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

Every Bears game on the board is laid out in six tables: each side of the moneyline, each side of the spread, and the over and the under on the total. A table lines up one position across every venue that quotes it. Here is what each column means and how each figure is calculated, worked through on a single real line: DraftKings' prices for Sunday night's game against Tampa Bay at Soldier Field, as ESPN listed them at about 4:30 p.m. Eastern on Friday.

Three ways to price one game

Moneyline. You pick the winner and nothing else. A minus number marks the favorite and says how much you would need to put up to make $100 in profit; a plus number marks the underdog and says what $100 earns. DraftKings had the Bears at -278 and the Buccaneers at +225: $278 on Chicago to make $100, or $100 on Tampa Bay to make $225. The same listing shows the opening price, Bears -192, so the market has moved a long way toward Chicago this week.

Spread. The favorite gives points and the underdog gets them. DraftKings had the Bears -6, up from -3.5 when the line opened. Chicago has to win by seven or more for that side to pay; a six-point Bears win is a push, and the stake comes back. Tampa Bay pays by winning or by losing by five or fewer. Because so many NFL games end on a margin of three or seven, the move from 3.5 to 6 crossed one of the numbers that matter most. The price beside the spread is the cost of taking it: -112 on the Bears and -108 on the Buccaneers.

Total. Forget who wins and add the two scores. DraftKings had 47.5, down from 48.5 at the open, with the over at -105 and the under at -115. The over needs 48 combined points; the under needs 47 or fewer. The Bears' last two games produced 54 and 51.

These are illustrations of how the board reads, not recommendations, and the numbers 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 turns every quote into one figure: the profit a winning $100 position returns.

• Plus odds: the profit is the number. +225 returns $225.
• Minus odds: 100 divided by the odds, times 100. -278 returns $35.97; -112 returns $89.29; -108 returns $92.59.
• A prediction-market contract at price p (73 cents is 0.73) with a fee rate r: profit = 100 / (p × (1 + r × (1 − p))) − 100.

Take a Bears contract at 73 cents, roughly -270 in American odds. With no fee, $100 buys 136.99 contracts and a win returns $36.99 in profit. At Kalshi's 7% fee rate some of the $100 goes to the fee instead, and the profit drops to $34.45. The standard check figure comes from the same formula: a 60-cent contract returns $66.67 with no fee and $62.13 at a 7% rate.

How Novig's fee fits in

Novig's fee depends on when and how you trade, per its fee schedule as of November 2026:

• Pre-game straight trades carry no fee, so a 73-cent Bears contract bought before kickoff returns the full $36.99 per $100.
• Live (in-game) trades that take a resting order pay a taker fee that scales with price. The schedule sets it at 0.06 × price × (1 − price) per contract, the NFL included. At that rate the same 73-cent contract returns $34.80.
• Makers, traders whose resting order is the one filled, pay nothing.

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

Best price and the gap

Each table is sorted by the per-$100 figure, highest first, and the leader is tagged Best. Novig is pinned to the top row so it is always in view, and every row below shows how many dollars it gives up against the leader on the same $100. On the moneyline that comparison is exact. On spreads and totals it holds only when two venues deal the same number, so a row is flagged when one book has the Bears -6 and another -6.5. In football the half point around 3, 6 and 7 can be worth more than a few cents of price.

The hold

If you read one column, read this one. Convert both sides of a two-way market to implied probabilities and add them. A perfectly fair market sums to 100%; anything over that is the venue's margin.

DraftKings' moneyline above implies 73.54% for the Bears (-278) and 30.77% for the Buccaneers (+225), a total of 104.31%, or a 4.31% hold. The spread at -112 and -108 adds to 104.75%, a 4.75% hold, and the total at -105 and -115 to 104.71%. All of it is 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%. Bears at 73 cents and Buccaneers at 28 adds to 101 cents, a hold of about 1%, which is simply the gap between the best buy and the best sell on the order book.

The board prints each venue's hold beside its row, worked out from that venue's own two prices at the moment of the fetch. It says nothing about who wins. 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 Friday, when final injury designations come out, and again in the hours before kickoff, when inactives are announced. Chicago listed running back Kyle Monangai and cornerbacks Tyrique Stevenson and Malik Muhammad as questionable on Friday. 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, then turns into the live score and, after the final, the recap. The Bears' schedule is on the team page.

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