The boys of summer are back, and those legends who will write their stories on the iconic fields of Major League Baseball are here to hold us over until football starts. As such, most of us are going to want to bet on MLB odds. We at Canada Sports Betting understand that MLB Vegas odds can be confusing. Everything will be fine as long as you do your research and keep it tuned into CSB, where we cover all your baseball betting needs, including reviews of the best MLB betting sites. Once you understand the basics of betting on baseball, things get easy — quickly. Then, it’s just a matter of owning a good betting system on your end.
We find that MLB games can offer good value, especially in certain markets. A lot of people misunderstand how to read MLB betting lines, and as such, help the folks who do know their stuff get value bets (i.e. they make the line move). Hopefully, after you’re done reading this, you’ll be equipped with some basic resources to help you round the bases as quickly as possible and capitalize on the naïve mistakes of others.
World Series MLB Odds Today
What you’re seeing below is the current and up-to-date World Series futures odds as listed by our most trusted sportsbooks. There are plenty of solid clubs to choose from, and there’s tons of value to be had if you’re keen to bet on baseball. The MLB is wide-open this year, even if the “experts” say it’s the Los Angeles Dodgers or bust. Nevertheless, if you’re interested in placing a bet, click the link in our chart, and it’ll take you directly to the sportsbook where you can test your luck on the latest MLB Vegas odds.
MLB Betting Strategies & Trends: Players to Watch
The MLB season has been off to a red-hot start. Tons of drama. Teams like the Cleveland Guardians have come out of nowhere to shock the league and become one of the best baseball bets to make, especially on the run line. The AL East is more competitive than ever before, boasting must-see divisional matchups night after night with great moneyline MLB odds. The Baltimore Orioles are quickly becoming public darlings, with them cashing some of the public’s biggest bets of the summer so far.
Ever since being acquired by the Atlanta Braves, starting pitcher Chris Sale has seen a resurgence in his career, quickly becoming one of the best pitchers in baseball and a must-have for DFS players. After a “mid” year for the New York Yankees in 2023, A-Aron Judge is living up to his contract by being one of the most clutch hitters in baseball and cashing more than a few Over 1.5 total bases props bets. Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Wilt Jr. is quickly proving his haters wrong by becoming one of the more intriguing young players in the big leagues who can do a bit of everything.
In our opinion, there’s never been a better time to bet on baseball. Yes, there are teams who’ll win no matter what, but because there are so many more markets to bet, you don’t have to be tied down to one market all of the time. For example, you don’t have to bet MLB moneylines and run lines every night. You might be able to find a great matchup for a specific player prop. Maybe the total is overpriced or underpriced. The possibilities are endless.
Our Best MLB Free Picks Today
CSB has spent years perfecting our betting strategies. We’ve hired some of the top bettors in Canada to help curate the best content for you, the reader. We pride ourselves on giving out quality MLB betting previews that can help bettors make informed decisions on a sport where just about anything can (and will) happen. We have experts who focus on player props and others who focus on moneylines. If there’s a good bet out there, we’ll have something to say. A big part of our approach is to keep bettors educated on what’s happening in the MLB and how that affects the betting side of things. If you want to be in the loop, click here to have access to our daily MLB free picks.
MLB Betting Market Value & Betting Strategy
Okay, we’ve told you about how great betting on the MLB can be. Now, it’s time to talk about the popular MLB betting markets and how to attack them. As everyone’s favourite Canadian professional wrestler, Chris Jericho, once said, “Drink it in, man!” Believe it or not, we’re going to tell you some things that people have paid thousands of dollars to learn, so pay attention as this is a gift many would beg to receive. The Tree of Knowledge is oozing with information!
MLB Moneyline
If you’ve ever bet on sports before, you’ve probably wagered on a moneyline. In order to win a moneyline bet, the team you picked to win the game outright must do just that. The team can win by a run, or they could win by 10. As long as the team wins, your bet cashes. If the team loses, we’re sorry to say that your bet is a loser.
If you stay in the loop with how sharp bettors will attack a certain baseball game, you’ll instantly notice that they, more often than not, attack moneylines. The reason why wiseguys attack moneylines is that they have algorithms that help them find value.
In the grand scheme of things, value can mean many things to different types of people. Sharp bettors look for what we like to call “weird moneyline prices.” For example, the Pittsburgh Pirates are playing the New York Mets. The Pirates are the home team, but they have a worse record than the Mets. Yet, the Pirates are -135 favourites, meaning you’d have to bet $135 to make $100. While other betters may be jumping to play the Mets at plus money, the wiseguy is looking deeper into the matchup.
