How do Odds Work in Football and Sports Betting? In order to understand football betting odds, first, we will have to explain what is a chance. Traditionally, a chance is the possibility of one outcome in a certain event. Usually, we measure the chance in percentages, with the. Betting Basics In essence, when you are making a bet, you are depositing money with the bookmaker. If the bet is unsuccessful, the bookmaker keeps the deposited money. However, if the bet is successful, then the bookmaker has to pay out the client the deposited sum multiplied by the odds of the winning bet.

• How Do Betting Odds Work Uk
• How Sports Betting Odds Work
• Betting Odds How Does It Work

Football betting lovers always strive to try and apply winning betting strategies in order to maximize their profit. All strategies vary by type, budget and betting markets but there is one thing that is common for all of them – the odds. Generally speaking, you will find odds not only for football betting markets but for all sports betting including NBA, NHL, Golf, UFC/MMA and even Formula 1.

Each sports betting event will have a certain outcome – in the end, there will be a winner and a second-placed team (may vary depending on the sport). However, since all sports are a game of skill, participants have a different chance of winnings. In a simple way, the betting odds represent the chance of a certain outcome to happen. In the next few paragraphs, together we will learn what betting odds mean and how they work, how to read and how to understand football odds.

Bet365 Football Betting Odds

Bet365 is one of the best betting sites not only in the UK but all around the world. The bookie gives you the opportunity to bet on more than hundreds of thousands sports events each year while providing generous odds. At Bet365 you will find hundreds of betting markets to choose from, including Bet Builder that allows you to form your personal bet at extremely high and competitive betting odds.

Since bet365 is a leader in the gaming industry, you can not only place bets on today’s events but also long-term outright betting odds. Have a look at our dedicated odds comparison tool below, featuring outright bets from the biggest football competitions around the world. We update our odds daily and show you only the latest football betting odds. Tap on the event you are interested in and you will be redirected to a dedicated page on our website featuring Title Winner Odds, Top 4 Finish Odds, Promotion Odds, Goalscorer Odds and more.

How do Odds Work in Football and Sports Betting?

In order to understand football betting odds, first, we will have to explain what is a chance. Traditionally, a chance is the possibility of one outcome in a certain event. Usually, we measure the chance in percentages, with the sum of all possible outcomes resulting in 100%. The best football bettors usually have outstanding odds to chance calculation and have no trouble reading betting odds. It is important to remember that in sports betting, the odds don’t add up to 100%. Let me explain that in detail below.

For example, if we flip a coin in the air, there are only two possible outcomes. The coin will land either on heads or on tails. There will be an equal 50% chance of both outcomes to happen. In football betting, the alternative for that type of an event is the Over 2.5 Goals market. Imagine a football game is played between evenly matched opponents. Again, the event has just two outcomes – either there will be three or more goals scored or the game will end with less than three scored goals.

In a perfect world, the probability of both outcomes (Over or Under 2.5 Goals) equals 50%. However, instead of exact odds at 1/1 (2.00), bookies will give you odds of around 9/10 (1.90) because in betting odds don’t equal chance. The margin is used by the bookie to ensure that bettors will not have the opportunity of match betting and also to try and reduce eventually its losses from an unexpected outcome. If you understand how to make odds work in your favour and recalculate the real chance of a certain event to odds, you will find value in your bets and in theory will increase your long-term profit from betting.

Betting Odds Types

There are three different betting odds types accepted by bookies worldwide – Fractional Odds (also known as UK Odds, since they are mostly used in Great Britain), Decimal Odds (popular around Europe) and Moneyline Odds (used in the USA and Canada).

Decimal Odds Explained

Let’s start with the most popular type of odds, the decimal, which we also prefer on our website because of its simplicity. The Decimal odds are prefered by many because they are easy to understand and calculate possible winnings. You will find the decimal odds option as default in most bookmaker around the world, however the most reputable and well-known betting sites like Bet365 allow you to choose your prefered odds type via an option in your profile settings.

Imagine that the bookie offers us odds at 1.25 for our prefered outcome (let’s use Liverpool to win against Brighton). That odds represent 80% chance of that particular outcome to happen, also known as implied probability. The math is not that difficult. 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. For example, if we place $10 bet at odds 1.25, we will win $12.50, or in other words, our net win will be $2.50.

Fractional Odds Explained

Fractional odds are primarily used by bettors in the United Kingdom and usually set as default betting odds settings in most UK-oriented bookies. If we use the same example as above (1.25 decimal odds), fractional odds will represent 1/4. It is important to remember that fractions quote the potential profit should our bet succeed, relative to the stake, as opposed to the decimal odds.

