Purchasing Half Points in Basketball To keep things simple let’s stick to NBA basketball. Most, but not all, online sportsbooks allow bettors to purchase a half point for 10 cents. What this means is if the line is. Many sportsbooks offer bettors the option to buy points on point spread bets in football and basketball. Buying points allows you to give away fewer points on the favorite or receive more points on the underdog. Most books that offer this betting option do so at a price of 10 percent per each half-point.

It doesn't matter if you are a novice bettor just learning the ropes or a professional bettor that's seen everything in their 25 years in the business, at one time or another (more like several times in your life time) you will have to throw away a ticket in which a team failed to cover the point spread by a half point. It is one of the more frustrating losses in the industry, right next to the classic ninth-inning bullpen collapse in baseball. Some would say losing a bet by half a point (AKA ' the hook ') is the bettors' fault, not the actual players or coaches in the game, but I will get to that later in the article. What we want to help you understand is why half points are instituted in the betting industry and how they affect whether or not you win or lose your bet and the price you pay for such a line.

Related: Should I Buy Half Points when Sports Betting?

How Does a Half Point Work?

For starters, when looking at the point spread line for any lined game, 'the hook' is that extra half-point in the line. There is a very big difference between a three-point spread and a spread that is 3.5. That extra half point ensures that there will in fact be a winner and loser in regard to the point spread. This means that the sportsbook will in fact rake in the losing bets and pay out the winning bets with that money, which in turn allows them to turn a profit. If you hear someone say that they 'lost by the hook' or 'lost by a half point' they are referring to a situation where a team didn't cover by the slimmest of margins.

As an example, lets pretend you decide to bet on the New England Patriots, and they are three-point favorites in their game against Minnesota. If the Patriots win by a score of 20-17, the wager would be graded as a push and both sides of the bet would get their money back. That's not something the sportsbooks want.

Most sportsbook would list the spread at -3.5 meaning if you took the Patriots and they won 20-17, you would lose your bet by half a point. If you took the Vikings, you would win your bet by that same half point.

Can You Avoid the Half Point?

It's pretty hard to bet on the point spread and avoid the dreaded half point hook. Linemakers love adding 'the hook' to spreads that fall on the most common outcomes in games. For example, the most common winning margins in football is three, four and seven points. And adding a hook to each of those numbers would ensure both a winning and losing side, with the ultimate goal being balanced action.

When the hook is added, there isn't a significant reaction from the betting public either way. The majority will look at the spread and enjoy the fact that their ticket will either be a winner or a loser. The betting public also fails to shop around at different sportsbooks for the best line they can possibly find. Avoiding the hooks in a game is possible, but only if you are willing to spend a bit more on your bet and buy a half point when the situation calls for it. Buying points is a completely different concept all together, but it's possible to buy a half point and move the spread in your favor.

For example, you can buy a half point (for a premium) from -3 to -2.5 if you like the favorite, or from +3 to +3.5 if you like the underdog. This gives you a better chance to win your bet, but the extra juice you have to pay will burn you if you should lose.

Is Buying a Half Point Worth it?

Depending on who you ask, some bettors will tell you to always buy the hook (either up or down) to avoid tossing your ticket away, while some bettors swear that buying the hook is a waste of your bankroll. We live in a world where sportsbooks offer a plethora of options, and most of them give us the option to buy a half point on the favorite or underdog.

Remember our example from above? If you were to buy a half point on the underdog Vikings and make the spread +3.5 instead of +3, a 20-17 loss would now give you a winning ticket. You wouldn't have wasted three hours of your life to get your money back.

However, if you are prepared to buy the hook, you must be prepared to pay a premium price for the better line. Because of this, the cost of buying the hook can be higher than the long-term cost of betting with the hook on a normal line. You must pick your spots wisely and shop around before committing to this way of betting. I can almost assure you, if you want that 3.5 spread to go down to a three so you that you can bet the favorite, and you look hard enough, you will find it at another book for -110, instead of paying -125 to buy the hook and get it at -3 at your current book.

Understanding Half-Point Betting Math

Depending on who you ask, some bettors will tell you to always buy the hook (either up or down) to avoid tossing your ticket away, while some bettors swear that buying the hook is a waste of your bankroll.

Remember our example from above? If you were to buy a half point on the underdog Vikings and make the spread +3.5 instead of +3, a 20-17 loss would now give you a winning ticket. You wouldn’t have wasted three hours of your life to get your money back.

