Full Explanation of Betting Odds
When you are new to online betting, there are a lot of things, which you should learn, in order to be successful. Some of the most important things is to master betting odds. Odds are the numbers, which shows you how likely is a team or player to win, and of course how much you are going to get in return if you win an exact bet. Unfortunately, there is not only one type of odds, so you should not only understand the odds you are going to use the most, but also the other ones, in order to not have problems if you face the other types. As we, from bettingy.com, are always trying to help you, we are going to explain everything connected with betting odds, in order to help you become successful online bettor.
What does Odds mean?
The easiest way to understand what odds means is to remember that odds are a numerical expression, usually a pair of numbers, which shows you the potential winnings from a bet, also how likely a team or player is to win an exact game. Let’s say we have odds of 5 to 1, what does this mean? If you place 10 dollars, you are going to win 50 dollars. You just need to multiply your stake (10 dollars) with the odds (5), and you can see the potential winnings, you can get. Odds can be also named as prices, so that if you face that word, you should know that it means odds.
Types of Odds
As we already mentioned, there are a lot of types of odds, which you can face through your online betting journey. Without losing more time, let’s cover all the odds types, in order to help you understand every single type.
European Odds
One of the most popular odds types are the European odds, also known as decimal odds, digital odds, or continental odds. As their name suggests, European odds are very popular in Europe, but also in Australia and Canada. There is no online bookmaker, which cannot have the option to show odds in decimal format. The decimal odds numbers clearly show the amount you are going to get in return, for every single 1 staked. Decimal odds are one of the easiest odds types to understand. So, let’s see an example to see how easy it is.
Your Stake * Decimal Odds Number = Total Payout
Let’s say that you want to stake 100 dollars on odds of 9.25, so how much you are going to take, let’s calculate:
100 (Your Stake) * 9.25 (Decimal Odds Number) = 925 dollars (Total Payout)
American Odds
The next very popular odds type is the American Odds, which of course are used the most in the United States. The easiest way to understand American odds is to remember, that.
Odds for favorites are accompanied by a minus ( - ), which indicates the amount you should bet, in order to win 100 dollars,
Whereas the odds for unfavoured are accompanied by a plus ( + ), which is indicating the amount won for every 100 dollars staked.
You should remember that no matter what the odds are and who is favored, you get your stake back. As American Odds are quite difficult to be understood by so many players, let’s give a simple example:
Let’s say we have a basketball game, which has odds of:
- Home Team - +525,
- Away Team - -850.
In that situation, the away team is favored, which means, you should stake 850 dollars, in order to win 100 dollars. Which, means you are going to get 950 dollars in return.
Whereas, if you want to be for the team, which is unlikely to win, you should bet 100 dollars, in order to take 525 dollars as a profit, making your total win of 625 dollars.
Fractional Odds
Another very popular odds type are the fractional odds, or also knows as UK odds. These are odds written with a slash, for example, 4/1, which means four-to-one. Fractional odds are used a lot in all over the world. But, for no doubt, UK odds are mostly preferred for horse race betting. The easiest way to understand Fractional odds, is to remember that, the first number indicated how much you will get, and the second is your stake.
For odds of 4/1, you get 4 dollars, for every 1 dollar staked. After winning the bet, you also get in return your stake. If you place 1 dollar on odds of 4/1, you get a total of 5 dollars.
Hong Kong Odds
Another odds type, which is again very easy to be learned, is Hong Kong Odds. This type of odds are very similar to the Decimal Odds, the expression of the numbers is the same. And, the easiest way to understand them is to compare them to decimal odds, so let’s take a close look.
| Hong Kong Odds | Decimal Odds |
| 1 | 2 |
| 1.35 | 2.35 |
| 4 | 5 |
| 2.67 | 3.67 |
| 8.5 | 9.5 |
You simply need to add 1 to Hong Kong Odds, in order to get Decimal Odds, and of course the opposite, you need to subtract 1 from Decimal Odds, to get Hong Kong Odds.
How Odds are calculated in Online Bookmakers?
The easiest way to understand how odds are connected with probability. Calculation are pure maths. Odds in bookmakers, are calculated by the chance of every team to win, which actually determines the odds. Let’s say that we have a football match. It has 3 possible outcomes, now, the work of the bookmaker is to define what the chance of each team is to win, also what is the chance of the final result to be a draw. And after that is calculated, you odds come.
Let’s say, that the home team has a 55% chance to win, the away team has a 30% chance to win, so that the chance for a draw will be 15%. After all that calculations and probabilities, bookmakers release the start price for every single event.