Any bookmaker worth their salt will tell you sportsbooks worth billions of dollars don’t put bad lines out, especially when there’s a team like the Mets who many casual bettors will back simply because of the team’s name. So, the wiseguy looks at the pitching matchup. Believe us when we tell you that the starting pitchers help set the line. By that we mean, yes, the Mets might be a better team, but they can’t hit left-handed pitchers if their lives depended on it. Guess who’s on the mound for the Pirates? A left-handed pitcher with an ERA under 3.50 who has had success against the bulk of the Mets lineup in the past.
If the books give out the Pirates at anything better than -135, they’d be giving too big of an edge to bettors. Therein, they’d be putting themselves in a bad spot. Sharp bettors know that and they take those factors into consideration when digging into the game. Maybe the -135 price on the Pirates might be too steep for the sharp bettors to take pregame. That doesn’t mean the sharp bettor can’t wait for a better in-game price. (We’ll touch more on MLB live betting later).
MLB Futures
We’ve sort of touched on this earlier, but we’ll go deeper into MLB futures markets here. In a nutshell, when you’re making a futures bet on Major League Baseball, you’re essentially banking on a result to happen down the line. For example, after Chris Sale’s hot start for the Atlanta Braves, you may have made the decision to put some brown bills on him to win the NL Cy Young Award — which is handed out to the best pitcher in the National League.
For this particular example, if Sale wins the NL CY Young, you win your bet. If he doesn’t win and someone bests him in the voting (damn those MLB writers to hell), your bet loses.
For those wondering, the sharps do make futures wagers. That said, they usually tend to focus on team-based futures like the Cleveland Guardians to win the AL Central. If the wiseguy doesn’t see an edge, they usually don’t bet.
Over the past couple of years, though, the rest of the market has jumped to match what the sharps are doing, especially with futures wagers. By doing so, let’s call them “retail investors” kill the edge of the play and put the sharp player in a better position to get a price on a team that they wanted to bet on in the first place.
Are sharps aware of the effect they can have on the market and the “retail investors?” Yes, which is why they use it. Sportsbooks aren’t stupid, either. They know that the market wants to chase the dragon, which is why lines go up and down.
When you hear seasoned bettors say that “having access to the right information is vital to being a good bettor”, they’re talking about not being influenced by what others in the market are doing to potentially shift the odds in their favour.
Run Line Betting Odds
The run line betting market is the equivalent of a spread bet in the NFL. When it comes to MLB odds, most run lines will be -1.5. That means, if you play the -1.5 “RL,” your team MUST win by two or more runs. If they only win by one run, your bet loses.
Through our many years of experience, when sharps want to bet on a “stinky team” against a juggernaut ball club, they’ll usually play the “stinky team” on the +1.5 RL, so the crappy team doesn’t have to win outright.
How many times over the years have you taken a shot on the Colorado Rockies to beat the Dodgers or the Braves? We’d bet not too many. That said, maybe you have, and the Rockies have a one-run lead all the way up until the bottom of the ninth inning. The closer walks a batter, and the clean-up hitter absolutely belts a ball out to deep left field. The game is over; the Rockies lose by one, but since you played the +1.5 RL on the Rockies, your bet still cashes.
Sharp bettors have had many wins like that one. For them, the RL offers protection.
MLB Totals Odds
Essentially, totals are the amount of runs that both teams will combine to score in a game. As such, totals are bet on as Overs and Unders. For example, the total for the Yankees/Red Sox game at Fenway Park is 11.5 runs. You like the Over, meaning you think both teams will combine to score 12 or more runs. If the score for the game ends up being 7-6 Yankees, you’d win your Over bet (7+6=13). That said, if the score is 5-4 Red Sox, you’d lose your wager on the Over (5+4=9).
Sharps tend to bet a lot of Unders, especially when there are two bad pitchers taking the mound. Sometimes, IN THE RIGHT SPOTS (key phrase), books will overinflate totals to protect themselves if the obvious happens, and both pitchers crap the bed. Wiseguys will usually bite in those situations because they have an edge. With an average totals bet being priced at -110, some sharps have reported having a 59% lifetime win rate, which is pretty good.
MLB Odds Prop Bets
Wiseguys don’t usually bet props because of the limits books place on them. That said, being able to read props lines can help you set your DFS lineups. Plus, these bets have become pretty popular amongst casual bettors who want to cheer for their favourite players.
Two of the most prominent player prop bets are pitcher strikeouts and total bases. Pitcher strikeout markets operate in the same way totals markets do. The book will set a number and bettors get the option to take the Over or the Under. For example, the books we’re offering Braves lefty Chris Sale’s strikeout total at 6.5 for the first few games of the season. If you played the Over, that means Sale would’ve had to strike out seven or more batters. If he failed to do so, your bet would’ve lost.
