How to read the Warriors board: moneyline, spread, total and the hold

Open any Warriors game on the board and you get six tables: the two sides of the moneyline, the two sides of the spread, and the over and the under on the total. Each table lines up the same position across every venue that quotes it. This is what the columns mean and how they are worked out, using a real line: DraftKings' price on tonight's game at Minnesota as ESPN listed it at noon Eastern on Wednesday.

Three ways to price one game

Moneyline. Pick the winner, nothing else. A minus number marks the favorite and tells you what you would have to put up to clear $100 in profit. A plus number marks the underdog and tells you what $100 earns. DraftKings had Minnesota at -170 and the Warriors at +142: $170 on the Timberwolves to make $100, or $100 on the Warriors to make $142.

Spread. The favorite gives points and the underdog gets them. DraftKings had Minnesota -4.5. The Timberwolves have to win by five or more for that side to cash; the Warriors cash by winning outright or losing by four or fewer. The price attached to the spread is the cost of taking that number. Here it was -105 on Minnesota and -115 on Golden State, so taking the Warriors and the points cost a little more than taking the Timberwolves. Sportsbooks usually hang spreads somewhere near -110. A prediction market, where the two sides are matched trader against trader, tends to sit closer to even.

Total. Ignore who wins and add the two scores together. DraftKings' total was 227.5, so the over needs 228 combined points and the under needs 227 or fewer. NBA totals sit far higher than football's and move on news that football fans would barely notice: a star ruled out at shootaround, a team on the second night of a back-to-back, a coach resting veterans. The Warriors' first four games this season totaled 232, 219, 253 and 248 points.

The per-$100 column

American odds and contract prices do not compare at a glance, so the board turns every quote into one figure: the profit a winning $100 position returns.

• Plus odds: the profit is the number itself. +142 returns $142.
• Minus odds: divide 100 by the odds and multiply by 100. -170 returns $58.82; -115 returns $86.96; -105 returns $95.24.
• A prediction-market contract priced at p (60 cents is 0.60) with a fee rate r: profit = 100 / (p × (1 + r × (1 − p))) − 100. At 60 cents with no fee that is $66.67. At 60 cents with Kalshi's 7% fee rate it falls to $62.13, because part of the $100 goes to the fee instead of contracts.

Novig's fee depends on when you trade. Taking a price before tip-off on the app or website costs nothing, so a 60-cent contract returns the full $66.67. Once the game is live, a trade that takes a resting price pays a taker fee, at the rate on Novig's fee schedule. Placing your own order and waiting for someone to fill it costs nothing either way. The board prices pre-game positions, which is why Novig's rows carry no fee.

Best price and the gap

Every table is sorted by the per-$100 figure, highest at the top, and the leader is tagged Best. Each row underneath shows how many dollars it gives up against that leader on the same $100. On the moneyline the comparison is clean. On spreads and totals it only holds when two venues deal the same number; if one book has the Warriors +4.5 and another +5, the row is flagged, and in a sport where a late free throw decides a lot of spreads, the half point can matter as much as the price.

The hold

If you read one column, read this one. Turn both sides of a two-way market into implied probabilities and add them. A perfectly fair market adds to 100%. Anything above that is what the venue keeps.

Take the DraftKings moneyline above. -170 implies 62.96%; +142 implies 41.32%. Together they come to 104.28%, a hold of about 4.3%. The spread, at -105 and -115, comes to 104.71%, about 4.7%. A prediction market has no house taking the other side, so its two sides usually add up to within a whisker of 100%; what is left is the distance between the best buy and the best sell on the order book.

The board prints each venue's hold beside its row, worked out from that venue's own two prices at the moment of the fetch. It says nothing about who wins. It tells you what the venue charges to take part.

How fresh the numbers are

The board refreshes roughly every ten minutes. NBA lines move fastest in the last few hours before tip, when injury reports firm up; this week alone, Minnesota lost Anthony Edwards to a knee procedure and the Warriors listed Yaxel Lendeborg as questionable. Use the board to see which venue tends to pay more on which side, then check the live price before you act. The Warriors' schedule has every game, and tonight's game page carries the full comparison until tip-off.

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