What Does Straight Up Mean In Sports Betting?
The sports betting term "straight up" refers to a wager when the bettor only needs a team or individual to win a game or event outright without any regards to the pointspread. The most obvious example of a straight up bet is the moneyline. The rules there are simple - if you bet on a team and they win the game then you are a winner. If they lose then so do you.
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At the risk of insulting your intelligence, I’ll give a couple of examples. First, consider an NBA game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks. The Lakers are a 7-point favorite but the moneyline for Lakers to win is listed at -340. If you bet the moneyline, you only need to Lakers to win the game and there is no consideration given to the point spread. In this wager you have bet the Lakers straight up. Likewise, you have chosen to bet on an MLB game between the Los Angeles Angels and the Toronto Blue Jays. You take the Angels, who are favored by the moneyline of -140. Instead of betting the runline, you have chosen to bet the Angels straight up and only require them to win the game.
You can also use straight up to describe an overall record. Say, for example, that someone in the media was picking every game each week during the NFL season. They could quite possibly give two different records - their record straight up, and their record against the spread. The straight up record will always be better than the record against the spread. When you are talking about sports betting - especially football or basketball where pointspread betting is prevalent - it is good practice to always say either straight up or against the spread (ATS) after every time you mention a record to avoid confusion.
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