When you make a total bases bet, you’re betting on a hitter to collect a certain amount of bases by recording hits throughout the game. For example, a single nets you one total base, a double gets you two total bases, a triple gets you three, and a home run gets you four. Something to note: Walks don’t count as bases; only hits count. You’ll either pick the Over on the total bases or the Under. Most hitters are usually offered at 1.5 total bases.
If you’re a DFS player and you monitor your lineup like the CRA monitors your bank account, player props lines and their prices can provide you with some valuable info. Let’s say you have a hitter who usually gets priced at +125 to record Over 1.5 total bases, and all of a sudden, he’s priced at -105; you might not want to bench him that night. The books are essentially telling you that the player might have a good night, or, at least, he has a better shot at having a solid night at the plate.
The same can be said for pitcher strikeouts. Your stud pitcher is usually offered at 7.5 with the Over being priced at -110. One start he’s being offered at 6.5, with the Over being priced at +105.
Of course, these are only a few examples. There are all sorts of props that can be analyzed and used to help build the best DFS lineup possible.
Live MLB Betting Odds
When somebody says that they’re waiting to make an in-game bet, they’re basically “live betting” the game. You see, as the game goes on and the score changes, so do the odds. That’s pretty much everything we’ve talked about, including the moneyline, run line, totals, and even player props.
Many sharp bettors utilize live betting to get good in-game value, especially if they don’t want to bet the pregame price. In our Pirates/Mets example, the sharp players knew Pirates ML was the play. Nevertheless, they didn’t want to buy in on Pittsburgh at the -135 as it was too steep, so they opted to wait for something in-game.
What a lot of sharp bettors will do if they’re planning to bet on the home team in a spot like the one we discussed, they’ll watch the top half of the first inning and hope the Mets score a run or two off one bad pitch. As soon they get the price they want on the Pirates, they’ll make a wager.
This isn’t a foolproof way to make money because very rarely do books give out big in-game edges. And if you get good at finding the value they do give out, you’ll be on the fast lane to being limited. Nevertheless, the option is there, and it can be useful.
Remember, though, sharps have parameters set so they can quickly determine if they’re getting the price they need to make a bet. If they don’t get their price, they don’t make a play. In other words, if you want to become a profitable “live bettor,” start building a strategy.
How to Start Betting on Baseball
Alright, we gave you the lowdown on the betting markets and some strategies you can utilize to attack them. Now, let’s cover some topics that we haven’t touched on and end this article with a bang.
1. Understand MLB Betting Lines
If you read this far, you’ll know that betting on the MLB requires some skill. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’re going to bet into some bad spots. Luckily, we’ve taught you some strategies you can use to find value. As always, if you do bet, please wager responsibly. That’s the whole reason why we study lines and look for angles, so we can make educated bets, and to also avoid betting “just for the sake of it”.
2. Compare MLB Odds at Sportsbooks
Some MLB betting sites will offer better lines than others. Heck, some books like bet365 and Betano will offer early payouts. Knowing what books are better than others can lead to you making more money. When you consider the profit margin is so slim from being a winning bettor to a losing one, every cent counts.
3. Create an Account
Once you find a book you like, you’ll have to sign up. That’s pretty easy. Just give them your details and some ID, and complete the KYC verification, and you’ll be betting in no time!
4. Mobile MLB Betting Opportunities
Also, remember that some of the sportsbooks have solid mobile apps. These can be useful when you want to live bet on a game but don’t want to drag your laptop out and keep it charged.
MLB Vegas Odds FAQs
For Canadian bettors, there are plenty of online sportsbooks that make MLB betting fun and easy. You can find our recommended sportsbooks on the top of this page.
For individual games, the most common bets are moneylines, totals, and spreads. The big games will also include a good selection of player and team prop bets.
MLB futures are a lot like moneylines in that you are betting on the winner of a match. The difference is that futures are reserved for big events like the World Series or Pennants.
MLB lines can change for many reasons. Sometimes it is because something newsworthy has happened, such as an injury or an upset. Other times they change because of how many bets are being placed.
Right now the Los Angeles Dodgers are the odds favourites to win the World Series 2021. But this can change drastically throughout the season.
The Boston Red Sox won the first World Series way back in 1903.
The betting odds that sportsbook lists for MLB games.
The Los Angeles Dodgers are the current favourites to win the World Series at +310 odds.
Fangraph estimates your odds are 1 in 1189 of catching a foul ball at an MLB game.
-120 means you’d have to bet $120 to make $100. +120 means you’d make $120 in profit on a $100 bet.
There were 614 picks in the 2023 MLB Draft.
