What is a straight bet?

One bet, one result

Take a team at -7 at the usual -110. You risk $110 to win $100, and if the team wins by 8 or more you get $210 back, your $110 plus the $100. Take an underdog on the moneyline at +150 and a $100 bet wins $150. Take the over 44.5 at -110 and it is the same $110 to win $100 on the combined score. Each of those is a straight bet. Some books call it a single.

The word is there to tell it apart from bets that are tied together. A parlay needs every leg to win. A teaser moves the spreads and then needs every leg too. An if bet makes the second bet depend on the first. A straight bet depends on nothing but its own game, so a loser elsewhere can't touch it, and if it lands on the number it is a push and your stake comes back.

In a racebook the word means something close: a straight bet is win, place or show on one horse, as against the exotics like the exacta and the trifecta.

Why it is the cheapest bet on the board

Work out what the book charges. At -110 on a bet that is a coin flip, you get back $1.909 for every dollar on the half of bets you win, which is 95.45 cents on average for every dollar risked. The book's cut is 4.55 percent. Tie two of those coin flips into a parlay and the cut nearly doubles, to about 8.9 percent, and it keeps climbing with every leg.

That is why I'd tell anyone starting out to bet straight. The price is lower, the arithmetic is simple, and you learn something from each result, because each one stands alone. I'd also shop it, since the same bet at -105 somewhere else drops your break-even from 52.38 percent to 51.22, and I'd keep every straight bet the same size against your bankroll.

Most of the money a serious bettor wins, he wins one game at a time.