Puck Line Bet
While NHL Moneylines can be a great way to bet NHL, they are often not the most profitable bet. You might know that the Sharks are going to beat the Coyotes, but the sportsbooks know that too and they are going to make you pay for it with a high moneyline. That can be difficult to profit from in the long run.
The puck line is very similar to the MLB Runline in that it is always set at 1.5. That line is then adjusted similar to a moneyline.
Money Line Puck Line 1st. Open Line: Consists of the first betting line received from one of our Las Vegas or Global sportsbooks. VI Consensus: Consists of the current betting line which.
- Three-way puck line. A three-way puck line is similar to a three-way moneyline except for the fact that with the puck line, there is a handicap, or spread, attached to one of the teams to give them an advantage to start out. As with three-way moneyline betting, a three-way puck line only takes into account regulation time.
- Puck line betting is used for only one sport which is ice hockey. Australians can make puck line bets at any time. Our credible sportsbooks are there so punters can bet on big leagues like the.
- The point spread is a straight bet where a team gets or gives points based on if they are the favorite or underdog, while the money line adjusts the payout for each team winning regardless of the margin of victory. However, baseball run line and hockey puck line.
Betting NHL Puck Lines can be very profitable and this article is going to tell you why. We’ll also show you how to bet them as where as the best place to bet them.
Where To Bet NHL Puck Lines:
America: One of the top places to bet the NHL is Bovada and they have puck lines throughout the season. This is one of the best sites for betting on hockey as they not only have the NHL, but additional leagues like the MHL. You can bet puck lines, moneylines, over/unders, and much more here.
Canada: There is no better place for betting NHL puck lines than Sports Interaction. They have you covered for all of your NHL needs. One of the best things to bet on here is the Grand Salami where you bet on an over/under number for the whole league.
Everywhere Else: A site that I love for betting NHL is Bet365 and they have you covered when it comes to NHL Puck Lines. The odds are posted quickly and always being updated. In addition to puck lines, you can also bet totals and props.
What is an NHL Puck Line?
An NHL Puck Line is similar to a point spread in football in that you have a “spread” that the team needs to beat. In hockey, a favorite will be -1.5. This means that in order to win the bet the favorite would need to win by two goals or more. If you are betting the underdog they can lose, but it has to be by one goal.
The line will always be -1.5 or +1.5. There will then be odds attached to that. While the Red Wings might be a -130 favorite, at the -1.5 line they might be +150. This is because it’s a higher degree of difficulty.
Common NHL Puck Line Questions:
When is the best time to bet a NHL Puck Line?
When a team is a -120 favorite, it might not be the best idea to bet the puck line. While the positive odds that you get when you see this are very intriguing, the low odds tag this as more of a coinflip game and those are often decided by one goal.
The best time is when there is a bigger favorite and you can get their price down by taking the puck line.
Of course, not all games are created equal and there can be times when that is a bad value and the close line is a good value. Context is king.
Why is the NHL Puck Line set at 1.5?
The most common final score in the NHL is a 3-2 finish with the next most likely being 4-2. That tells you just about all you need to know about scoring in the NHL. This is a league where games are close and blowouts are less likely.
It’s such a thin line between a one goal win and a two goal win, that 1.5 is the perfect amount of goals. It forces every game to have a result. Without ties, a game has to be decided in the modern NHL and many are decided by just one so that extra half makes this a very trick bet that you have to be careful when you use it.
How To Bet NHL Puck Lines:
Finding the NHL Puck Line on your favorite sportsbook is rather easy. You simply head to the section that lists that day’s NHL games and browse the games. Here you should see three things: a puck line, a moneyline and a total. You know which one you want to bet.
NHL Puck Line Betting Strategy:
One thing about puck line betting that is important to understand is that if a game goes to overtime, the game is automatically a puck line winner for the underdog. You can’t score more than one goal in OT and the shootout is rated as one goal.
For this reason, you’ll often see the -1.5 as a major favorite like if the Penguins were favored against a non-playoff team. You might see the Penguins line getting as high as +1.5 (-180). That is really a lot of money to put out in a game where you need to win by two or more goals. This is where line shopping comes in. You just need to look around at all the games and find the lowest price on the +1.5 and seek that out.
Of course, it can often be a good value to grab the underdog in a situation like that as well. If you can get +1.5 at nearly +200 price, meaning a $100 bet would pay two-to-one, that can have a ton of value.
NHL Betting Guide / Where to Bet NHL
All Hockey League Betting Guides
NHL regulation time betting has recently become a very popular option for hockey bettors, especially for anyone looking to get better odds on a favourite or not wanting to have their bet settled in overtime or a shootout.
In case you aren’t familiar with NHL regulation time betting, it’s when you bet on what happens in the first 3 periods of the gameonly. What happens in OT or a shootout is irrelevant.
In NHL regulation time betting, most sportsbooks offer 3 main options:
- 2 way Moneyline
- 3 way Moneyline
- Puck Line
On the 2-way Moneyline, you can either take the visiting team to win or the home team to win. If the score is tied at the end of regulation time, your bet will push (cancelled) and your money will be refunded.
When betting the 3-way Moneyline, in addition to the visiting team to win or home team to win, you can also choose Draw (tie). If the score is tied at the end of regulation time, the game will be graded as a Draw. Any bets on the visiting team or home team will lose.
For puck line betting, the favourite is assessed a -0.5 handicap and the underdog will get a +0.5 handicap. If the game is tied at the end of regulation time, the underdog will have covered the spread because +0.5 is added to their score – similar to point spreads in basketball or football.
