Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the favorite to win given a negative number? For example, “The Crowd has New England as (-3.6) Favorites.” Shouldn’t the number for the predicted winner be positive?
The number given in the example above is part of the spread for the game. In spread betting, the favorite always has a negative number. Think of it this way: if your team is a (-6.0) favorite, that means your team could just give the other team 6 points at the start of the game and still win.
What does “spread” mean, and what is spread betting?
“Spread” is short for “point spread,” and it refers to the difference between the scores of the two teams at the end of a game. For example, if the New England Patriots scored 20 points and the Seattle Seahawks scored 14 points, the spread at the end of the game would be 6 points.
In spread betting, you’re not just betting on which team will win, you’re also predicting how many points they’ll win by. Let’s say the New England Patriots are a (-5.5) favorite to beat the Seattle Seahawks. You decide to place a bet on the Patriots to win. In spread betting, it’s not enough for the Patriots to just win the game. In this case, the Patriots have to win by more than 5.5 points for you to win your bet. This is called “beating the spread” or “covering the spread.”
What does “over/under” mean?
On The Crowd’s Line, over/under refers to the predicted sum total score of the two teams in a given game. Take the scores of the two teams at the end of a game, add them together, and the result is what is predicted by the over/under. The Crowd’s Line doesn’t use over/under for scoring player predictions, but we provide it on the site to help players make better predictions.
The game is over, but the results haven’t been posted yet. When will we know who the winners are?
Results are usually posted within 24 hours following the completion of an event, but the process of calculating and validating scores can take up to 72 hours.
My prediction was pretty close, but I didn’t get a very high score. Why not? How does scoring work?
Your score depends on a number of different factors. Of course, you’ll get the highest score by making a perfect prediction. If your prediction isn’t perfect, you’ll still be awarded points for correctly picking things like the winner or the overall point total.
One important thing to remember is that for Football, Basketball, and Soccer, you’re also competing against Vegas oddsmakers. If your prediction is better than the prediction from Vegas, you’ll earn points. And if your prediction is a lot better, you’ll earn a lot of points.
You can find all the details about our scoring system here.
