Understanding how to use your bet slip is absolutely fundamental. In the sports gambling world, few tools are more underappreciated. To many bettors in 2025, the bet slip is an afterthought, when in reality it’s one of the most informative and useful resources available. A bet slip is more than just a transaction recap—it’s a guide to your wagers, odds, and potential payouts. That’s why we’ve dedicated an entire section of our betting guide to explaining how they work.

What’s on a Betting Slip

Most people view betting slips as a review of the wager—or wagers—that they’re placing. They are definitely this. But they are also so much more. 

In addition to serving as a receipt, they can help you read and build different bet types. This includes all of the following:

Bet slips are also useful because they serve as an odds calculator, showing you how much you stand to win based on how much you’re investing. Don’t worry about understanding how valuable they are right now. We’re about to dissect the entire thing.

Before we do, please consider checking out our list of the top online sportsbooks with high-functioning betting slips:

Betting Slips and Moneylines

As you should already know, moneyline wagers are simply straightforward bets. You're seeking to pick the winner of a given competition. And once you make your choice, it will be added to your bet slip, where you'll be able to review the odds your facing.Betting Slip Vector

These moneylines will show up on your ticket just as they do everywhere else. Favorites will have a minus sign next to their odds, which tell you how much you need to wager in order to win $100. Underdogs will be represented with a plus sign in front of their line. This shows you how much of a profit you stand to make for every $100 you put on the line.

As an example let's say you check out the latest NBA odds and decide to add the following game to your bet slip: Los Angeles Lakers (-400) vs. Dallas Mavericks (+225). Taking the Lakers in this case would mean you must risk $400 to secure a profit of $100—a relatively low payout that is indicative of Luka Dončić's prowess on the court. Investing in the Mavericks means you'd win $225 for every $100 you wager.

Though bet slips don’t directly change the lines themselves, many sportsbooks give you the option to adjust them. This is often called buying points or selecting an alternate line. For example, you could choose shorter odds on the Mavericks or longer odds on the Lakers. These options are typically displayed on your bet slip or within the betting menu.

Betting Slips and Point Spreads

Point spreads are similar to moneylines in that they are concerned with the outcome of a given competition. However, they differ from moneylines in that they're not always concerned with who actually wins. You are instead more responsible for predicting a margin of victory or loss.

Bet slips will convey this information in identical format. Favorites are yet again represented by a minus sign, and they show you how many points a given team must win by in order to cover. Underdogs are once more denoted with a plus sign, and their line tells you how many points they must come within winning to cover from their sides.

Let's say you're looking at Lakers (-9.5) vs. Mavericks (+9.5). Betting on the Lakers would mean they have to win by 10 or more points. Choosing the Mavericks would mean they must lose by nine or fewer points—or outright win.

Looking at your bet slip allows you to review this information easily. They will even update you if the odds change. And likewise, they should also give you the option of paying to customize the line, if you want to lengthen or shorten the spread in either direction to manipulate the payout odds.

Betting Slips and The Over/Under

Bet slips do a great job of highlighting over/under lines after you've picked them. As a brief refresher, these wagers are all about predicting which side of a benchmark the final combined score will fall.

For example, let's assume the Lakers-Mavericks game has an over/under of 222.5. Playing the over demands both Dallas and Los Angeles combine to score 223 or more points. Conversely, working the under mandates they combine to score no more than 222 points.

After you've added a pick to your bet slip, the odds will be updated in real time, and your sportsbook will alert you to any movements before you actually hit submit. As ever, your bet slip will also allow you to customize the over/under, should you want to lower or elevate the predetermined number for a fee.

This is why bet slips are so useful for specific lines. They give you a place to not only review them, but to tweak them and to get a sense for the latest changes.

Betting Slips and Parlays

Betting slips become particularly useful once you go from specific lines to actual wager types. They are where you decide what type of gamble you're looking to make.

If you're looking to place straight individual wagers, you don't have to do anything. That is the default setting on every bet slips. If you're looking to build a parlay, however, you'll need to specify as much.

This isn’t difficult to do. Most sportsbooks will automatically give you the option to build a parlay once you’ve added multiple selections to your bet slip. For example, let’s say you add three lines: Lakers -9.5, Lakers–Mavericks over 222.5, and Miami Heat +6. To combine all three into one wager, you simply select the parlay option shown on your ticket before submitting.

Remember, though, that parlays are all-or-nothing propositions. A three-wager parlay entails hitting on all three predictions. If you don't, you'll lose your bet. If you do, you'll be rewarded with a higher-than-normal return that far outstrips anything you would have gotten had you invested in each line individually.

Betting Slips and Round Robins

Submitting round-robin wagers is similar to building parlays. You select the lines you actually want to include before viewing your bet slip, but once you're done, you need to actually make the round-robin selection on your bet slip.

This can be done with just a click. Take our earlier selections: Lakers −9.5, Lakers–Mavericks over 222.5, and Heat +6. By choosing the “round-robin” or "parlay" option on your bet slip, the sportsbook will automatically create every possible two-leg parlay from those three picks. In this case, that results in three separate parlays: Lakers (−9.5) with Lakers/Mavericks over 222.5, Lakers (−9.5) with Heat (+6), and Heat (+6) with Lakers/Mavericks over 222.5.

Betting Slips and Odds Calculations

Among the most useful things your betting slip does is calculate the odds on your wagers.

Sure, you'll see the lines for each individual bet on various sportsbook pages. But your ticket is where you can concretely see how much you stand to win depending on your Bet Slip Vectorinvestment. 

This becomes especially valuable when you’re building parlays or round robins. While it’s possible to calculate the returns manually, the math can be complex and time-consuming. Your betting slip does the work instantly—just enter the amount you want to wager, and it will show you side-by-side boxes with how much you’re risking and your potential payout.

Some bettors will even use their betting slips to assemble hypotheticals. They may be unsure as to whether a moneyline wager or parlay transaction is worth the cost entry. By inputting the lines into the bet slip and then entering an amount they'd be willing to invest, they can tell how much they may possibly profit. You can even fiddle around with how much money you're risking, as long as you haven't hit submit, to see how starkly increases or decreases in the amount you're gambling impacts the possible payout.

Betting Slips are Your Receipt

Perhaps the most important feature of a betting slip is that it allows you to both review and record your wagers.

Double-checking your selections is crucial, especially if you’re placing multiple bets at once. It’s easy to misread odds, click the wrong line, or miss an update if the numbers shift while you’re browsing the sportsbook. These changes happen often, and sportsbooks don’t always prompt you to confirm after you hit submit.

Reviewing your slip before finalizing ensures you catch any mistakes. Just as importantly, once your bet is placed, the slip serves as your receipt. It keeps a record of the wagers you’ve made and their outcomes—an especially valuable tool if you’re tracking several bets at the same time.