Charles Kline McNeil
(16 August 1903 – 7 April 1981)
was the inventor of the
point spread
Spread betting is any of various types of wagering on the outcome of an event where the pay-off is based on the accuracy of the wager, rather than a simple "win or lose" outcome, such as fixed-odds (or money-line) betting or parimutuel betting.
...
in
sports gambling
Sports betting is the activity of predicting sports results and placing a wager on the outcome.
Sports bettors place their wagers either legally, through a sportsbook or bookmaker (colloquially known as "bookies"), or illegally through priva ...
.
McNeil earned a Master's Degree from the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
. He then taught math at the
Riverdale Country School
Riverdale Country School is a co-educational, independent, college-preparatory day school in New York City serving pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. It is located on two campuses covering more than in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, Ne ...
in New York and at the
Choate School
Choate Rosemary Hall ( ) is a private, co-educational, college-preparatory boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1890, it took its present name and began a co-educational system with the 1978 merger of ''The Ch ...
in Connecticut. His students included
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the first Roman Catholic and youngest person elected p ...
. He was also a securities analyst in Chicago.
While gambling on the side, he developed the point spread, betting not on the probability of the final outcome, but on the expected difference in score.
He eventually opened his own bookmaking operation in the 1940s.
McNeil's method is used today in different areas; anything from
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...
to
poker
Poker is a family of Card game#Comparing games, comparing card games in which Card player, players betting (poker), wager over which poker hand, hand is best according to that specific game's rules. It is played worldwide, with varying rules i ...
. He started the new method of trading and changed the way people bet.
McNeil's invention, the point spread, revolutionized sports betting by introducing a method of wagering on the margin of victory between competing teams. This system, more commonly used in football and basketball, aims to level the playing field by creating a form of
handicap between the favorite team and the
underdog
An underdog is a person or group in a competition, usually in sports and creative works, who is largely expected to lose. The party, team, or individual expected to win is called the favorite or wikt:top dog, top dog. In the case where an under ...
. The point spread is represented as a positive (+) or negative (-) number, indicating the predicted margin of victory or defeat.
References
Further reading
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External links
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1903 births
1981 deaths
Bookmakers
20th-century American businesspeople
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