We’ve all heard of the guy who bet on the underdog team in the Superbowl and walked away with thousands of dollars, or the friend of a friend who knows a guy who can hook you up with a Filipino cockfight next weekend.

If you’re a sports fan, it’s a pretty safe assumption to say that you know that bets, both legal and illegal, are placed on virtually every professional game and many college games.

Simply placing a bet can be a confusing affair – sportsbooks have their own jargon and systems vary. Figuring out how to bet well enough to win some money is another matter entirely. How are the fees determined? Who draws the line? What percentage of the time do you need to win to break even?

In this article, I’ll introduce you to the jargon in the world of betting and odds and show you how one of the world’s favorite pastimes can make you a lot of money when you know what you’re doing.

Fundamentals of sports betting

Different sports have different systems for making odds and betting. There are even different systems for the same sport, depending on what type of game the bettor wants to play. But to understand any of these systems, you must first understand the jargon.

Action – Action is simply a betting activity. Phrases like “I want to get in on the action” or “Show me where the action is” come from this term. Since sports betting is illegal in many places, you can’t always look up your local bookie in the phone book.

Handicap: In sports betting, “to handicap” is giving a team a points advantage to level the betting field.

Sportsbook – An establishment that accepts bets, also known as a book. An individual who takes bets is a bookie.

Juice – This is the percentage of all bets taken by the bookmaker as profit. The juice is also known as vig, short for vigorish. Sometimes the bookies take a direct percentage of the mango, but more often the vig is calculated on the odds.

Mango: The mango is the total amount of money wagered on the bets. Super Bowl bets generate the biggest drive of the year for most bookies.

The Spread: The point spread is used in high-scoring sports like soccer and basketball. It is basically a handicap that is used to make all games competitive in the eyes of bettors. The margin gives a team an advantage of a few points. The standard notation for point difference shows the favorite team first, followed by a negative number (the actual difference). The home team is shown in capital letters.

You can place sports bets on football, soccer, baseball, basketball… well, pretty much any sporting event on the planet and you can win a lot of money if you do it the right way. If you’ve ever wanted to place a bet yourself, but weren’t really sure if it was worth the risk, you’ve come to the right place. Gambling definitely means that someone has to win and someone has to lose. What if you could find a way to tip the scales and be on the winning side with almost every bet you make?

Sports betting systems are proven ways to help increase the odds of winning when betting on sports. Professional bettors and tipsters have designed these systems to allow us amateur bettors to learn the insider tricks and trades they use to be so successful at sports betting.

Sports betting systems refer to a set of events that, when combined for a particular game for a particular sport, represent a profitable betting scenario. Since sports betting involves humans, there is no deterministic house or player advantage. Systems allow the player to have an advantage.