What is a Puck Line Bet?
If the name didn’t tip you off, puck line bets are a unique type of wager that you won’t find outside of hockey. As one of the main betting options available wherever hockey odds are on offer, it shares similarities to the point spread in football and basketball betting circles. If you’re not familiar with those, don’t worry – this blog post explains puck line betting and how it works.
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What Does Puck Line Bet Mean?
For a puck line bet, sportsbooks identify the favorite team before a match. Each sportsbook has its own methods when doing this, though they typically arrive at their conclusion by using data from each side: teams’ winning record, their record against one another, and a glance at where the crowds expect this fight to go.
Once the favorite and underdog have been assigned, the puck line is created between them. This is a handicap of 1.5, so the favorite will have -1.5 odds while the underdog will have +1.5. This means that the favorite needs to win by at least two points to satisfy the bet conditions while the underdog needs to win or stay within one point less than the favorite.
Those who bet on other sports will recognize this as being similar to the point spread. However, when different NBA squads face off, the spread varies depending on their odds of success. With puck line betting, most are set at 1.5, so it makes the process simpler for those looking for a wager.
Alongside moneyline bets – betting on which team wins – the puck line bet is available at most sportsbooks that cover hockey action. With the puck line bet, you’re not necessarily betting on who will win – you’re betting that the team will defy expectations by scoring more. It’s possible to bet on the underdog and win your bet, even if they lose. Combined with a moneyline bet on the favorite team, it’s possible for both wagers to pay off for each team.
How Do I Place Puck Line Bets?
Being a typical betting option, taking out a puck line bet is similar to most others. This means creating an account with the sportsbook while making sure to keep our safe and responsible gambling advice in mind.
After signing up and verifying your account, you’ll have to deposit some of your own money to place your first bet. Then you can navigate to the hockey odds of the website and find puck line options. Those will be the ones that show two competing teams with plus or minus 1.5 (or 1½) beside them. Choose the favorite or the underdog, then confirm your puck line bet.
Puck Line Betting Tips
Besides which team you think will defy expectations, there are other factors you should consider before placing a wager. First, you’ll want to be familiar with the teams playing and their lineup. Watch out for announcements for starting goalies – the most important members of any hockey team. If the goalie is resting, his backup may be playing, and this can cause a performance loss for the team.
Do puck line bets include overtime?
Next, you should know how 2-way bets interact with overtime. Goals in hockey come slowly, after being hard-fought on the ice. This makes overtime common, where a tied game is settled by just one goal. In the typical puck line bet, the favorite needs to win by two. So, if you backed the favorite, an overtime game will cause the underdog side to win since their scores are within two points of each other. This also means that overtime is good news for those who backed the underdog.
Those who back the underdogs will need to remember empty net goals, however. This is where a losing team starts an all-out offense in the last minutes of a game, removing their goalie from the goal. Their aim is to tie the game, though the winning team will try to get another goal now that it’s undefended. If the winning team gets that goal but the losing team’s offensive fails, an underdog bet can become a losing bet in record time as the favorites are two points ahead.
Types of Puck Line Bets – 3-way Puck Line Betting
So far, we’ve only described 2-way puck line betting. Most wagers are 2-way, meaning there can only be two results – one team wins and one team loses. Some sportsbooks offer 3-way bets, which is where the possibility of a draw is included in the odds and available as a betting option.
This effectively creates one way to win your wager and two ways to lose, applying a larger handicap to the favorite team and reinforcing the underdog. A push doesn’t happen with 3-way bets since bettors can predict a draw. Of course, most championship games need to end with a clear winner, so 3-way bets only apply for the course of the regular game. After that, a team will win in overtime without affecting your wager.
Another kind of puck line bet is the reverse puck line. This is exactly what it sounds like – the favorite gets +1.5 odds while the underdog gets a stern -1.5 handicap. This means you’re expecting the underdog, who isn’t predicted to win at all, to sweep the game by two points. It’s a wager made for those who want to bet against the crowd, where a team is either underrated or capable of pulling off something special despite all calculations.