For example, if our £10 is bet at odds of 1/4 the potential profit is calculated £2.5 ((£10/4) x 1) and the total returned is £12.50 (£2.50 plus the £10 stake). For odds 11/2 the calculation is £55 ((£10/2) x 11) and the total returned is £65 (£55 plus the £10 stake).

Moneyline Odds Explained

Moneyline odds are primarily used in the USA and therefore prefered by North America – oriented bookies. You will rarely see Moneyline odds (also known as American odds) as default in your favourite European bookies. At first glance, money line odds look difficult and tough to read, but in reality, they are not that really different from decimal and fractional odds. The only distinction between them is that American odds are represented by a positive sign (+) and a negative sign (-).

The odds for underdogs are accompanied by the positive sign, while the negative sign is for the favourite. In a simple way, Moneyline odds tell how much you have to stake in order to win 100% of your stake. Let’s use once again our initial example with Liverpool and Brighton. Since Liverpool is a favourite to win it will be represented by a negative sign. Decimal odds at 1.25, equaling to 1/4 in fractional odds, will be visible as -400 Moneyline odds. In order to win $100, we will have to stake $400. If you want to win $10, you will have to place a $40 bet. For each $1 won, you will have to stake $4. As I said, the math is very simple.

If you decide to bet on the underdog, you will have to reverse the calculation. Since the negative Moneyline odds represent how much to bet to win a 100% of our stake, the formula is a bit different (X+100)/X, with X representing the odds. In our example above, Brighton will have +550 Moneyline odds, which means for each $100 staked we will collect $550 if they actually do it. A $10 stake equals $55 profit, a $1 stake will win $5.5, and so on.

Conclusion

As you probably already realised, reading and understanding betting odds is not very complicated. The tricky part is to learn how to make the Implied Probability work in your favour. In order to be successful in football betting, you have to constantly find value bets with odds that are near to the expected possibility of each outcome.

This is not an easy task and requires a lot of hard work for research and years of experience. Our tipster aim to find value bets daily, which you can find at our page dedicated to Today’s Best Football Betting Tips. Placing bets in reputable UK Betting Sites that offer high odds is also necessary in order to maximize your profit.

Odds are the numbers used by online bookmakers to show how likely something is to happen. They give you a quick indication of how much you could expect to win if your bet wins. This guide will introduce you to the world of odds, the different ways they can be used and what they mean to you and your matched betting journey.

With so many numbers appearing in different formats, betting websites can be overwhelming for the beginner. But as long as you can get to grips with a few simple mathematical ideas, it’ll all become a lot easier. This guide will show you how betting odds work.

What are betting odds?

Odds are numbers that express how likely events are to happen. To illustrate this idea, here are the three possible outcomes of a football match for any team:

1. Win
2. Lose
3. Draw

All of these have different possibilities, probabilities, chances – or odds – of happening.

How betting odds work

Betting odds are usually expressed either as fractions (e.g. ‘3/1’) or as decimals (e.g. 4.0). Fractions were traditionally used to bet on horse racing and were most popular in high street betting shops in the UK, before the advent of internet gambling.

As the web has become more popular as a place to bet, European decimal odds have become more commonplace. Moneyline, or American, odds are favoured by US bookmakers and punters, and are often expressed as positive and negative values (e.g. +250, -400).

While the differences may seem confusing at first glance, they’re simply different ways of expressing the same thing.

How to read betting odds

How Do Betting Odds Work Uk

Once you understand betting odds and the differences between them, reading them becomes easy.

If a bookmaker offers odds of 3/1 for an event to occur, you stand to win £3 for every £1 you bet. If you bet on an event at odds of 7/2, then you stand to win £7 for every £2 you wager (winnings plus your stake).

You may also see odds expressed with the lowest number first e.g. 1/2 or 2/7. These are known as ‘odds-on selections’ and are normally used when the likelihood of something happening is higher than not. Of course, this also means that your winnings will be less than your stake. At 2/7 you win £2 for every £7 you bet.

When the numbers on either side of the slash are the same (e.g. 1/1), we refer to them as ‘evens’.

If you’d like a bit more guidance, we have a full guide on how fractional odds work in betting.

In many ways, decimal odds are easier to understand. This is because all you have to do to calculate your potential winnings is multiply your stake by the odds. For example, if you make a £10 bet at odds of 4.5, you could potentially win £45 (including your stake).