However, if you are prepared to buy the hook, you must be prepared to pay a premium price for the better line. Because of this, the cost of buying the hook can be higher than the long-term cost of betting with the hook on a normal line. You must pick your spots wisely and shop around before committing to this way of betting.

To help us understand the half-point betting math, we must first determine what the odds, implied probability, and the breakeven threshold is. As I’m sure you know, to breakeven betting on -110 lines (standard point spread lines is 52.38 percent. As the juice increases, so does the breakeven point – a -120 line increases the percentage to wins need to 54.55 percent. This means that turning a profit in a profession that is already hard enough, just got 2.17 percent harder.

The next thing we must understand is the true value of a half-point purchase and that requires two simple things – an NFL push chart that can be found online or created, and basic math skills.

The push chart we are going to use as a basis for this article will tell us the probability of any NFL game played in any season finishing with a difference of one of these numbers.

-1 (2.5%), -2 (2%), -3 (9.8%), -4 (3%), -5 (1.7%), -6 (3.4%), -7 (5.7%)

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-8 (2.1%), -9 (0.9%), -10 (4.9%), -11 (2.2%), -12 (0.4%), -13 (1.3%), -14 (4.9%)

As you can see, the favorite wins by three points just 9.8 percent of the time. Now, if you consider the fact that we lose our +2.5 bet and we then push on a -3 outcome, we are going to take half the 9.8 percent probability and add it to the 52.38% implied probability of -110.

Buying Half Points Sports Betting Stocks

In this case, we go from +2.5 to +3 and half of 9.8 percent is 4.9%. We would then add it to the +2.5 -110 implied probability (52.38 percent) to get a new line of +3 with an implied probability of 57.28 percent. Based on a standard odds converter, a 57.28 implied probability would equate to a -134 American line. This tells us that moving from +2.5 (-110) to +3 is worth 24 cents and it has the same expected value. Now, with that said, let me prove to you that buying half points can, in fact, turn into a +EV play.

Let’s pretend we are looking at the line of +9.5 (-110). As we already know, -110 implies a 52.38 percent probability. And as per the push chart above, we know that -10/+10 pushes around 4.9 percent of the time. If we decided to buy two half-points, we would bring the line to +10.5 which would push our implied probability to 57.28 percent (52.38% + 4.9%). If we plug our new probability into an odds converter, we will see that the true line should be -134. However, most betting sites that sell half-points would charge -130 for such a line movement, which means this would be a +EV play. A few other +EV plays would be buying from +9.5 -110 to +10.5 -130 (and the same if you like the favorite) and +13.5 -110 to +14.5 -130.

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Note: the article and tool below is for experienced bettors. If you’re new to sports betting and have never placed a bet, visit our page on NFL bet types.

Buying Half Points Sports Betting Texas

Advanced Look at NFL Point Spreads

The half-point calculator to the left calculates the fair price for half-point buys in NFL football betting. This tool is helpful for both line shopping and purchasing half points with bookmakers. Regarding line shopping say BetOnline is offering Patriots -4 -110 and Bovada is offering Patriots -3 -140. To determine which is the better bet enter -4 and -110 into the calculator and you’ll see the -3 equivalent of -4 -110 is -3 -142.6. In this example -3 -140 at Bovada is a better bet than -4 -110 at BetOnline.

Understand our calculator uses NFL averages. In cases of games where the over/under betting line is high (say 45.5+) each half point will be worth a little less. So if our calculator tells you -4.5 -105 is the same as -4 -111.5 it might actually only be worth -111. In cases where the total is low (say 40.5 or less) each half point is worth more. In the same example -4.5 -105 might be worth -4 -112 instead of the -111.5 our calculator displays. The point is you’ll need to make small adjustments for games with a lower or higher than average over/under betting total.

Fair Odds (No-Vig): Also understand our calculator deals with fair odds. We do not attempt to determine how much vig was in the moneyline odds entered and propriate an equivalent the same way our no-vig calculator does. In short if the fair odds were -10 -110, we’ll show you the equivelent fair odds for -9.5, -9.0 and -8.5. Creating advanced NFL push charts and doing out the math can lead to much more precise results; however our calculator works extremely well on average and can be a great time saver.

Understanding Buy Point Strategy

Our NFL Half Point Calculator is a great time saver. However, when dealing with point spreads that have juice, or when you desire to be more precise, understanding the math behind half points is helpful. In this article I’ll cover this topic in some depth.

