Say you were playing a game of 21 in basketball with your little brother. You're bigger and older than he is, so you "spot" him 10 pts. Therefore, if he scores 11 pts before you score 21, he wins. It's similar to that.

In the betting world the "House" (the person or organization taking the bets) wants to make the two teams equal. The House does not want to lose money ever. As in never. If the House can take equal money on both teams, it will ALWAYS win. How is this possible? Well, the 50 losers pay the 50 winners, but the House takes a percentage cut from EVERYBODY simply for being such a nice host.


So, how does the House level the playing field? They set betting lines. You can't just bet on Nebraska to win. You have to bet on Nebraska to win by more than the betting line, in this case -7 pts. The "-" simply means that it is Nebraska that is "giving" 7 pts to BYU (ie, if Nebraska were to win 35-28, in Vegas the final score could be viewed as 28-28).

Sometimes you'll see this stated in the opposite, ie BYU+7 to Nebraska. That means if you add 7 pts to whatever BYU's final score is, the game would be tied. BYU's score+7 equals Nebraska's score, or Nebraska's score-7 equals BYU's score.



Now, you as a better only win if you beat the spread. A tie score is a "push". You didn't win or lose. Therefore, you could place money on Nebraska right now and they'd have to win by more than 7 pts for you to win your bet. Or, you could place money on BYU right now and all BYU would have to do is not lose by 7 or more. This is called "covering" the spread.