wtf is a spread? philly cream cheese? that huge table the in laws fill with food? the thing u put on your bed when the inlaws are coming to visit?.....oh sorry those are whoppe cushions.
ok can you explain this in umm ummm terms i can understand?

@deanthoreau - The spread is what the oddsmakers think that the favored team will win by. In this case, Navy is an 11.5 point favorite against the Army. If Navy wins by at least 12, they've "covered the spread" and the question will settle in the Navy's favor. If they win by 11 or fewer points (or lose the game outright) then it settles for the Army. Spreads are often set at x.5 to avoid having ties.

....so in order for navy to win if army has 14 points then navy has to ......ok i need to get my slide rule out for this.... 1 + 6 + 3 + 1 + oh@#$%^$@#^%^& GO NAVY!!!!!!

@deanthoreau - You'll see a lot of sports questions on hubdub listed as ATS, or "Against The Spread". Just when you think you are starting to understand American professional football, this is a special way to make the whole thing much more complicated (for us amateurs). It's a special way to make a bad team better, while cleverly taking away any advantage from a good team who works hard to be a good team. Kind of a computerized couch potato effect...Of course, if any team was forced to play with these handicaps, they would all scream blue murder, but here we think that it is fun to predict this news (which is never going to happen)...

Does this sound like politics?

GO ARMY!! (but i had to put money on navy..theres no way army will win or even come close)

Just to inform you a good number of players from any team in any sport know what the spread is for there game prior to the game.

@letme - WHAT? You're totally getting in trouble for that. I don't care that Army is likely to get their butts handed to them this weekend, its ARMY ALL THE WAY! HOOAH!

@rand..."computerized couch potato effect"...damn i like that..I challenge you to use that phrase and the term ATS in some kind of HUBDUB question that does not get voided but can reach a settlement date that is at least 2 weeks from the day u come up with it.
If you do I will bet 300 on it(and thats a major amount of hubdub bucks for me).

The reason a point spread is used in some sports questions is to try and create more balanced action in wagering on both sides. There are many matches where one team is such a high percentage favorite to win, it becomes almost pointless to wager on that team because the profit is so minimal against what you are risking in making the prediction on that option.

pixelpaws explained what the point spread is and how it works. Fairly simple, and doesn't require as much math as comment #3 indicates. I come across many questions that require much more math and calculations than the point spread questions.

Even though many questions use abbreviations (EPL, DJIA, etc..) - From now on ATS will be spelled out not only in background like it always has been, but in the question also.

Hope this solves any problems, and clarifies the reason behind including a point spread in some questions.

GOOOOOOOOOOOO Caleb Campbell give your mommy somthing to brag to the locals about.


BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!111

psssssssssssssssst @sdcharger.....i was joking about gettin the sliderule...i used my microsoft calculator (smiles all proud like)

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NAVY!!!!!!!!!!! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO NAVY!!!!!!!!!

As an old retired Air Force guy, I'd like for both of 'em to lose. ;-)

But I think Navy will beat the spread on this one.