If you want some extra stake in the game during this upcoming New Jersey Devils season, you’ll need to understand the basics of sports betting. But be warned: betting on hockey can get tricky.
One of the beauties of living in New Jersey (other than its amazing hockey team, of course) is that sports betting is legal. That means as long as you are in the geographic realm of the Garden State, you can use various apps like William Hill, FanDuel, and DraftKings to wager on any sport imaginable.
To get you started with winning some extra bucks here and there, or losing some, we’ll kick off with explaining the most basic hockey bets you can place.
First, there is the moneyline. This is one of the easiest bets you can place at a sportsbook. Simply put, a moneyline bet is wagering on a team to win, no strings attached. It doesn’t matter if the Devils won 6-1 or 4-3 in a shootout—you’d still get your money if you bet the Devils’ moneyline.
Understanding the return of a moneyline bet is also pretty straightforward, especially if you use $100 as a visual. Let’s say the Devils’ moneyline is +120. Since they have plus odds, that means they are the underdog, and as such, you’d win more money than if you bet the favorite in the game, who would have minus odds.
Laying $100 on the Devils at +120 would mean you’d win $120 if the team came out with a victory. Your full payout would be $220 because the amount paid is in addition to your betting amount returned. Again, the margin of victory doesn’t matter.
On the other hand, let’s say the Devils are hosting the Ottawa Senators in what we’d hope would be a gimme at the Prudential Center. New Jersey would surely be the favorite in the game, so it would have minus odds. For our sake, let’s say the Devils’ moneyline in this situation was -170.
That essentially means you’d have to bet $170 to win $100. In fact, a standard $100 bet would only net $59. When a team has minus odds, it certainly helps to take a second to consider if the potential payout is worth the risk.
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The other common hockey bet is on what’s called the puck line. This is similar to betting on a team to cover the spread in a football or basketball game, except the puck line is always 1.5 goals. The favorite would be -1.5 (has to win by more than one goal) and the underdog would be +1.5 (has to not lose by more than one goal).
With the puck line, there is always a moneyline attached that indicates what your return will be. Unless a team is a heavy favorite, usually there are minus odds attached to a team covering +1.5 goals.
Generally speaking, the most money you can win on a hockey bet is by betting on a team covering -1.5 goals. The moneyline attached to this is usually in the +150 to +200 range, unless we’re talking a contest between a Stanley Cup contender and a lottery team.
Again, wagering on a -1.5 puck line means the team has to win by at least two goals. If the Devils won 4-2, great, you win your money. If the Devils won 3-2, sorry, that’s a lost bet.
Keep in mind that hockey bets can be tricky because the league has such parity. We all know that the standings don’t matter on any given night—a worse team could outplay a better one and win in convincing fashion.
Beyond these basic in-game bets are futures bets. These include betting on a team to win the division, conference, Stanley Cup, and more.
Right now, the Devils’ odds to win the 2020 Stanley Cup are 22/1, which equates to a +2200 moneyline. If you threw $100 on New Jersey today and they lift the Cup in June, you’d win $2200. Heck, throw $10 to win $220.
For reference, the Stanley Cup favorite right now, unsurprisingly, is the Tampa Bay Lightning at 7/1, or +700. Ottawa has the lowest odds at 300/1, or +30000.
The Devils’ odds to win the Eastern Conference right now are 11/1, which seems pretty fair given their offseason additions. It might be worth the best since that’s getting over $1,000 for a $100 bet.