Glossary

Reading a board

Win / Draw / LossW/D/L#

The chance the home team wins, the match is drawn, or the away team wins. The three add up to 100%, de-vigged from bookmaker moneyline odds. Used on the soccer board, where a draw is a result and can be the pick, and in the World Cup archive.

Win probabilityWin %#

Each team's chance of winning the game, from a de-vigged consensus of bookmaker moneylines. Football, basketball, hockey and baseball are two-way markets (no draw priced), so the two percentages add up to 100%; soccer adds the draw, see Win / Draw / Loss. The split bar underneath shows the same number visually — the center tick is 50/50. Guide: What does a 70% chance to win mean? Reading win probabilities

Point spreadSpread#

The bookmakers' points handicap for the game, shown against the home team. 'Chiefs -3.5' means the market makes the Chiefs a 3.5-point favorite: they must win by 4+ to 'cover'. A plus number means the home side is the underdog and can lose by up to that many points and still cover.

Cover probabilityCover %#

The chance the home team beats the spread — wins by more than the handicap — de-vigged from the spread market's two prices. It hovers near 50% by design: bookmakers set the line so both sides are roughly a coin flip.

Game total (over/under)O/U#

The market line for the two teams' combined points, priced as Over or Under. 'O 44.5 52%' means a 52% de-vigged chance the teams combine for 45+ points. Higher totals mean the market expects a shootout; lower, a defensive grind.

Model pick#

The side the de-vigged bookmaker consensus makes the favorite, with its win probability. Because these probabilities come from the market itself, betting the pick at market prices has no built-in edge — it is a read on expectations, not betting advice.

Playoff seedSeed#

The team's current playoff position in its conference: seeds 1–4 go to the four division winners (ordered by record), seeds 5–7 to the three best non-winners (wild cards). Seven teams per conference make the playoffs; the 1 seed gets the only first-round bye.

Point differential+/-#

Season points scored minus points allowed. A positive number means the team has outscored its opponents overall — a steadier quality signal than the win-loss record, which can swing on close games.

Anytime touchdownAnytime TD#

The probability a player scores a touchdown at any point in their next game, de-vigged from bookmaker anytime-TD props. Rushing and receiving TDs count; a quarterback's passing TDs do not.

No price#

No bookmaker in the feed was quoting this game when the board last looked, so there is no market to de-vig and the board makes no call. It is ordinary rather than broken — the feed carries a minority of the college slate, and most lines only appear a day or two before the game — and a game with no price never enters the record.

How a price is made

De-vigged (vig removed)VIG#

Bookmakers price every market slightly above 100% — that overround is their margin (the 'vig'). We strip it out so the probabilities are fair and sum to exactly 100%. On the game boards it comes off by the power method, which takes more from the longshot than the favorite, because that is where books load it. The 'VIG' figure is how much was removed. Guide: No-vig odds explained: removing the bookmaker's margin

Bookmaker consensusbooks#

On the NFL and college boards these numbers are not one bookmaker's view — they are an average across every bookmaker that priced the market, each book's margin removed before averaging. 'N books' is how many fed this fixture; more books means a more reliable consensus. The NBA, NHL, MLB and soccer boards use a single book, the DraftKings line from ESPN's scoreboard, with its margin removed the same way.

Consensus odds (decimal)ODDS#

The actual decimal price a bet would get, averaged across bookmakers — still including the margin. Decimal odds of 2.50 means a winning $1 stake returns $2.50 ($1.50 profit) — the same price a US book shows as +150. These are the real prices behind the de-vigged percentages. Guide: How to read American odds: what +150 and −200 really mean

Fair priceFair#

The decimal odds a probability implies with no margin attached — 50% is 2.00, 80% is 1.25. A bet struck at the fair price has an expected value of exactly zero by construction, so a profit at fair prices is variance rather than edge. A real bookmaker prices below fair; that difference is how they make money. Guide: No-vig odds explained: removing the bookmaker's margin

Closing line#

The last price the market showed before kickoff. It is the price the most money has been bet into, which is why it is treated as the market's best guess and used as the benchmark rather than the opening price.

