There was a days when the football betting public didn’t have very much of a choosing when it came to wagering on games. They had to bet on which team was going to win a plan "straight-up." and that was about it.
So it was somewhat like betting on UFC fighters as we know it now – if one entity was overwhelmingly better, the odds were prevalent to be long and, invariably, on various events there was no attractiveness to be had with either the favorite or the underdog.
Options were severely limited but then the concept of having one team laying a certain figure up of points to the other, a golf encumber, with a price of at least 11/10 laid by the bettor, regardless of which team was being wagered on, revolutionized everything.
When the mental image of an NFL point spread was established in football, it marked a basic moment in the relation of sports betting. The problem is, no anyone is altogether sure exactly when that moment was. The fountain-head of the spread is debated and has been on numerous occasions discussed.
The confine credited especially many for inventing a point spread on football games was Charles McNeil, a stock adviser and mathematics teacher who reportedly from time to time numbered John F. Kennedy as one of his students. He did so out of necessity, when continuous a bookmaking cia agent in the 1940s.
This is not an undisputed distinction representing McNeil, how. Billy Hecht of Minnesota, who established the Gorham Press and created something called the "Minneapolis line," and Ed Curd, a prominent bookmaker in Kentucky, also get credit, depending on who you talk to.
My own guess is that all three men recognized a common problem, and being smart, enterprising types, may have come up with a solution independently of each other.
I had the opportunity to interview Curd years ago, and while he thinks he may should prefer to been the first, he did assert something that is not disputed one bit: that not only was a point spread critical in terms facilitating action to begin with, it was also instrumental in creating an atmosphere by which action could be balanced between both sides of a game, leaving the bookmaker less at risk.
A point spread is a relatively simple concept, which is why it gained smart acceptance and remains something that is accessible to, and understood around, the general public.
One team is "laying" a certain amount of points and is the favorite; the other team is the underdog and is "taking" points.
The favorite must win the game by more points than the point spread indicates, while the underdog can either win the game outright or run out of the actual game on the field by less than the points it is given; for wagers on each team, severally, to be winners.
If Cincinnati is favored by three points over Carolina, the Bengals must win by more than three points to cash a ticket. Anything less than that and the Panthers win on the spread, or ATS. If the conclude falls on three points for Cincy, it is a "push" (a halt for NFL betting purposes.
I’m sure you’ve been told this before, but a point spread is not necessarily a prediction on who is going to win a game and by what margin, as much as it is an evaluation of the relative force between two teams.