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

Open any Timberwolves game on the board and you get six tables: the two sides of the moneyline, the two sides of the spread, and the over and the under on the total. Each table lines up the same position across every venue that quotes it. Here is what the columns mean and how each number is calculated, using tonight's game against Golden State as the example.

Three ways to price one game

Moneyline. Pick the winner, nothing else. A minus number marks the favorite and tells you what you would have to put up to clear $100 in profit. A plus number marks the underdog and tells you what $100 earns. At noon Wednesday, ESPN's listing showed DraftKings with the Wolves at -170 and the Warriors at +142 for tonight's game at Target Center. At -170, a winning $100 returns $58.82 in profit. At +142, it returns $142.

Spread. The favorite gives points, the underdog gets them. The same DraftKings listing had Minnesota -4.5. The Wolves have to win by five or more for that side to cash; Golden State cashes by winning outright or losing by four or fewer. The price attached to the spread is the cost of taking that number. Sportsbooks usually hang it around -110 on both sides, which returns $90.91 on a winning $100. A prediction market, where the two sides are matched trader against trader, tends to sit much closer to even.

Total. Ignore who wins and add the two scores together. DraftKings had tonight's total at 227.5, so the over needs 228 combined points and the under needs 227 or fewer. NBA totals sit far higher than football's, and they move on news: the Wolves learned Tuesday night that Anthony Edwards, who scored 47 at Cleveland on Monday, will miss up to two months after knee surgery. A line set before news like that is a different line after it.

These are examples of how the board reads, not a recommendation, and the prices will have moved by the time you see them.

The per-$100 column

American odds and contract prices do not 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 itself. +142 returns $142.
• Minus odds: divide 100 by the odds, then multiply by 100. -170 returns $58.82; -110 returns $90.91.
• A prediction-market contract priced at p (62 cents is 0.62) with a fee rate r: profit = 100 / (p × (1 + r × (1 − p))) − 100.

Take a Wolves contract at 62 cents, the equivalent of about -163. With no fee, $100 buys 161.29 contracts and a win pays $61.29 in profit. At Kalshi's 7% fee rate, part of the $100 goes to the fee instead of contracts, and the profit falls to $57.11. The same formula gives the standard check figure: 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 published fee schedule as of October 2026:

• Pre-game trades placed on the app or website carry no fee, so a 62-cent Wolves contract bought before tip-off returns the full $61.29 per $100.
• Live (in-game) trades that take an existing order pay a taker fee, at the rate on that schedule, so a win returns a little less than the same price before tip-off.
• Makers, traders whose resting order is the one that gets filled, pay nothing at any time.

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

Best price and the gap

Every table is sorted by the per-$100 figure, highest at the top, and the leader is tagged Best. Novig is pinned to the first row so you always see it, and each 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 are dealing the same number; if one book has the Wolves -4.5 and another -5, the row is flagged, and the half point can matter as much as the price.

The hold

If you read one column, read this one. Turn both sides of a two-way market into implied probabilities and add them. A perfectly fair market adds up to 100%. Anything above that is what the venue keeps.

The DraftKings moneyline above implies 62.96% for Minnesota (-170) and 41.32% for Golden State (+142). Together that is 104.29%, a hold of 4.29%. A spread dealt at -110 on both sides implies 52.38% twice, or 104.76%, a 4.76% hold, set before the opening tip.

A prediction market has no house taking the other side, so its two sides usually add up to within a point or so of 100%. A market with the Wolves at 62 cents and the Warriors at 39 adds to 101 cents, a hold of about 1%. What is left is simply the distance 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 roughly every ten minutes. NBA lines can move faster than that, especially when an injury report drops in the hour before tip-off. Use the board to see which venue tends to pay more on which side, then check the live price before you act. Once a game tips off it drops off the board, and its game page turns into the score and, after the final, the recap. The Wolves' full schedule is on the team page.

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