How to bet on hockey
Hockey is a low-scoring game where the better team loses often, so most of the betting is on who wins, not by how much. That makes it a moneyline sport, and the price you pay for each side matters more than in football or basketball.
A moneyline sport
With so few goals, a point spread like football's can't work, and the moneyline does the job instead: the favorite costs more than $100 to win $100, the underdog pays more than $100 on a $100 bet. The moneylines page explains the reading of it.
What it costs you is in the gap between the two prices, which the trade calls the cents. Say a game is dealt -150 on the favorite. On a "dime line" the underdog is +140, and on a 20-cent line it is +130. Turn them into percentages and the difference is plain:
| Line | Favorite | Underdog | Adds up to | The book's cut |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dime line | -150 | +140 | 101.7% | 1.6% |
| 20-cent line | -150 | +130 | 103.5% | 3.4% |
Same game, same favorite, and one book charges you twice what the other does on the underdog. Most books deal hockey wider than a dime, and the gap often widens on the bigger favorites. If I bet hockey regularly, the first thing I'd do is find out who deals the tightest line and check it before every bet.
The puck line and the empty net
The puck line is a fixed spread of 1.5 goals with the price doing the adjusting. Say the favorite is -170 on the moneyline, and -1.5 at +150 on the puck line, while the underdog is +1.5 at -180. The favorite at +150 has to win by two or more 40 percent of the time for you to break even, and the underdog at -180 has to win, or lose by one, 64.3 percent of the time.
The thing that decides a lot of puck line bets is the empty net. A team down by one late in the game pulls its goalie for an extra skater. Sometimes it ties the game, and often it gives up another goal into the empty net, and a one-goal win becomes a two-goal win in the last minute. Anyone who has held +1.5 knows the feeling. So when you price the puck line in your head, don't start from how often the favorite wins by two in open play. Start from how often it is ahead by one with two minutes left.
Overtime, the shootout and how bets are graded
In the regular season a tied game goes to a short overtime and then a shootout. On the ordinary moneyline both count, so the bet is on who wins the game however it ends. Most books also offer a regulation-time line, which is three-way because the draw is a result, and the two sit side by side on the screen; three-way moneylines has the difference.
The shootout is where people get caught. Most books grade a shootout win as a one-goal win, which means a puck line favorite at -1.5 can never cover a game that went to a shootout, and the +1.5 always does. For totals, most books add one goal to the final score for the shootout winner. A game tied 2 and 2 after overtime grades as 3 and 2, five goals, so an over 4.5 that looked lost at the end of overtime cashes. Read your book's house rules on this before you bet a total, because they are not all the same.
In the playoffs there is no shootout: overtime runs in full periods until somebody scores.
The goalie moves the number
No one player changes a hockey price like the starting goalie. A backup in place of the starter can move a moneyline and push a total up, and books react the moment the starter is confirmed. Back-to-back games are where it happens most, since teams often rest the starter on the second night.
That gives you a choice. Bet before the starter is known and you might get a better number, or you might find out you bet on the wrong goalie. I'd wait unless I had good reason to expect who would play, and I'd never bet a total without knowing.
Totals in hockey sit low, usually around 5.5 or 6, so half a goal is a big share of the number. A total of 5.5 at one book and 6 at another are very different bets, and the same goes for the price on it.
A long season
Hockey runs from autumn to early summer with games most nights, and that is the danger. A lot of games at a thin edge means the cut is paid a lot of times. I'd bet the games where I had a view on the goalie or the price, keep each bet to 1 or 2 percent of the bankroll, and not chase a bad night with the late games out west.