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

Every Chiefs game on the board opens as six tables: both sides of the moneyline, both sides of the spread, and the over and under on the total. Each table puts the same position side by side at every venue that quotes it. Below is what each column means and how its number is produced, worked through with one real listing: DraftKings' prices on Sunday's game, Jets at Chiefs at Arrowhead, as ESPN showed them at about 4 p.m. Eastern on Friday.

One game, three markets

Moneyline. Who wins, and nothing else. A minus number marks the favorite and is what you would put up to make $100 in profit; a plus number marks the underdog and is what $100 earns. DraftKings had Kansas City at -550 and New York at +410: $550 on the Chiefs to clear $100, or $100 on the Jets to clear $410. The same listing opened at -470 and +360, so the price has moved further toward the Chiefs this week, with Jets receiver Garrett Wilson ruled out after a concussion.

Spread. The favorite gives points and the underdog gets them. DraftKings had the Chiefs -9.5. Kansas City has to win by 10 or more for that side to pay; the Jets pay by winning or losing by nine or fewer. The price on each side is the cost of the number: -115 on the Chiefs and -105 on the Jets, up from -110 each at the open, so laying the points now costs more than taking them. In football the half point carries extra weight because so many games end on margins of 3, 7 and 10. A line of 9.5 rather than 10 means a 10-point Chiefs win pays instead of pushing.

Total. Forget the winner and add the two scores. DraftKings had Sunday's total at 48.5, the over at -105 and the under at -115. The over needs 49 combined points; the under needs 48 or fewer. Kansas City's seven games have produced 41, 63, 34, 57, 28, 23 and 52 points, which shows how far one game can land from a single number.

These are illustrations of how the board reads, not recommendations, and the prices will have moved by the time you read this.

The per-$100 column

American odds and contract prices don't compare at a glance, so the board converts every quote into one figure: the profit on a winning $100 position.

• Plus odds: the profit is the number. +410 returns $410.
• Minus odds: 100 divided by the odds, times 100. -550 returns $18.18; -115 returns $86.96; -105 returns $95.24.
• A prediction-market contract priced at p (84 cents is 0.84) with a fee rate r: profit = 100 / (p × (1 + r × (1 − p))) − 100.

Take a Chiefs contract at 84 cents, roughly -525 in sportsbook terms. With no fee, $100 buys 119.05 contracts and a win returns $19.05. At Kalshi's 7% rate part of the $100 pays the fee instead of buying contracts, and the return drops to $17.73. The standard check figure from the same formula: a 60-cent contract returns $66.67 with no fee and $62.13 at a 7% rate.

Where Novig's fee comes in

Novig's charges depend on when and how you trade, per its published fee schedule:

• Pre-game straight trades on the app or website carry no fee. The 84-cent Chiefs contract bought before kickoff returns the full $19.05 per $100.
• Live (in-game) trades that take a resting order pay a taker fee of 0.06 × price × (1 − price) per contract, the same rate in every league. Bought live at 84 cents, the same contract returns $17.92.
• Makers, whose resting orders get filled, pay no fee.

The fee bites hardest near a coin flip. A 50-cent position on the Chiefs covering -9.5 returns $100.00 per $100 pre-game on Novig, $94.17 as a live taker trade there, and $93.24 at a 7% rate. The sportsbook's -115 on the same side returns $86.96.

The board prices games before kickoff, so Novig's rows there carry no fee.

Best price and the gap

Each table is sorted by the per-$100 figure, best at the top, and the leader is tagged Best. Novig is pinned to the first row so it is always visible, and every row underneath shows how many dollars it gives up against the leader on the same $100. On the moneyline that comparison is clean. On spreads and totals it holds only when two venues deal the same number; if one book has the Chiefs -9.5 and another -10, the row is flagged, because in the NFL a half point around 10 can be worth more than a few cents of price.

The hold

If you read only one column, make it this one. Convert both sides of a two-way market to implied probabilities and add them. A fair market sums to 100%; anything above that is what the venue keeps.

DraftKings' moneyline above implies 84.62% for the Chiefs (-550) and 19.61% for the Jets (+410). Together that is 104.22%, a hold of 4.22%. The spread at -115 and -105 comes to 104.71%, and so does the total at -105 and -115: holds of about 4.7%. All three are built in before kickoff.

A prediction market has no house on the other side, so its two sides usually sum to within a point or so of 100%. A market with the Chiefs at 84 cents and the Jets at 17 adds to 101 cents, a hold of about 1%, which is just the gap between the best buy and the best sell on the order book.

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

How fresh the numbers are

The board refreshes about every ten minutes. NFL lines move most on injury news during the week and in the last hours before kickoff, when inactive lists come out 90 minutes ahead of the game. Use the board to see which venue tends to pay more on which side, then check the live price before you act. Sunday's game page carries the full comparison until kickoff at 1 p.m. Eastern, then becomes the score and, after the final, the recap. The rest of the schedule is on the Chiefs page.

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