NHL Betting Lines

If you’re going to bet on the NHL then one of the first things that you need to do is learn how to read and understand the odds. All of the sportsbooks will generally only show you hockey odds in one form which is really simple to understand. Once you’ve gone through this guide and you understand what the odds stand for then you’ll be ready to move onto finding one of top hockey betting sportsbooks.

Toronto Maple Leafs -150 vs. Montreal Canadiens +115

In the above NHL betting lines example the first thing you want to look at is the (+) and the (-) sign. When you’re betting on the NHL the – sign means that the team is a favourite whereas the + sign means the team is an underdog. In the above example if you place a wager on the Leafs to win then you’d need to wager $150 for every $100 profit. If you wager on the Canadiens you would win $115 for every $100 wager.

Toronto Maple Leads vs. Montreal Canadiens -6.5

In this example we’re taking a look at the odds for the over/under on the Leafs and Canadiens game. The -6.5 is the posted total that has been created by the sportsbook. Your job is to decide whether you think the game will go over or under the posted total of 6.5. If you think that the game will have 7 or more goals then you would pick the over and if you think the game will have 6 or fewer goals, you’d pick under. If the odds in the game are an even number then there is a possibility for a tie. For instance, if the total was -6 and the game had 6 goals then the wager would be a tie and you would get your wager back.

If you want to calculate how much you can potentially make when betting on a parlay then you need to make sure you have all of the odds handy. The first thing you need to do is create the odds into a parlay factor. In order to do this, you need to use the following calculations.

Favourite – (Moneyline + 100 / Moneyline)
Underdog – (Moneyline + 100 / 100)

Once you have all the parlay factors for your parlay you need to multiple them together and then subtract one. If you’re having any problems doing this you can alternatively use one of the many online parlay calculators which will do the math for you.

These are the only NHL betting odds you need to learn how to calculate. All of the other types of bets you can make such as futures bets and prop bets will use the same type of odds as a straight wager. As long as you understand simple math then you will have absolutely no problem understanding the odds. The only tricky thing is calculating the parlay payouts, but this isn’t something you need to do anyways since there are lots of calculators that do this for you.