Dan Favale
By , Updated on: Sep 15, 2025 12:00 AM

Over/under wagers remain one of the most popular types of sports bets, right alongside the moneyline and point spread. Most often, they’re featured on single-game slips, but sportsbooks also extend them to future markets, giving bettors even more flexibility. No matter your level of experience, understanding how over/under betting works is essential in today’s sports landscape.

The key takeaway for 2025: over/under lines are available at virtually every major sportsbook, across every major sport. To help you get started, we’ve put together a curated list of top-rated sportsbooks that consistently offer over/under betting with competitive odds.

How Over/Under Bets Work

Interpreting over/under lines is ridiculously easy. They’re predetermined score totals for all participating teams, players, or props, and your job is to predict whether the actual final tally will go above or below the provided number. That’s it.

Granted, it works in different ways for different types of over/under bets. In addition to score totals and futures, you’ll also be able to get in the prop-betting market, which we’ll go over later.

For now, the focus is on score totals. That’s the most common over/under wager because it’s available for every single event. Though this also can vary by the sport you’re betting on, it generally works like this:

Let’s say you’re exploring the NFL betting market, and the over/under for a hypothetical clash between Green Bay Packers-Kansas City Chiefs is 57.5. If you go with the over, you’re predicting that both teams will combine to score 58 or more points. On the flip side, if you go with the under, you’re banking on the Packers and Chiefs to combine for 57 points or fewer.

Easy peasy, right? Well, the good news is it doesn’t really get harder. But you did need to prep yourself for different types of over/under options, not to mention how these wagers can change depending on the sport.

Over/Under Betting By Different Sports

The concept of betting over/under single-game totals doesn't change by sport, per se. You're always looking to choose whether the final score will clear the oddsmakers' determined number. But the context of the sport changes how high the totals go.

If you’re betting on NFL or college football in 2025, most over/under totals fall in the mid-40s to low-50s, with the occasional game climbing higher in explosive matchups. In the NBA, combined totals typically range from the low-220s into the mid-240s, reflecting the league’s modern pace-and-space style of play.

Lower-scoring sports work differently. In MLB, most over/under totals sit between 7 and 10 runs, while NHL and soccer lines usually fall in the 2 to 6 goal range, rarely exceeding 7.5. You won’t see totals in the teens for hockey or soccer, and even in baseball it’s extremely uncommon for a line to go beyond 12 runs.

As always, though, remember these lines refer to the combined scores of both teams, not just one. Keep that in mind when deciding whether you're going with the over or the under.

The returns on these bets will—you guessed it—vary. Most over/under lines are priced around -110 on each side, though you’ll sometimes see adjustments to -115 or -120 depending on betting action. The profit margin on these wagers isn’t huge, but what they lack in outsized returns they make up for in simplicity. Predicting the over/under is often more straightforward than tackling a point spread, where wide margins can introduce more possible outcomes.

Over/Under Futures Betting

Future over/under lines aren't actually called this. They're instead called win-total bets. These are wagers you make for the distant future in which you're predicting how many wins a team—or, in some sports, a given player—will have over the course of a season.

Here's the thing: These win totals are predetermined...just like single-game over/under lines. Let's go ahead and use college football as an example. The LSU Tigers may have a regular-season win total set at 9.5. You can already spot the similarities to a typical over/under bet. If you chose the under, you're banking on LSU finishing with nine or fewer wins. If you go with the over, you're counting on them to get 10 or more victories.

Unlike single-game over/under wagers, these bets aren't usually available at any given point. They're most popular before seasons ever start-up and then typically disappear from the betting ledger thereafter. Certain sportsbooks will update their win totals earlier in the season, but the odds will be adjusted so that you're not able to win as large of a return.

Overall, though, these win-total bets can net you higher payouts. That's how it tends to be with future lines. There's more of a potential for your pick to go sideways, not just because you're deciding without watching a game, but because there's so much season to play. That risk factor motivates the sportsbook to shell out more lucrative returns.

Of course, we’re not talking about a massive difference. A hypothetical 9.5-win line for the LSU Tigers (or any college football team) will usually be priced close to -110 on both sides, with slight shifts to -115 or +100 depending on the action. Still, even these small adjustments can impact your payout. Some sportsbooks also allow you to “buy” wins or losses—moving the total up or down a half-game or more—in exchange for adjusted odds.

So, in this case, if you think LSU is going to win 11 games, you can choose to wager against a 10.5-win over/under for the chance to grab a higher payout. But these made-for-you lines aren't to be taken lightly; betting with them means you won't win if the oddsmaker-approved over or under hits yet yours does not.

Over/Under Prop Betting

Yes, you can also bet the over/under in the props market—and the possibilities are nearly endless.

Prop bets focus on specific events within a game rather than the final outcome. That might mean wagering on first-half or second-half totals, the number of rushing yards a running back collects, or the points scored by a particular player. Some sportsbooks even expand into more unusual props, such as total penalty yards in a football game or the number of substitutions a basketball coach makes. Many of these wagers can also be broken down by quarter or half, giving bettors even more flexibility.

While these over/under bets can be a nice change of pace from the single-game scores and win-total lines, there aren't as readily available. Many sportsbooks only bust them out for big playoff games or championship tilts. If you're looking for these wagers to be more of a game-by-game staple in your arsenal, we'd recommend focusing on college football or the NFL. The scarcity of games in both encourages sportsbooks to offer more prop options—and more creation prop options—on a regular basis.

The Early-Season Over/Under Betting Strategy

There are a bunch of different betting strategies that you can test out, though we caution you that these approaches aren't necessarily foolproof. However, one strategy that has gained popularity in recent years, particularly among NFL and NBA bettors, is the early-season overswing.

This approach is exactly what it sounds like: You end up investing heavily in overs at the beginning of the season, the thought process is that it will take some time for the oddsmakers to adjust to new rosters and competitive landscapes and even rule changes.

The latter is an important part of this approach. While scoring averages have generally risen in both the NBA and NFL over the past decade, the trend hasn’t been perfectly linear. The NBA continues to push offensive records higher, driven by pace-and-space play and three-point volume, but the NFL has actually seen a dip in scoring in recent seasons before rebounding slightly in 2024. Much of this evolution comes from shot selection in basketball and the elevated importance of quarterback play in football, as well as rule changes that reduce defensive leeway. Protecting shooters and quarterbacks remains the priority, and the rulebook reflects it.

This trend invites higher scoring totals. And while oddsmakers adjust quickly, they don’t always capture sudden shifts in pace, roster changes, or new rules with perfect accuracy right out of the gate. That’s why many bettors lean toward the over in the first few weeks of NBA or NFL seasons, when offensive surges can outpace projections. Baseball, however, tends to be the opposite—early-season conditions often favor pitchers, making unders more common.

And really quickly: If you're looking for an under strategy, many people believe that any time a leading playmaker, in any sport, ends up missing a game, that's the time when it makes the most sense to invest in the under.