Sportsbooks generally do not offer Over/Under (where you bet on the number of goals scored) in regulation time betting.
Now that we’ve quickly gone over your options when doing regulation time betting in hockey, here are 3 key things you need to know about NHL regulation time betting.
1. NHL regulation time betting can drastically affect your payout.
Here is how the three main types of NHL regulation time betting odds compare to if you bet the full game:
2 way NHL betting odds
Regulation time betting odds will be fairly similar to the full-game odds. However, the bigger the favourite is on the full-game odds, the bigger the difference will be on the regulation time odds. That’s because a big favourite is a bit less likely to win a game that goes to OT or a shootout (which are both generally considered 50/50 propositions) than it is to win a game that is decided in the first 60 minutes.
3 way NHL betting odds
Payouts for both the favourite and underdog will be quite a bit higher than the full-time odds because of the possibility both will lose if the game is tied after regulation (Draw). The underdog odds will increase much more than the favourite because of the increased unlikelihood that the underdog wins in regulation.
Puck line odds
The favourite’s payout will be quite a bit higher because of the requirement of winning in regulation time, similar to the three way moneyline bet. However, payout on an underdog will decrease significantly because the underdog has 2 ways to cover the +0.5 puck line: winning the game in regulation OR being tied after regulation (similar to double chance in soccer).
2. NHL regulation time betting can drastically affect your chances of winning.
It might not sound like that big of a difference, but taking a team to win in regulation time severely decreases your chances of winning your bet.
Over a 5-year span from the start of the 2011-12 season to the end of the 2015-16 campaign, there was a total of 4,290 regular-season games played in the NHL. Of those 4,290 games, 1,350 of them were decided in OT or a shootout.
That’s awhopping 23.9% of games that were tied after regulation time – which would cause you to lose your 3 way money line bet (unless you took the draw, of course) and if you took the favourite -0.5 on the puck line.
So what are fair odds on a regulation time bet?
How to determine what odds should be on a regulation time bet
Obviously, the odds will vary on every game so there’s no hard and fast way to tell whether you’re getting fair value on your regulation time bet.
But here’s a little math you can use as a rule of thumb in a 3 way moneyline or a regulation puck line bet.
- In a game between 2 evenly-matched teams, the true odds on each team should be +100 (even money).
- In a game between 2 evenly-matched teams, there’s approximately 24% probability that the game will go to OT.
- That means that for every 100 times you placed a bet in this situation on a team to win in regulation, you’d lose 24 of them. That leaves 76 times out of 100 that either Team A or Team B wins in regulation time.
- If the teams are evenly matched, they’ve each got a 50/50 shot at winning those 76 games. So over time, Team A wins the game in regulation 38 times out of 100, and Team B wins the game in regulation 38 times out of 100.
- If Team A has a 38% chance of winning, Team B has a 38% chance of winning, and the Draw has a 24% chance of winning, that means that fair odds on Team A should be +163, fair odds on Team B should be +163 and fair odds on the Draw should be +317.
As you can see from the above scenario, if there’s a team that has a 50% chance to win the game and you take them in regulation time, you should get an extra 60 cents or more on the moneyline to reflect the increased improbability of winning your wager.
In this real-life example from Pinnacle.com, you can see how the odds for a full-game win and a regulation time differ by approximately 60 cents.
The Wild pays -128 on the full-game line and +131 on the -0.5 regulation puck line, which is a difference of 59 cents (28 + 31). Conversely, the Oilers are +116 on the full-game line and -145 on the +0.5 regulation puck line, a difference of 61 cents (16 +45).
If your sportsbook isn’t offering you approximately 60 cents better odds for taking a team to win in regulation time instead of the full game, you probably aren’t getting the value that you should.
And if you’re taking an underdog +0.5 in regulation time (giving yourself a chance to win on the Draw as well as the underdog win in regulation), make sure you aren’t paying much more than 60 cents on the odds for your increased probability of winning.
Puck Line Hockey Bet
3. You have other options.
If you’re looking to either improve your payout or your chances of winning a bet, you don’t necessarily have to use NHL regulation time betting.
Here are a few other ways you can accomplish those things without limiting your bet to regulation time:
- -1.5/+1.5 Puck line
- +1/-1 Puck line
- Team Total
With the +1.5-/1.5 puck line, you either lay -1.5 goals with the favourite or take +1.5 goals with the underdog. The favourite will now need to win the game by 2 goals or more, which happens much more rarely in the NHL these days, but you can get rewarded with a huge payout if you win (often +200 or higher). If you take +1.5 goals with the underdog, you’ve dramatically increased your chances of winning but you’ll need to be prepared to lay -200 or higher in juice.
The +1/-1 Puck line is a safer way to play the puck line if you like the favourite, since your -1 puck line bet will push instead of lose if the favourite wins by 1 goal. You’ll still need the favourite to win by 2 or more goals to win your bet, and the payout won’t be nearly as high. The +1 puck line on an underdog will allow you to push if they lose by 1 goal, but you’ll need the underdog to win the game straight up to cash your ticket. You can find the -1 puck line at Pinnacle and 5Dimes, or you can create your own by splitting your bet between the moneyline and the -1.5/+1.5 puck line.
Betting The Puck Line In Hockey
With team totals betting, if you like the favourite, you can take them to go Over their team total (generally 2.5 goals) or take their opponent Under their team total. Conversely, if you think the underdog will put up a good fight in tonight’s game, you can take them Over their team total or their opponent Under their team total. FYI, team totals include OT and shootout goals.