What are Betting Odds?

Well as the title of the site indicates - this might be something we know a little bit about.

Quite simply - betting odds are the odds that a Sportsbook will give for an outcome of predominately a sporting event (although around the world you can also bet on things like reality TV, politics, will it snow on Christmas Day and many more niche markets. For us though it is all about understanding the odds for sporting events.

There are three different types of odds that are given Globally - American - Decimal and Fractional.

American Odds

In America the most common odds used are (unsurprisingly) American odds. This is where any value marked with a minus sign indicates that the bet is priced up at odds on. Meaning you will get your stake back plus less than the value of your stake should you win.

For example - if the Dallas Cowboys were -200 to beat the New York Giants straight up and they did win and you’d bet $10. You would get back $15 - which is your original stake back plus $5 in winnings from your Sportsbook.

Any value with a + means that the bet is odds against. So in the same scenario - the Giants may well be something like +200. If they pulled off the upset then you would get $30 back from the Sportsbook. Your $10 original stake plus $20 in profit.

Any bet classed as quite simply ‘100’ without a plus or minus means it is deemed an Even money shot by the Sportsbook. You’ll get your stake back should you win plus exactly the same again. Basically a double your money play.

Decimal Odds

These are commonly used on Betting Exchanges and in this situation Even money - or ‘100’ is deemed as 2.0. Any number below that means odds on and any number greater than that is odds against. The lowest bet you can place is at 1.01 which is akin to -10000 in American odds.

Fractional Odds

These are the traditional way of calculating odds and are still used in the US with regards to many Futures Bets with some Online Sportsbooks.

Some markets may price up the Kansas City Chiefs as +450 to win the Super Bowl or 9/2 as an example.

Fractional odds are extremely easy to calculate for odds against bets as you simply do the sum - i.e. 9 divided by 2 = 4.5 and then times it by 100 = +450.

For odds on markets the math is slightly harder but not by much. A 1/2 favorite in fractional odds would be -200 in American odds - to convert from fractional odds to American you do the fractional value - i.e. 1/2 = -100 / (1/2) = -200

Even money here is classified as 1/1 with +200 set at 2/1 and so on when calculating odds against markets.