Welcome to Fantom Odds! As fantasy football's first-ever odds provider, you probably have questions about how we operate and how our betting markets work.
Before diving into the various markets, let us clarify one thing: Fantom Odds is not a sportsbook! We are an odds provider that syncs up to your fantasy football leagues (on Yahoo, ESPN and Sleeper) and creates odds for you and your leaguemates to bet on using your league's settings and rosters.
Think of it as a tool that can turn your fantasy football league into your own private peer-to-peer sportsbook—but without unfair odds and prices since we're not a sportsbook. We do not take a cut of any bet placed on our platform, and we do not collect winnings from losing bets. Fantom Odds is here to create a one-of-a-kind betting experience to further enhance your fantasy football league.
Now onto our various markets…
This one is very straightforward—this is betting on which team will win a matchup.
Let's say you're looking at your upcoming matchup on a Tuesday and see a projected score of 143.4-106.9. Yahoo gives your team a 75% win probability on your matchup page, which would translate to -300 moneyline odds. Conversely, your opponent has a 25% win probability that would come out to +300 moneyline odds.
So what does -300 and +300 mean? If you want to back your team to win at -300, you'd have to lay $300 to win $100 (or $30 to win $10, $75 to win $25, etc.). Someone who believes in the underdog at +300 would wager $100 to win $300 (or $20 to win $60, $5 to win $15, etc.).
So if you were to find a betting partner on this matchup and your team won, you would receive $100 from that person. However, if the underdog won, you'd have to send over $300 to the person you bet with.
One great thing about creating a bet with Fantom Odds is that you can type in any amount for either bet wager or winning amount, and it will fill in the other slot based on the odds. So if you saw a moneyline you wanted to take at +335 and knew you wanted to win $20 if the bet hit, you can type in "$20" for the winning amount, and then the bet wager would automatically fill to $5.97.
Because Fantom Odds updates in real time, time remaining for players on each team will strongly impact a team's win probability and therefore moneyline odds. So before the Monday night game, that same favorite's moneyline price could increase to -600 when they're only projected to win by 8 points (compared to -300 with a projected win of 36.5 before) because they may have the final player left and be down only 4 points in the matchup.
The spread is the great equalizer between the favorite and underdog, as it serves as the margin that a team has to win by or lose by in order to win your bet. Our official matchup spreads are rounded to the nearest half-point and are located next to the favorite of each matchup on the league home page.
So let's use the projected score example from the previous section, where the favorite is projected to win 143.4-106.9. If you wanted to bet the favorite, the spread would be -36.5 (+100).
The -36.5 is the spread itself, meaning the favorite would have to win by 36.6 points or more to win your bet. If you wanted to bet the underdog at +36.5 (+100), the underdog would have to lose by 36.4 points or fewer OR win the matchup outright in order to win the bet. The favorite winning by exactly 36.5 is called a push, so it's neither a won nor loss for either party.
The +100 is what's called the juice or vig. Normally at sportsbooks, you'll see a spread with a -110 juice, meaning you'd have to lay $110 to win $100 (or $11 to win $10, etc.). This is one of the ways sportsbooks make their money—if you win one -110 bet and lose one -110 bet at the same amount, even though you're 1-1, you're still down money.
Since we're not a sportsbook and we offer true odds, our official spreads are all +100 or even money. That +100 means whatever you bet, you would win the same amount back if the bet cashes.
Now where the juice/vig comes into play is if you want to adjust the spread, which Fantom Odds also provides prices for. Let's say someone betting on the above favorite doesn't want to lay 36.5 points and wants to bring the spread down to -19.5. With that adjustment, the new spreads would look like -19.5 (-150) for the favorite and +19.5 (+150) for the underdog.
While the favorite would only have to win by 19.6 or more to win the bet, you'd now have to lay $150 to win $100 (or $30 to win $20, etc.) to back the favorite. On the flip side, the underdog is +150 at +19.5, so you could bet $50 to win $75 if the underdog loses by 19.4 or fewer points OR wins outright.
