How to Read Odds in Sports Betting — American Odds US Bookies. Understanding odds is essential to successful betting. A rating of the top American sportsbooks based on the margin size calculated from real odds offered on real events.
One of the basics of sports betting is understanding the various types of odds you can find.
It may seems hard to realize that the odds of 1.80, -125 and 4/5 are actually the same… but in reality it’s not that difficult to understand how it works.
These are the 3 main types of odds you can find:
This is for me the most simple way to look and understand odds… (I’m European…) It expresses the pay-out amount that you would receive from a $1 bet (including the original stake).
Imagine that the odds are 1.80 and your stake is $100. If you win your bet, you will receive $100 x 1.8 = $180 and your profit will be $80.
Some features of this type of odds:
A strong favorite can have odds as low as 1.1… You can find this in soccer. For example, Barcelona playing against Zaragoza at home. In NBA you can also find very low money lines odds, as low as 1.2 or 1.3 (The Heats against the Bobcats at home).
The inverse of decimal odds is the implicit probability. If one team has an odd of 1.80 the probability of wining is 55.56%.
Formulas:
With this type of odds you’ll find numbers always greater than or equal to 100 preceded with a ‘+’ or ‘-‘ sign. Note that these signs are not mathematical signs. A negative sign indicates that your winning is less than your stake and a positive sign indicates that your winning is more than your stake. This signs also indicate which team is the favorite (‘-‘ sign) and which is the underdog (‘+’ sign).
Using other words, a negative number expresses the dollar amount that you need to wager in order to win $100, while a positive number expresses the dollar amount that you win from a $100 wager.
Examples:
Formulas:
It expresses the fraction of a dollar that would be won from a $1 bet. For example, odds of 10/11 mean that $100 will be won with a stake of $110 units.
Formulas: