What a half point costs you
Half a point never changes the game. It changes which results pay you, and the bookmaker charges for that difference in the price.
Buying and selling points
Many American bookmakers will let you move a line half a point in your favour and charge you for it in the price, or move it against you and pay you for it. The cost is not flat. Half a point across a margin the sport lands on constantly is expensive; half a point across one it rarely reaches is cheap. That is what key numbers are about.
Which is why a side on its own is not a bet
Our picks carry a market, a side, a line and a price as four separate fields for this reason. "Chiefs −3" and "Chiefs −3.5" are different bets. So are "Chiefs −3 at 1.91" and "Chiefs −3 at 1.83". If your bookmaker is offering a different line from the one on the card, the minimum price does not transfer to it: that floor was set for the line we published, not for the team.
The archive
What the published price did in US sports
11,262 games in US sports that are over and carried a price when we wrote them up, between November 24, 2025 and November 6, 2026. Each count sits beside what it is out of, and the share is the one divided by the other.
| What | How often | Out of | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| The shorter price won | 7,058 | 10,936 | 64.5% |
| The favourite covered the handicap | 3,373 | 7,003 | 48.2% |
| The total went over | 5,518 | 11,236 | 49.1% |
| The home side won | 6,361 | 11,262 | 56.5% |
How they ended
Over 16,021 finished games in US sports whose result line says how it ended — the feed's own one-line verdict, not a reading of the play.
| What | How often | Out of | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Went past regulation | 1,212 | 16,021 | 7.6% |
| Settled on a shootout | 161 | 16,021 | 1.0% |
| Called before the end | 9 | 16,021 | 0.1% |
286 games landed exactly on the number — the handicap or the total — so they are in the counts they are out of and in neither result.
The prices counted here are DraftKings', as they stood when we last wrote each game up — one snapshot per game, near kick-off for almost all of them, and never a closing line. So this says what the published line did, not how it moved on the way there.
A season that happened. Nothing here predicts the next game, and none of it is advice.
Counted November 6, 2026.
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