If you’ve been betting on sports for any length of time, you’ve likely felt the sting of a half-point loss. Perhaps you had a 6.5-point NFL underdog that lost by a touchdown. Maybe you’ve watched an NBA player brick two free throws at the end of a game, causing your 4.5-point favorite to win by four. For some reason, those losses sting more than when your team fails to cover by 20+ points.
Enter buying points. Buying points is a controversial topic in sports betting. Most educated bettors will tell you that it’s a sucker move, akin to buying insurance at the blackjack table. However, those instances where buying half a point turns a loss into a push or a push into a win are very appealing to the general public.
In this piece, we'll dive into everything sports bettors need to know about buying points: What it entails, if bettors should consider it, and when it might be appropriate.
Let’s dive in.
What is Buying Points?
Buying points is something that can only be done in sports that involve a spread bet. That means it’s primarily used in NFL and NBA betting. You can also find it occasionally on the puck line in the NHL and run line in the MLB, but moneyline betting is much more common in those sports.
Essentially, buying points means that you’re going to be able to get a better point spread in exchange for a higher price tag. That theoretically gives you a better chance of covering the betting line with additional monetary risk.
Let’s look at the NBA, for example. Let's say, the Milwaukee Bucks are listed as eight-point home favorites against the Miami Heat. If you want to take the Bucks at that number, the vig is the standard -110. That means for every $10 you win, you’ll need to risk $11.
However, you don’t necessarily need to take the Bucks at that number. Let’s say that you don’t want to pay the full -340 to take them on the moneyline, but you also don’t want to lay eight points. Buying points allows you a bit of a middle ground. You can bet the Bucks as favorites of whatever increment you feel comfortable with, with every additional point coming with a worse payout. The further away you get from 8.0, the more vig you’ll have to pay:
Instead of laying eight, you could choose to lay 7.5 points for -125, 5.5 points for -175, or 3.0 points for -300. These are also known as alternate lines or alternate spreads.
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Selling Points
This also works in reverse, known as “selling points.” Let’s say, you like the Heat in that matchup. You could grab them on the moneyline, but what if you want to grab a couple of points just in case? In that scenario, you could choose to grab the Heat at a lower number. You could grab the Heat +3.0 for +215, giving you the chance at a larger payout without taking on the full risk of a moneyline wager.
How Many Points Can You Buy/Sell?
There is no hard and set rule on how many points you can buy or sell in a given game. Like most things, it depends on what event you’re betting on and which oddsmakers you’re using. For example, FanDuel Sportsbook will allow you to take the Grizzlies anywhere from -26.5 to +23.5 for Game 2 of their first-round playoff series vs. the Lakers. DraftKings will only allow you to take from -9.5 to +11.5 in the same contest.
How much each additional half point will cost you depends on the number. For some numbers, moving half a point will only cost you 10 cents of juice. For other numbers, it can be as high as 30 or 40 cents. This has to do with the fact that certain numbers are more important in sports betting than others. These are called “key numbers,” and buying points around those numbers will cost more than buying around inconsequential numbers.
Is Buying Points a Good Strategy?
In general, the answer to this question is no.
There are people who swear by it, and they can vividly remember all the times they won bets due to buying the extra half a point. What they never seem to remember is all the times they lost more money than they needed to.
What most bettors don’t realize is that the spread doesn’t come into play nearly as often as you might think. This Yahoo Sports study broke down the 272 regular season games from the 2021-22 NFL season, and they found that the favorite covered the spread in 133 of those contests. The underdog won the game outright in another 97 contests, while there were two pushes and one tie. Ultimately, there were only 39 occasions where the favorite managed to win the game but didn’t cover the spread.
This isn’t exactly a new phenomenon, and it’s something that we’re seeing once again in the 2023 NBA postseason:
With that in mind, you can see what most pros consider buying points taboo. If the favorite is going to cover the spread in most of their wins, why would you take on the added risk?
The Action Network ran the numbers on buying points. They looked at every NFL game from 2013 through 2018 and calculated how much you’d be up or down if you bet each team at the most common key numbers. They also calculated how much you’d be up or down if you bought a half-point in each of those scenarios. Even though buying the extra half point resulted in an additional 198 wins over the 2,998 game sample, it still resulted in an additional -18.63 units lost.
Those times you buy a half-point and win may stick fresh in your memory, but it is a losing strategy over the long run.
When Should You Buy Points?
As detailed above, you could very easily just say “never,” and it would mathematically be considered the correct answer. I personally never buy points and would rather go with a hedging strategy if you're looking for an insurance policy.
That said, variety is the spice of life. Even though I may personally disagree with buying points, it’s ultimately your money. If you’re OK with knowing that the math is against you in that scenario and would rather pay for the peace of mind, who am I to argue?
Only Buy Key Numbers
If you are going to buy points, you should limit them to key numbers. As I mentioned earlier, not all margins of victory are created equally, particularly when it comes to the NFL and college football. In football, you can only score via field goals and touchdowns (and the occasional safety), which means that certain numbers are far more likely to appear on the scoreboard than others.
Additionally, when nearing the end of the game, coaches coach around these numbers. If a team is down by five and scores a go-ahead touchdown, they’re going to go for two instead of kicking the extra point. There’s no difference between being up by one or two, but a three-point lead is significant.
As a result, the vast majority of NFL games are decided by specific numbers: three, seven, six, 10, and four are the most common margins (in that order). 3.0 is the most common margin by a wide volume, with more than 15% of games ending on that number from 2000-2022 (via Cleanup Hitter):
Buying Half Points
Buying half points around key numbers is going to cost you a bit more, but those numbers are worth it. I would argue that the half-point difference from +3.0 to +3.5 is worth more than one or even two full points at most other numbers.
The math still says that buying the half-point on 3.0-point spreads is still mathematically incorrect in the long run, but it’s going to result in plenty of extra wins. In the previously mentioned Action Network study, 122 of the additional 198 wins came from buying a half-point around that number. That was far more than any other number in the study.
Apr 15, 2023; Sacramento, California, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) stands on the court during a break in the action against the Sacramento Kings in the third quarter during game one of the 2023 NBA playoffs at the Golden 1 Center. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports
Key Numbers in NBA
Key numbers also exist in basketball, but they are far less important than they are in football. The most common final margins all fall between two and eight points, with a minimal difference between them.
Seven is considered the most important number since that represents three full possessions. In general, if a team is down by less than seven, they will continue fouling to try to extend the game. Once the deficit gets to seven, the losing team will usually pull the plug. Games will often turn into free-throw contests late, and anything can happen when a team gets to the line. If a team can go up by seven — and avoid the free-throw lottery — it typically means that the job is done.
That said, I would argue that buying points in basketball is an even bigger mistake than in football. Think about it this way. The total in most football games is somewhere between 40 and 50 points, while the total in most NBA games is around 220. Half of a point is simply not going to have nearly the same value as half a point in a football game due to the sheer volume of scoring.
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Conclusion
In general, buying points is not something that should be a common part of your sports betting strategy. That’s backed by math, backed by logic, and backed by most professional sports bettors. Show me someone who swears by it, and I’ll show you someone who is almost certainly a losing bettor.
Remember, just because one online sportsbook doesn’t have your preferred number doesn’t mean you can find it elsewhere. If you can’t find it on BetMGM, maybe you can on Caesars. Shopping for a better number at all the possible bookmakers should be your first option before making the decision to buy points.
That said, if you are going to buy points, you should limit it to key numbers. It’s still a mathematically wrong decision, but it can give you peace of mind. Even though you will lose more when you lose, you will pick up some extra wins in the process. If that’s a trade you’re willing to live with, go for it.
