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Welcome to the Sports Betting Odds section of The Sports Geek. If you are new to sports betting and don’t understand how to read betting odds (+150, -110, +2200, etc) we will lay it all out for you and help you learn how the betting odds work.
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Sports Betting Odds Explained
Many people don’t know how to read or calculate sports betting odds, so below we have done our best on explaining how betting odds work. The most common type of sports betting odds used in North America are the American style odds which we explain below.
American Style Sports Betting Odds
Most online sportsbooks will list their odds in what is called “American Odds”. There are a couple different versions of sports betting odds, but these American Odds are the most common odds used. Reading and understanding sports betting odds can bet a little confusing to beginners, so we have provided an example below using two NFL football teams:
American Odds
- Matchup Odds
- New England Patriots +120
- Pittsburgh Steelers -140
The number shown in the bracket represents the odds. The American Odds have two components to them, the first being the positive or negative sign, and the second being the number that follows the sign.
The sign in front of the number indicates whether placing a wager on that outcome will pay out more money then you have wagered or less money then you have wagered. If the odd is negative (-) it means that outcome is more likely to happen and placing a bet on that outcome would payout less than the amount you wagered, while a positive (+) odd shows that the outcome is less likely to happen and it would pay out more than the amount you wagered.
The next step is figuring out exactly how much the bet pays out, which is where the numbers in the odds come into play.
A listed odd with a – sign in front of it, such as the -140 in our example above, shows us how much money you would need to wager in order to win $100. So using the -140, this would show us that you would need to bet $140 in order to win $100 in profits. You can easily substitute the $100 bet for a $10 bet by moving the decimal place over one spot, showing us that you would need to wager $14 in order to win $10 in profits.
Examples:
A listed odd with a + sign in front of it, such as the +120 in our example above, shows us how much money you would win on a $100 bet. Using the +120 odds, it shows us that a $100 bet on that outcome would pay out $120 in profits. Again this can easily be converted into smaller or larger size bets. A $10 bet on +120 odds would pay out $12 in profits.
Examples:
Below is an example of NFL betting odds taken from an online betting site.
In this example you can see Los Angeles is listed at +130 ($100 bet pays $130 plus of course your original wager back) and New England is listed at -150 ($150 bet pays $100).
The great thing about betting online is that the online sportsbooks will do the calculations for you before you place your bet. You can click on the outcome or team you would like to bet on, and then input the amount you wish to wager and it will show you your potential pay out before you confirm your bet.
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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:
If you wanted to place a $10 wager on the USA at 2.40 you would simply need to multiply your $10 wager by the 2.40 odds (10 x 2.40) to find out that the payout is $24. It is important to realize that with decimal style odds it includes the amount you wagered, so to find out profits you would need to subtract your wager ($24 – $10) to find out your potential payout is $14 in profits.
If you wanted to place a $10 wager on Brazil you would again just multiply $10 x 1.55 to find out that you would win $15.50 total or $5.50 in profits.
Decimal style betting odds are very simple to understand, but you won’t see them displayed in many North American sportsbooks. With that said, most online betting sites will allow you to chose the style of betting odds you want displayed, with American odds set as the default.
On average favorites win about 35% of horse races. But, that win percentage can fluctuate based on the distance, surface, class, etc. For example, favorites are more likely to win dirt races than turf races. Another thing that will obviously make a big difference in the win % of favorites is the number of horses in the race. Favorites will win more often in small fields than in races with a lot of other entrants.
We recently looked at a large sample of data in Angler for races that had 8 horses starting. These races contained all tracks, distances, surfaces, classes, etc. The only consistent thing was that they had 8 starters.
We wanted to look at each horse in those races based on their rank in terms of their final odds. The horse with the lowest odds is the favorite, and the horse with the highest odds was the 8th choice.
The table above shows you how often a horse runs better, worse or as expected.
Live Sports Betting Odds
If a horse was the favorite, they couldn't run better than expected (as they were expected to win) and the 8th choice couldn't run worse than expected (it was expected to finish last).
The favorites in these 8 horse races won 35.4% of the time and ran worse than that 64.6% of the time. Worse could be anything from 2nd through 8th. The 2nd betting choice ran as expected (2nd) 20.7% of the time and ran better than expected 21.6% of the time and ran worse than expected (3rd through 8th) 57.7% of the time.
As you look through the table you will notice some interesting things:
The betting public is better at deciding which horse will win than which horse will finish last.
In races with 8 horses the winner will be among the top 4 betting choices 82% of the time.
Horses that are the 5th choice will run better than expected 45.9% of the time, which puts them on a lot of superfecta tickets.
How To Read Betting Odds
While this information is not all that surprising, it should help you think in general terms about percentages and odds. If you want to make money betting on horses you need to be betting against the favorite in the races that it is going to lose, and as you can see that happens more often that not (64.6% of the time). If you are betting on a horse that is the 5th choice or higher you are only going to win about 18% of the time. A horse could be the 5th choice and have odds of 7:1 or it could be the 5th choice and have odds of 12:1 or more. So, when you consider the general percentage chance that you have of beating the public opinion make sure you are going to be paid accordingly if you are right.
Finding the value plays is the key, and using Betmix will get you there. Betmix angler will help you find value plays and give you answers to almost any statistical question you have about horse racing data.