By contrast, fractional odds can become confusing. For example, which odds give the best return – 16/5 or 3/1? You can work it out, but a glance at their decimal equivalents (4.2 and 4.0 respectively) quickly tells you which odds are most favourable. This is why we recommend that all beginners start betting using decimal odds.

You should bear in mind that decimal odds include your stake. So, if you bet £10 at odds of 2.5, you can expect to win £25 (£15 on top of your £10 stake). You should also know that 2.0 is the evens line, so numbers lower than this return a profit that is lower than your stake.

Moneyline odds aren’t generally used in either the UK or Europe. But you might see them in American media and sites, especially those that cover boxing or mixed martial arts.

Moneyline odds use $100 as the evens line, with either positive or negative outcomes. So, if you have odds above the line, this tells you how much you profit you stand to make from a $100 bet. For example, if you put your money down at odds of +175, you can expect to make $175 profit from a winning bet.

If you the odds have a negative value, this tells you how much money you need to wager to win $100. So, if you want to bet on an event at odds of -175, you must bet $175 to win $100.

Converting decimal odds to fractions (and vice versa)

To convert decimals to fractions, subtract 1 from the decimal and find the nearest whole integer. So, if you have odds of 4.5, this becomes 3.5/1, which you can turn into 7/2 by multiplying both sides by 2. To convert fractional odds into decimals, divide the first number by the second and add one, e.g. 7/2 +1 = 4.5.

Using odds to find value

Now that you can convert odds into the perceived value, it means that you can work out whether you think the bookmakers’ implied probability of an event occurring differs from your own.

For example, if you notice that Chelsea has scored a first half goal in 75% of their home games this season but the bookmaker has the market priced at 2.0 (50% implied probability) then you’ve just found some value.

The problem with this method though, is that you need to be better than the bookmaker at calculating probability. This is a difficult task considering the huge teams of mathematicians that they employ.

What is probability?

In betting terms, probability is odds expressed as a percentage. To help you understand probability, think of a coin toss: in this case, there are only two outcomes (usually heads or tails), each with exactly the same chance of landing. You calculate the probability with the following equation:

For every coin toss, heads has one out of two chances of landing. One divided by two is 0.5. Multiply by this by 100 to get the percentage, and you have 50%.

In the case of a deck of cards, there are four aces among 52 cards. Therefore, the probability of drawing an ace is 4/52, or 7.69%.

Because of the many factors involved, it is impossible to calculate exact probability in sports betting. All your bookmaker can do is set a probability based on the likely outcome (adjusted slightly for profit); this is known as ‘implied probability’.

Implied probability is important because it helps you decide whether it is worth betting on a certain event. You can work it out by dividing one by the decimal odds. Let’s say the bookies give Stoke City odds of 2.5 (3/2) for winning a match against Huddersfield Town. Divide one by 2.5 to get the probability, which is 0.4 or 40%.

If you put £10 down on Stoke to win, you stand to gain £25 including your £10 stake. You can then work out the ‘expected value’ of the bet using another equation:

In the case of Stoke versus Huddersfield above, the equation works out like so:

In the above example, you can expect to break even (neither win, nor lose money over time). If the expected value is less than zero, then the bet is of low quality; but the higher the expected value is above zero, the more money you stand to make from the wager over time.

The issue with betting odds is that they’re always tipped in the bookmakers’ favour to allow them to make a profit. So while the odds that bookies offer do tend to reflect the likely outcome, savvy punters can find the real value in the bet.

Here’s how:

Let’s say you believe the probability of Stoke City winning against Huddersfield Town to be 45% – slightly higher than the bookmakers’ odds suggest. With your £10 stake at odds of 2.5, the equation we used previously gives you the following expected value:

In this case, the bet represents good value. The issue with this kind of betting is that it is all a matter of opinion. The fact that bookmakers have large teams of maths experts working out odds means that beating them at their own game can be very difficult.

The key thing when it comes to finding value is to look for the best odds on your chosen selection.

How Sports Betting Odds Work

It’s quite surprising how much odds can change from bookmaker to bookmaker. This is why it makes sense to shop around. Plus, that gives you the opportunity to take advantage of the bookmakers’ bonuses and earn free cash.

At OddsMonkey we have a tool to help you find the best odds. OddsMatcher finds and analyses odds and then compares bookie against betting exchange. By backing and laying the same selection, you can extract value from bookmakers’ free bets and turn them into real money!

Betting Odds How Does It Work

That’s called matched betting, which is what we specialise in helping you with. If you’re interested in learning more, we have a free introduction to matched betting you can download that will explain it all.