Against the Spread (ATS)

Against the spread, commonly abbreviated as ATS, refers to a team’s win-loss record when evaluated against the point spread rather than the straight-up outcome. While a team’s regular win-loss record tells you how often they win games outright, the ATS record tells you how often they cover the spread set by oddsmakers. This distinction is critical for spread bettors because a team that wins frequently does not necessarily cover the spread frequently.

Oddsmakers set point spreads to balance action on both sides of a game. A dominant team may win most of its games, but the spreads assigned often reflect that dominance. As a result, a team with a strong straight-up record may have a mediocre ATS record if the market prices them accurately. Conversely, a struggling team can have a solid ATS record if oddsmakers overreact to poor results and set spreads that are too wide.

Tracking ATS records in specific situations is a core part of sports betting research. Bettors look at ATS performance as home favorites, road underdogs, in divisional games, after a loss, and in many other contexts. These situational ATS trends can reveal edges that are not visible in the straight-up standings.

Example

A football team finishes the regular season with a 10-7 straight-up record but only a 7-10 ATS record. This means that while they won 10 games outright, they only covered the point spread in 7 of their 17 games. The team was likely favored in many of their wins by more points than they actually won by, making them an unprofitable team to back against the spread despite being a good team on the field. If you had bet $110 on them to cover in every game, you would have won 7 bets ($700 profit) but lost 10 bets ($1,100 loss), resulting in a net loss of $400.

Key Points

• ATS differs from straight-up: A team’s ATS record measures performance against the spread, not just wins and losses.
• Good teams can be bad ATS: Dominant teams are often favored by large margins, making it harder for them to cover consistently.
• Situational ATS trends are valuable: Analyzing ATS records in specific contexts (home, away, as favorite, as underdog) can uncover profitable betting angles.
• Pushes are recorded separately: When the final margin exactly matches the spread, the result is a push. ATS records are often displayed as wins-losses-pushes (e.g., 8-6-2).
• A key research tool: Serious bettors use ATS data as one of many factors in building a handicapping model to identify value in the market.