With totals, you can either bet an over or an under. A matchup total is the projected number of points scored by both teams facing off against each other, and you can bet over or under that amount. A team total is the projected number of points scored by a singular team for the week.
In that 143.4-106.9 example, the matchup total would be set at 250.5 (all matchup totals round to the nearest half-point). Over 250.5 (+100) means the two teams would need to score 250.6 points or more to win the bet. Under 250.5 (+100) means the two teams would need to score 250.4 or fewer combined points to win the bet. Exactly 250.5 points scored would be a push.
Team totals are not rounded to the nearest half point, so you could take the favorite to score over 143.4 points or under 143.4 points (both would be at +100 odds) as well as the underdog to score over 106.9 points or under 106.9 points (both would be at +100 odds).
If you think the favorite is in for a big week and want to adjust their total to 160.5 to bet the over, that over bet could have new odds of +200. If you wanted to find a leaguemate to take the other side of that bet, they would get under 160.5 (-200). So if you wanted to bet $10 on this new adjustable team total, you would either send your betmate $10 if that team scores under 160.5 or you would receive $20 in winnings if that team scores over 160.5. No money would exchange hands if that team scores exactly 160.5 points.
Obviously in fantasy football, your one opponent each week is whoever you're facing in your fantasy football matchup. At Fantom Odds, you can face any team in any week thanks to our custom matchup feature.
You can create any matchup you want and Fantom Odds will provide the moneyline, adjustable spread and matchup total for any custom matchup. Want to bet on yourself to outscore your top rival every week? How about going full sicko mode and doing a custom matchup between the highest-projected scoring team and lowest-projected scoring team in a week, and maybe peeping at that juicy moneyline? That fantasy is now reality at Fantom Odds.
Do you have a prize in your league for which team puts up the most points each week? You can now bet on it and create additional sweats surrounding the Sunday night and Monday night games.
Based on every team's projected points and remaining time (how many players are currently playing or have yet to play), we have come up with each team's odds to finish as the highest-scoring team for that week. If two teams are tied for the highest score at the end of the week, each team would be graded as a winner at the odds you bet them at.
So remember for totals that you can bet over or under? Now you can also do so with how many fantasy points a player scores in a given week. We use your league's fantasy football projections as the baseline. Then you can move that total to wherever you want, and the odds will adjust with it.
Let's say Ja'Marr Chase is projected for 22.4 points in your Yahoo PPR league for this upcoming week. You can either bet over (+100) or under (+100) for his 22.4 projection. But if you think Chase is going to torch an opposing secondary and you want to move his line to 30.0, his over may now be adjusted to +300 and his under would swing to -300. If you wanted to move it the other direction to 12.5, his over could now reside at -600 and his under would be positioned at +600.
You can type in a player's first name or last name in the search bar in the fantasy player over/under section and they will appear. However, a player will only pop up if they are rostered in your league. Players on your league's waivers will not show up in this market.
This is a brand-new market that is somewhat of a combination between highest-scoring team and fantasy player over/under. In any actual matchup (not applicable to custom matchups) each week in your league, you can choose which player you think will end up with the highest score among either team's starting lineup.
The really cool thing about this market is you can select one player or you can select multiple players to be the Matchup MVP, and the odds will adjust. If you want to take a top wide receiver like Chase, you may get around +500 odds that he'll outscore every other player in that matchup. But if you want, you make the odds closer to even if you take Chase, a starting quarterback (say Lamar Jackson), a running back in the flex (like Kenneth Walker III) and a top tight end (say Brock Bowers) while giving your betmate the field (every other player in both starting lineups in that matchup).
Just like every other market, Fantom Odds will grade the winner based on each team's final starting lineups compared to the lineups at the time of the bet. So if one team makes a last-second waiver wire pickup or trades for a star after a Matchup MVP bet is made, and that new acquisition is the leading scorer in that matchup, the bet is voided so neither party wins or loses.