between the over/under based on the last 10 games. Examples: A 6-4 in favor of over would be +2. A 3-7 in favor of under would be -4.

The next step is to compare the lines and see the repeated patterns. For example, if you see both teams are trending up on the red line this means they score much more goals than usual and the game will probably go Over 5.5!

What are you waiting for? Get the Totals Predictor by signing up for Zcode System today!