Pick'em

A pick’em (often written “PK” or “EVEN” on a board) is a game the sportsbook considers close enough that it won’t lay a point spread. Instead of one side getting +3.5 and the other -3.5, both teams are effectively at 0 — you’re just picking the winner outright. Because there’s no spread to hang the pricing on, the book has to build in its edge entirely through the moneyline, and that’s where a pick’em stops being a true 50/50 proposition and starts looking like every other market: shaded by vig.

Here’s the mechanical difference from a normal spread game. On a standard -3.5 game, both sides are usually priced near -110, and the book’s edge comes from that shared -110 vig plus the spread itself doing the separating work. On a pick’em, there’s no spread doing anything — so the book nudges the moneyline slightly off even money on each side, say -105 on one team and -115 on the other, rather than +100/+100. That gap is small, but it’s real money, and it’s the whole reason “pick’em” doesn’t mean “coin flip you can bet for free.”

You’ll see pick’ems most often in college football and NBA/NHL games between evenly matched teams, in UFC main cards, or in NFL Week 18 matchups where one team has nothing to play for. The label tells you the two teams are graded as roughly equal talent on a neutral or semi-neutral field — it does not tell you the payout is neutral.

Example

Cleveland Browns host the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 4, and the Bengals are traveling on a short week. The book doesn’t like either side enough to hang a spread, so it posts this as a pick’em with moneylines:

• Browns -115
• Bengals -105

First, convert both to implied probability. For a negative number, implied probability = odds / (odds + 100).

• Browns: 115 / 215 = 53.49%
• Bengals: 105 / 205 = 51.22%

Add those together: 53.49% + 51.22% = 104.71%. Anything over 100% is the book’s hold — here, 4.71%, which is a touch fatter than a standard two-way -110/-110 market (which holds about 4.55%). That’s the cost of the market not being priced dead even.

Now say a bettor puts $115 on the Browns to win $100 (total return $215 if they win), and a friend puts $105 on the Bengals to win $100 (total return $205 if they win). Both bettors are laying more than they’d win — nobody in a pick’em is getting true 50/50 payout, even though the book is telling you, structurally, that it thinks the game is a 50/50 proposition.

If you wanted to know the “fair” price with the vig stripped out, divide each side’s implied probability by the total: Browns fair probability = 53.49 / 104.71 = 51.08%, Bengals fair probability = 51.22 / 104.71 = 48.92%. Converted back to moneylines, that’s roughly Browns -104 and Bengals +104 — a gap of about 11 cents from what’s actually posted on each side. That 11 cents, doubled across both teams, is the book’s built-in edge on a game it has no real opinion on.

Key Points

• “Pick’em” describes the matchup, not the price: it means the book won’t lay a spread, not that you’re getting even money. Always check the actual moneyline before assuming a 50/50 payout.
• Shop both sides against each other: in a normal spread game you shop -110 vs. -108 on the same side. In a pick’em, compare the full moneyline pair across books — a -105/-115 split at one shop might be -102/-118 at another, and the difference compounds fast on repeated bets.
• The favorite/underdog split still exists: even in a pick’em, one side almost always carries slightly worse odds (like -115 vs. -105 above). That’s the book’s true lean dressed up as a coin flip — read it as a soft, low-confidence favorite rather than a genuine dead heat.
• Compute the no-vig fair price before trusting your gut: dividing each side’s implied probability by the combined total (as in the example) strips out the hold and tells you what the market actually thinks, which is often useful for spotting when a pick’em price has drifted stale.
• Don’t confuse a pick’em with a 0-point spread: some books will list “PK” as a spread of 0 on both sides at -110/-110 for parlay and teaser purposes — functionally the same as a moneyline pick’em, but check which format you’re being offered since it changes how it interacts with spread-based bet types like teasers.
• Pick’ems cluster around specific spots: look for them in NBA/NHL matchups between similarly seeded teams, MLB games between two average pitching matchups, and combat sports main events — knowing where books default to pick’em pricing helps you spot when a line has moved off it and why.