World Cup archive markets

Over / UnderO2.5#

The probability the two teams combine for more than a given number of goals. 'O2.5' is the chance of 3 or more total goals; the Under is simply 100% minus the Over.

Expected goalsxG#

The average number of goals the model expects each team to score in this match. It is the scoring rate that feeds every goal market below — not a prediction of the exact final score.

Both teams to scoreBTTS#

The probability that both teams score at least one goal (i.e. the final score is not a clean sheet for either side).

Clean sheetCS#

The probability a team concedes zero goals — i.e. keeps a clean sheet. 'CS BRA' is the chance Brazil's opponent fails to score.

Most likely scoreline#

The single exact score with the highest probability under the model. Even the likeliest scoreline is usually well under 20% — football is high-variance, so treat it as the modal guess, not a forecast.

Correct-score grid#

A heatmap of every exact scoreline's probability (home goals down the side, away goals across the top). Brighter cells are more likely; it is the full picture the 'most likely scoreline' is drawn from.

Keeping score

Before kickoff#

The call was written to the database while the game was still unplayed, and the timestamp says when. It matters because the alternative is pricing a finished game from odds that outlive it: honest, but reconstructed, and you would have only our word that the number was not chosen once the score was known. Only a captured call can be graded without that caveat. Guide: How to tell whether a sports picks record is real

Brier scoreBrier#

The average squared error of the stated probability. Lower is better, and 0.250 is what you would score by calling everything a coin flip. It exists because a hit rate alone flatters a 51% call that wins and punishes a 90% call that loses, when the first was barely an opinion and the second was a real claim. Guide: What does a 70% chance to win mean? Reading win probabilities

Hit rateAccuracy#

The share of calls that named the winner. Read it beside the Brier score rather than alone: a board that only ever calls heavy favorites will post a high hit rate while saying almost nothing, and one that takes real positions will post a lower one while being better informed. Guide: What does a 70% chance to win mean? Reading win probabilities

Coverage#

How much of the finished slate could be graded at all. A game the odds feed never quoted carries no call, so nothing was ever claimed about it and it counts as neither a hit nor a miss. Coverage sits beside the record because a board can always look more accurate by saying less.

Closing-line valueCLV#

How the board's price compares with where the market finished before kickoff. The closing line is the sharpest price a market produces, so beating it consistently is the usual evidence that a model knows something. Measured in percentage points, and over a small sample it is mostly noise.

Unitu#

One flat stake. Results are quoted in units rather than currency because this site has never taken a bet and a dollar sign would imply that it had. Ten units a call means every call is staked the same, so no single result can dominate the record.

Return on investmentROI#

Profit divided by everything staked, not by the number of bets. Backing ten calls at ten units each stakes 100 units, so a 12-unit profit is a 12% ROI. It is the figure that makes a long run of small stakes comparable with a short run of large ones.

Variance, not edgeVariance#

A run of winning calls priced from de-vigged odds is not evidence of beating the market. The fair price already contains everything the market knows, so betting it breaks even in the long run and any short-run profit is the swing you would expect from chance. The record here measures whether the probabilities are well calibrated, not whether following them makes money.

Acting on it

Cash-out window#

A published call that is now worth more in play than the price it was published at, while the game is still running. That is the only period in which a sportsbook's cash-out is worth taking: once the whistle goes the bet simply settles and there was never a decision to make. The board reports the window; the exit happens at your own sportsbook. Alerts cover the NFL, college football and the NBA so far. Guide: Is my cash-out offer fair? How to check it in a minute

Pre-game email#

One email before the first game of a slate, listing every pick on the record for it, sent for the NBA, NHL, MLB and soccer to members who follow that sport. It is not an alert: it goes out before anything has happened and makes no cash-out claim. Choose your sports on your account page.

Where these are used

How it works shows each of these in the pipeline that produces it. Start here explains the same ideas without any of the vocabulary, if that is more useful. The record is where the scoring terms are actually applied.