In sports betting, the major sports such as NBA and NFL use point spread as a form of wagering. The point spread is an adjustment to the final score made by the bookmakers in order to keep the same chance for both teams to win/lose the bet from a game match.

The best way to explain the variables in consideration for sport betting is with an example; the point spread on a NBA game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat is as follows:

Teams	Lines	Odd
Los Angeles Lakers	190	(-110)
Miami Heat	-2	(-110)

The point spread in this NBA game is -2 to the Heat. This means that if you bet the spread on the Heat, Miami need to win the game by 3 points or more in order to win the bet. It is common to call this feature ATS, means "against the spread", so the Heat are 2 points ATS. If Miami wins by 2 points, the bet is "no action" and none wins or losses.

From the above example, if the final score is Los Angeles 90 and Miami 96, the Heat covers the point spread, since they won the game by 4 points (4 > (ATS=2)), and if the final score is Miami 93 – Los Angeles 92, the Miami Heat fails to cover the spread ( 1 < (ATS=2)) and the bet is lose. If the Heat loses the game, automatically the bet is lost, no matter the final score. The other case is for Los Angeles, means they can lose by no more than 2 points in order to cover (win) the bet, even if Los Angeles loses, as long as they lose by less than 2 points.

On the above example, the numbers in the brackets are the payout odds of the match. Generally the pays out is -110 (i.e. you have to bet $110 to win $100 + the $110 bet). From this relation the percent of winning/losing bets need to be at least 52.4% in order to obtain a 50 – 50 relation.

The team expected to win the game (the "better" team) is called the "favorite" and is the one with the "minus" sign infront of the point spread. The "weaker" team gets the + point spread, gets extra points added to the final score.

From the same example, the number 190 indicate the Total Points Line (TPL); a bet can be made to over or under this quantity. Team A score + Team B score = Total points, if A+B > TPL then the winning bet is OVER, if A+B<TPL the winning bet is UNDER, if A+B=TPL it is a PUSH.