Calculating Half Point Equivalents

The first thing to understand is that all prices have an implied probability equivalent. For -3 -111 the -3 is the point spread and the -111 is the price. To calculate the implied probability we need to use the formula risk/return=implied probability. To be clear return includes both stake plus win, so for example at -111 a bet of $111 to win $100 has a return of $211 (stake+win). In this example 111/211= 0.5261 which changed to a percentage is 52.61%. This means when betting at -111 you’ll need to win 52.61% of the time to break even and this 52.61% is referred to as the implied probability.

Let’s examine -3 -111 moved to -2.5. All that’s change here is we win instead of push when the favorite wins by exactly three. To calculate the -2.5 equivalent we need to determine exactly how often teams favored by -3 win by exactly 3 points. Using a combination of historical results data and no-vig lines at sharp betting sites I determined this happens about 9.80% of the time. I just calculated one paragraph up that -111 has a 52.61% equivalent. If I add half 9.8% I get an implied probability of 57.51%. I can now go to our odds converter, plug in 57.51% in the implied probability field and see in American odds format this is -135. Therefore -3 -111 and -2.5 -135 have the same expected win/loss.

Why did I use only half of 9.8%? If we were moving from -3.5 to -2.5 I could have used the full 9.8% probability of 3 as we’d of picked up all of that probability. The reason I couldn’t do this is because we were moving from a push to a win (I also would use half when moving from a loss to a push). You see that 9.8% is built half into our line of -3 and half in the opposite team’s line of +3 and for this reason we can only take half the probability.

When should I Purchase Half Points?

The first thing to understand is not all half points are created equal. For example the push probability of 3 is about 9.8% and the push probability of 7 is about 5.72%. These are the two most common margins of victory. Meanwhile -9 only pushes 0.9% of the time, and -12 about 0.44% of the time. Many online sportsbooks sell half points involving the 7 for 15 cents, half point involving the 3 for 25 cents and all other half points at 10 cents each. Under this cost per half point pricing there are only sixteen scenarios where purchasing half points is a better bet than passing on the option to do so.

When to Purchase Two Half Points

• -3.5 purchase to -2.5 by purchasing two half points for 50 cents
• +2.5 purchase to +3.5 by purchasing two half points 50 cents
• -10.5 purchase to -9.5 by purchasing two half points 20 cents
• +9.5 purchase to +10.5 by purchasing two half points 20 cents
• -14.5 purchase to -13.5 by purchasing two half points 20 cents
• +13.5 purchase to +14.5 by purchasing two half points 20 cents
• -17.5 purchase to -16.5 by purchasing two half points 20 cents
• +16.5 purchase to +17.5 by purchasing two half points 20 cents

When to purchase One Half Point

• -3 to -2.5 by purchasing one half points for 25 cents
• +3 to +3.5 by purchasing one half points 25 cents
• -10 purchase to -9.5 by purchasing one half points 10 cents
• +10 purchase to +10.5 by purchasing one half points 10 cents
• -14 purchase to -13.5 by purchasing one half points 10 cents
• +14 purchase to +14.5 by purchasing one half points 10 cents
• -17 purchase to -16.5 by purchasing one half points 10 cents
• +17 purchase to +17.5 by purchasing one half points 10 cents

Outside of these scenarios when half points cost 25 cents involving point spreads of 3, 15 cents involving point spreads of 7 and 10 cents for all other half points, there are few other circumstances when buying half points makes sense. The one known exception is in cases of -7.5 -115 or +6.5 -115, here purchasing two half points for 15 cents each is slightly better than passing on the option. Just make sure via line shopping you can’t beat the -115 because if you can beat it betting straight would be the better play.

Half Point FAQ

Q. How do I develop a push chart?
A. Historical data weighed 25% and removing vig from Pinnacle Sports lines weighed 75% is a decent rough way to go about it. To get really advanced you’d need to simulate the actual game.

Q. What Push Probabilities Does the Half-Point Calculator Use?
A. Our tool uses the following push probabilities: -1 (2.50%),-2 (1.98%), -3 (9.80%), -4 (3.00%), -5 (1.68%), -6 (3.40%), -7 (5.72%) -8 (2.14%), -9 (0.90%), -10 (4.92%), -11 (2.22%), -12 (0.44%), -13 (1.33%), -14 (4.9%), -15 (1.46%), -16 (3.48%), -17 (4.55%), -18 (2.33%).

Q. Which Sportsbooks offer half point buys?
A. The majority of online sportsbooks offer this, the only one I’m aware that doesn’t is bovada.lv. Bookmaker.eu, BetOnline, Legends, 5Dimes etc. all offer this feature.

Editor’s note: If you enjoyed this article and are looking to learn more about football betting I suggest visiting our hub on football betting strategy.

Author & Professional: Jim Griffin