College Baseball Betting at Bally Bet Sportsbook

As any avid baseball bettor will know, college baseball can be just as fun to wager on as Major League Baseball (MLB), but there are a few key differences between the two leagues.

Firstly, there are a lot more teams in the NCAA than there are in the MLB, with over 300 teams in Division I alone. Ultimately, that means there's a packed schedule of games, and the regular season has to kick off earlier to accommodate this.

Every year, the season begins in the middle of February, right after the NFL is done and dusted. MLB games don't get going for another six weeks.

There's also a lot more offense in college baseball. So, if you like runs, batting averages over .400, and the ping of an aluminum bat, then NCAA baseball betting is for you.

Read on for a comprehensive rundown of everything you need to know before you place your baseball bets with us here at Bally Bet.

Popular College Baseball Bets

The MLB has loads of betting markets that can often overshadow the offerings for college baseball, and that’s typically because there aren’t usually prop bets available for college sport. But there are still plenty of bet types to keep college bettors engaged.

Moneyline

A moneyline bet is a simple win/loss bet. You pick the winner, and the amount of your winnings will reflect whether you picked the favorite or the underdog. Favorites for a game have a minus sign (-) in front of their odds, while the underdog has a plus sign (+) in front of theirs.

Odds are based on a $100 bet, but you can wager any amount you want. Betting on the favorite means that your potential profit will be less than your original bet. Betting on the underdog means that your potential profit will be more than your original bet.

For example, if Florida State is listed at -135 and is playing Alabama, which is +120, Florida State is the favorite and Alabama is the underdog. A $100 winning bet on the Crimson Tide will pay you $120. If you bet $50, you would win $60. Conversely, a $100 bet on Florida State would pay $74.07. A $50 bet would pay $37.04.

With all winning bets, you have your original wager returned.

Run Line

You can think of this as baseball spread betting. It's like point spread betting in other sports, except the run line is almost always 1.5 runs. One team needs to win by at least two runs, and the other team needs to avoid losing by two runs or more. Since the run line doesn't change, the payout that accompanies it will change the more unbalanced a matchup becomes.

When comparing betting on a run line to betting on a moneyline, you'll see very different odds.

Let's say UCLA is at Arizona State. The Bruins are +120 on the moneyline, while the Sun Devils are -130. On the run line, however, UCLA is at +1.5 runs and paying -170. ASU is at -1.5 on the run line and paying +150.

With the run line and the requirement that a team wins by more than one run, you increase your potential payout significantly. And if you're taking the extra runs and betting on UCLA, your potential payout drops.

A run line bet is similar to a moneyline bet in that both require you to pick the favorite or the underdog. But, as you can see, adding a run line will change how the game pays out.

Over/Under

An over/under wager, also called a totals bet, is a bet on the total number of runs that will be scored in a college baseball game. It's the total number of runs scored by both teams, and you place a bet on whether the total will be over or under the posted line. Who wins and who loses the game on a bet like this doesn't matter: All you care about is how many total runs are scored.

So, for example, the over/under line on runs scored in Texas vs LSU is 12.5. You take the over, and the final score is Texas - 7, LSU - 6. Since the total run is 13, you win your bet. If the score was LSU - 8, Texas - 6, you'd also win since it doesn't matter which of the two teams wins.

On the other side of the equation, if Texas wins 6-4, your bet on the over would lose since the total runs fall short of 12.5.

Futures

Futures bets are quite different from single-game wagers, which pay out as soon as the game in question finishes. A futures wager is a multi-stage wager that plays out over time, like a team winning its conference, advancing to the College World Series, or winning the annual tournament in Omaha.

A futures bet on the College World Series is just like a futures bet on the Super Bowl, the MLB’s World Series, or the Stanley Cup Finals. The further out you are from the event, and the more teams in the running, the higher the potential payout. The closer you get to crowing about the NCAA baseball champion for that year, the shorter the odds become.

For example, at the beginning of the season - even as the favorite - Wake Forest could pay as high as +900 to win the College World Series. Once the tournament starts, however, that number could drop to as low as +300, depending on how well their season has gone.

Prop Bets

There are prop bets in college baseball, but they are often tough to find since the rules around college prop betting vary from state to state.

If a prop bet can be found, it's a bet on an event taking place inside the game, like betting on how many strikeouts one team will have or how many home runs will be hit by both teams in the game. Not always, but often, the result of a prop bet will have nothing to do with the winner of the game.

College Baseball Betting Tips

Pitcher rule

As with the MLB, the starting pitcher in a college baseball game has more influence on what happens than anything else. Be sure to look for games featuring the best pitcher for a team. Often, the best pitchers will throw on a Friday night, as teams try to begin their weekend series on the strongest foot possible.

At the same time, it's good to pay attention to midweek games. If a team is playing on a Tuesday or Wednesday, they might not have their regular starting pitchers ready to go, or their full complement of bullpen arms.

The best college baseball bets start with a good long look at which pitchers are available.

Weather matters more

When betting on the MLB, the weather matters. But at the college level, the fields aren't as professionally maintained; there are no dome stadiums, and the grounds crews aren't as good at keeping the field from getting waterlogged.

Also, because of the cost of rescheduling games in the NCAA, umpires are less likely to call games when the weather gets really bad.

College baseball features more games in bad weather and on bad fields, and it absolutely affects the players. That's what happens when you have a regular season with games in February and March.

Play the streak

One of the best college baseball betting tips is to bet the streak. Hot streaks and cold streaks exist in baseball more than any other sport. This is especially true in college baseball, where you are dealing with 19- and 20-year-olds. Even the best teams in the country will see both peaks and troughs at some point in the season.

College Baseball Betting vs. MLB Betting

The game of baseball is the same, be it a game between Clemson and South Carolina or the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees. But the execution of that game, and what you need to know when betting one versus the other, is very different.

College baseball players commit a lot more mistakes. Most MLB games are clean, with few to no errors, no base-running blunders, and no one throwing to the wrong base. That's not the case in college baseball — and that goes for even the best teams in the country. Players are still learning the game, and there will be plenty of mistakes made.

Don't get caught up in rankings too much. MLB teams all play each other, and they're all basically at the same skill level. It's easier to know how specific matchups will go.

For college baseball, with so many teams from so many different regions, it's impossible to know early in the season who really is the best team. Someone may be ranked number 1, but they probably won't play like that against every opponent.

Also, the College World Series and the MLB's World Series are nothing alike. While the MLB World Series is a best-of-seven event in October to decide the best professional team in baseball, the College World Series is a 64-team tournament that is much closer in similarity to the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

There are 16 regions, with four teams in each region playing double elimination. The 16 regional winners then go to super regions, where they play a best-of-three series. The winners from those go on to Omaha for the CWS, and once again play double elimination from two different brackets. The two bracket winners finish up the tournament with a best-of-three series for the National Championship.

So, instead of the seven games of the MLB World Series, the College World Series can have up to 200 games played before 63 teams are eliminated, and there is just one winner. That's a lot of college baseball betting.