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Couldn't find a definitive answer, but I've cobbled together this likely scenario. (If I'm wrong, someone should post the truth-- wish you would have posted it when AV2 asked to start with!! 
) Anyway, here goes:
It's all about baseball. Football, hoops, and American Line hockey all have pointspread odds of one form or another and "implied odds" (a football or hoops side or total is usually -110 either way; pucks is even either side on a split line). Bases is the only sport where the majority of bets are moneyline.
Anyway, odds in bases used to be expressed based around a $5 bet or "time". Favourites were listed first so you might see:
Cardinals 6-7 Dodgers
So you'd bet $7 to win $5 on the Cards or $5 to win $6 on the underdog Dodgers. As the game grew more lopsided, the gap increased and you might see:
Yankees 9-11 Tigers
which means $11 on Yanks to win $5 or $5 on Tigers to win $9.
Anyway, competition between BMs being what it was, some bookmakers decided to cut the vig in half (go to a ten-cent, or "DIME" line) on the condition that punters bet a minimum of $100 on the dog to enough to win $100 on the favourite. [Logic: Juice lost by making the lines closer is regained through volume business.]
Anyway, a Red Sox/Angels game with odds of -$145/+$135 would look like
Red Sox 6.75-7.25 Angels
on the old system. Gross! So, since punters playing into these lower vig lines had to stake $100 or more, they just expressed the numbers based around a $100 bet, with the minus sign for laying and the plus sign for taking. (This became imperative as some books started adjusting lines in increments of less than 5 cents...imagine trying to express -$138/+$128 in the old system!)
And that's how it came to pass.
) Anyway, here goes:It's all about baseball. Football, hoops, and American Line hockey all have pointspread odds of one form or another and "implied odds" (a football or hoops side or total is usually -110 either way; pucks is even either side on a split line). Bases is the only sport where the majority of bets are moneyline.
Anyway, odds in bases used to be expressed based around a $5 bet or "time". Favourites were listed first so you might see:
Cardinals 6-7 Dodgers
So you'd bet $7 to win $5 on the Cards or $5 to win $6 on the underdog Dodgers. As the game grew more lopsided, the gap increased and you might see:
Yankees 9-11 Tigers
which means $11 on Yanks to win $5 or $5 on Tigers to win $9.
Anyway, competition between BMs being what it was, some bookmakers decided to cut the vig in half (go to a ten-cent, or "DIME" line) on the condition that punters bet a minimum of $100 on the dog to enough to win $100 on the favourite. [Logic: Juice lost by making the lines closer is regained through volume business.]
Anyway, a Red Sox/Angels game with odds of -$145/+$135 would look like
Red Sox 6.75-7.25 Angels
on the old system. Gross! So, since punters playing into these lower vig lines had to stake $100 or more, they just expressed the numbers based around a $100 bet, with the minus sign for laying and the plus sign for taking. (This became imperative as some books started adjusting lines in increments of less than 5 cents...imagine trying to express -$138/+$128 in the old system!)
And that's how it came to pass.
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