How Do Betting Odds

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Decimal Style Sports Betting Odds Decimal style odds are used mostly in Europe, and are pretty easy to understand. To calculate the decimal style odds all you will need to do is simply multiply the amount you wish to wager by the decimal odds shown and you will get your payout. For example it may look something like this. Thinking of getting into live cricket betting? Click here to understand how cricket betting odds work and the different cricket betting options you have.

  1. Fractional odds allow you to calculate how much money you will win on your bet in comparison to you stake. The number on the left (e.g. 10) is how much you will win. The number on the right is how much you need to stake. For every £/€1 you bet, you will win £/€9.
  2. All you have to do is divide the odds to 100% – (100% / 1.25 = 80%). If you think that the chance of Liverpool beating Brighton equals 80% or more than placing that bet will provide value at odds 1.25 or more. In order to calculate winnings, you simply have to multiply your stake to the odds.
  3. Betting odds represent the probability of an event to happen and therefore enable you to work out how much money you will win if your bet wins. As an example, with odds of 4/1, for every £1 you bet, you will win £4. There is a 20% chance of this happening, calculated by 1 / (4 + 1) = 0.20.

Understanding how betting odds work is crucial for success in gambling, whether you want to win at slots or place bets on sporting events. By knowing the odds of potential bets you can calculate your expected winnings and build an entire strategy for a successful session. Let’s see where betting odds come into action and how to read them.

Betting odds on sports events

Knowing what bet to place on any type of sports events all comes down to the odds. These events can come with different odds based on the bookmaker you place a bet at, so you want to find the ones which offer the best odds for your bet.

However, you should make sure you understand the odds properly as different bookmakers use various formats of odds for their events. This is so mainly because of geographical differences. In general, there are 3 types of odds you can come across; Fractional, Decimal and American. Let’s see how each one works and how to easily read them.

1. Fractional Odds

Fractional odds are usually found at British or Irish bookmakers. They are also referred to as traditional odds since they were used early on, originally on horse races. These odds are usually shown with a hyphen or a slash, for example, 5/1 or 5-1. This odd is read as five to one. So what does this mean exactly?

A fraction odd of 5/1 means that you stand to win £5 in profit for every £1 you wager. So the total payout from a £1 wager to a 5/1 odd is £6. The same formula is used for bigger wagers and bigger odds. For example, a wager of £100 on an 8/1 odd comes with a total payout of £900. So that’s 8 times what you bet, so it’s 100 x 8 = £800 which is your profit, plus your initial £100 back, given you the total winnings of £900.

This type of odds is still heavily used today, but as we mentioned earlier it’s mostly focused on the UK.

2. Decimal Odds

Decimal odds are also called European odds and they are mostly used in Europe. They are based on the decimal system and are very easy to understand and to work with. With decimal odds, all you need is a calculator and you can easily calculate your profit. This comes especially in handy if you place a single wager and divide it over several events.

The main reason why decimal odds are easy to calculate is that they give you the total expected return. In fractional odds, you need to calculate the profit first and then add your initial wager. With decimal odds, the entire amount is calculated at one go.

For example, you bet $/£100 on a sports event which has decimal odds of 1.60. In order to calculate how much you can win in total all you need to do is multiply your stake with the decimal odds. In this case, it’s 100 x 1.6 which gives us a total of $/£160. As you can see the profit from betting on an event with this odd is $/£60. Just like in fractional odds the higher the odd, the higher the overall payout will be.

3. American Odds

How Do Betting Odds Work In Basketball

How do betting odds work ufc

American odds are used pretty much only in the USA and are also known as Moneyline odds. For a person coming from Europe, they can be very confusing, but in fact, they are very simple to read. They are based on placing a $100 bet, so you can easily calculate the end profit based on that bet. The odds for the favourite on an event come with a minus sign, while the odds for the underdog come with a plus sign.

How Do Betting Odds Work In Football

For example, an event can come with +400 for the underdog and -200 for the favourite. So if you bet $100 on the underdog you would make a profit of $400 plus the initial $100 you stake, giving you a total of $500. On the other hand, for the bet on the favourite, you would need to bet $200 in order to win $100, giving you a total of $300.

As you can see the American odds are actually quite easy to read if you’re betting $100. Problems can arise when you want to bet with smaller or bigger amounts and you will need to do some maths in order to calculate the correct odds.

Betting odds on casino games

When we talk about betting odds the first thing that springs to mind is the odds on sporting events. But betting odds are just as important on casino games, especially on table games like blackjack and roulette. In fact, on these games, the odds and payouts are one of the first things you need to learn.

How Do Betting Odds Work

The simplest odd pairing on roulette, for example, is betting on red or black, odd or even. This bet comes with a payout of 1:1 or simply if you bet $/£10 and win you will win $/£20 in total. However, the odds of this bet differ depending on whether you are playing European or American roulette. The European version has a house edge of 2.7%, while the American version comes with a house edge of 5.26%. This means that the odds are more in your favour on the European version because of the smaller house edge.

For a more detailed explanation of how betting odds work for Roulette visit our online Roulette page, and for Blackjack visit our guide to playing blackjack.

How

Other Betting odds to consider

As you can see odds are pretty easy to read once you know what you’re looking for. It’s imperative to know how to read all types of odds before you embark into the world of betting. You never know which types of odds you can come across at different bookmakers.

Knowing how betting odds work will also come in handy when you want to bet on multiple matches or even on multiple features from a single event. Many bookmakers offer multiple bets on single events so things can start to get a little more complicated when you move away from simply making 1 bet.

College Football Betting Odds

Luckily there are ways to reduce the complication because at the end of the day it’s just a calculation. Bookmakers and casinos will often give you a summary of the total you can win, and there are also betting calculators (a good example can be found here https://bookies.com/betting-tools/odds-calculator) which allow you to enter your bets and out comes a total. This is useful as often gamblers will place multiple bets to cover loses, you can’t win them all but you can at least minimise your loss to fight another day.