How to calculate odds and your potential winnings depending on the bet?
Depending on the bet you place, you can calculate the odds in a different way, but at all everything is quite similar. So, let’s make things easier for you, and help you understand how to calculate your potential winnings. You should remember that almost every single bookie, has a bet slip section, which automatically calculates your odds. Let’s first see some of the top online bookmakers, which made things even easier for you and introduced that automatic calculation option:
- William Hill,
- Betfair,
- Bovoda,
- Pinnacle,
- 1xbet,
- 1xbit,
- Betway,
- Betwinner,
- 22bet, etc.
How to calculate odds for single bets?
Let’s start with the easiest type of bets, single bets. As you know single bets consist of only one selection, which means you simply do not need to calculate odds, but you can calculate your potential winnings. We are going to give you examples with decimal odds, which is the most popular odds type, but you can easily convert it to any other odds type.
Example:
Let’s say we have a football match with odds of 1.50, 3.00, 4.50, and you want to place 10 dollars for a draw.
So, you only need to calculate 3.00 * 10 = 30, which is the potential winnings you can get in return.
How to calculate odds and winnings for a straight line?
Straight-line bet is simply a single bet consisting of more than one selection. Here, things are quite the same as the single bets, you only need to calculate the odds.
Let’s say that you chose to place bets on 5 games with odds of 1.50, 1.35, 2.00, 1.67. 1.57, and you want to stake 10 dollars. So, you first need to calculate the odds,
1.50 * 1.35 * 2.00 * 1.67 * 1.57 = 10.62, from here things are the same as single bets,
10.62 * 10 = 106.20 dollars, which will be your final winnings.
Betting Strategy Based on Odds
It is not a secret that there are a lot of strategies, which you can follow through your online betting journey. Actually, there are a lot of strategies, which are based on odds. Before moving ahead, you should remember that the strategy that you follow should work for you, the final choice is yours, only because an exact strategy is working for someone, does not mean that it will also work for you. The easiest way to find which strategy is working the best for you is to try until something fits you. So, we are going to give you some of the most popular betting strategies based on odds.
Low Odds Betting
For no doubt one of the most popular betting strategies based on odds, is low odds betting. This is a strategy, which a lot of people are using and which give them many opportunities, but this is also a strategy which is very unsuccessful for many people, so again everything depends on you. Low Odds Betting is simply searching for Low Odds markets, which are very likely to win, but in order to be successful you should bet on bigger stakes.
High Odds Betting
The opposite strategy of low odds betting is high odds betting, which again is so good for some players, but also make a lot of loosers. High odds betting is quite risky, simply because you should look for extremely high odds, which are harder to be winning, most of the times, these bets are special bets.
Arbitrage betting
Another strategy which is connected to odds, is arbitrage betting. As you know, arbitrage betting is simply betting for an exact outcome, and after that betting against it on a betting exchange. In order to be successful in arbing, you should be very aware of odds, in order to find the best ones. You can find more information about arbitrage betting in our full guide. Also, arbitrage betting can be done by covering all the possible outcomes in different bookies, which again requires you to understand odds perfectly.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How betting odds work?
A: Betting odds are created by online bookmakers to indicate how likely an outcome is, and also how much you are going to get in return.
Q: How to calculate my potential winnings?
A: Actually, most online bookmakers like William Hill, Betfair, 1xbet, 1xbit, Pinnacle, Bovoda, etc, have a bet slip section, which automatically calculates your potential winnings, but you can also do it by yourself, which is a very easy process, for example, for decimal odds, you only need to multiply odds with the stake, which will give you the potential winnings.
Q: Why should I understand betting odds?
A: It is very important to understand betting odds, or at least the ones which you are going to use. Without knowing how odds work and how much you can get in return, there is no way of being successful.
Q: What is the difference between all odds types?
A: Actually, there is no huge difference between odds types, they are all there to show you how likely an outcome is to happen, and also how much you are going to get in return.
Conclusion
By now, you should already know all the different types of odds, also how they work, and how you can calculate your potential winnings. Unfortunately, if you do not learn odds perfectly, at least the ones, which you are going to use the most, there is no chance of becoming successful in online betting. Odds will not only show you how much profit you can get, but can also show you which team or player is more likely to win, which combined with a little bit of research can give you a lot of meaningfull betting experiance.
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See other interesting articles about your successful bets
- Arbing - all you need to know
- No need to be Nostradamus to Master the Ante Post Betting
- The Easy Stepst when Choosing an appropriate Bookmaker for you
- All Betting Terms which You Need