Sports betting is the general activity of predicting sports results by making a wager on the outcome of a sporting event.

Aside from simple wagers–betting a friend that one’s favorite baseball team will win its division, for instance, or buying a football “square” for the Super Bowl–sports betting is commonly done through a bookmaker. Bookmakers generally offer two types of wagers on the winner of a sporting event: a straight-up or money line bet, or a point spread wager. Moneylines and straight-up prices are used to set odds on sports such as soccer, baseball and hockey (the scoring nature of which renders point spreads impractical) as well as individual vs. individual matches, like boxing.