Reading and Navigating Sports Gaming Odds for Rookies

Sports betting is, in its most casual state, just a way of balancing out chances and seeing which picks work best. The way to understand these opportunities is to know how to read and go about odds, especially if you’re just trying to get a grip on this activity.

As a rookie, much of the verbiage revolving around betting can be a bit overwhelming, if not hostile. Thankfully, it’s not as if it all hinges on stock investing lingo. It’s not as if doing so is bad, but you should really have a ramp-up process that can help you be careful.

In the long run, much of the way that you can interact with this type of gambling is all about knowing what to look for. To do so, understanding the odds is essential, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do in this article.

So, if you’re new to sports betting, this can be your gateway into a proper relationship with the medium. From core definitions to fundamental calculations, you should be able to navigate a sportsbook without much trouble.

Defining and explaining betting odds

Betting odds are numerical representations of the payout returns that you can see based on a wager. Essentially, they operate as multipliers that inform how your stake interacts with the bookmaker’s price.

The balancing of these odds works on probabilities. The way each set gives money operates on how the bookmaker believes that an outcome is likely to happen. If a team is better, their odds will be shorter (better), and the supposed payout would be smaller.

As for calculations, there’s a trickling effect in most cases. Highly influential and major bookmakers have formulas that account for performance, form, and context, while the smaller, commercial ones use these sharp ones as reference points that they tweak.

Down the line, in the lead-up to an event, odds can suffer changes. New information, shifts in the status quo, and the volume of bets on certain outcomes can influence recalibrations from hour to hour, as BetBrain has observed from its quickly updating database.

This reality should remind you of one thing: sportsbooks set odds (a.k.a. prices) to balance probabilities, not to gamble. They want each result to reflect possibilities so that all odds are fair.

How to read them based on the style

There are three major types of odds that you’ll find on the open market:

• Decimal odds are most associated with continental Europe and the rest of the world that it has influenced. The closer they are to 1.00 (100% probability), the more favored a competitor is. They are direct multipliers that tell you how much your total payout is (stake + profit). If you bet $10 at 1.50 odds, you win $15, with $5 being the profit.
• Fractional odds may seem a bit more complicated at first. They are culturally native to the UK and its betting scene. The example provided above would translate into 1/2. In this instance, you have the numerator (top number, the 1) and the denominator (bottom number, the 2). The 1/2 tells you how much of your stake turns into profit. So, you have $5 a profit, which is 1/2 (half) of your stake of $10.
• Moneyline odds are also a bit more complex because they have two subtypes: positive and negative ones. They are the style used in the USA. Negative odds are for the favorite. You’d have -200 odds for the same example. For positive odds of +200, which are for the underdog, the return doubles your stake.

Implied probability is essential in understanding what they represent

The factor of implied probability converts each set of odds into the percentage-driven likelihood that a factor is going to happen. It’s crucial to consider it because the odds stop being a multiplier or a semi-abstract representation, so they become a more readable estimation.

The examples provided above, with 1.50, 1/2, and -200, are all 66.6% in implied probability. Other checkpoints that you might want to know to be able to judge odds at first glance are the following:

Keeping these in mind will tell you the area of probability at first glance, which can help you navigate prices fast and then enhance your search right away.

The house edge, also known as the vig, is ever-present

This can get a bit hard, but it’s crucial to know three things:

• The house edge/vig/vigorish/juice is a modification to every single set of odds offered by a commercial bookmaker. It makes the odds seem a bit longer than they would’ve been without this vig.
• You will find it more easily as an ‘overround’ that applies to the implied probability. For a tennis match with 2 possible outcomes, you have three sets of odds with added juice. Team A, the favorite, is at 67.5% (1.48) to win. Team B, the underdog, is at 35.7% to win. The total comes in at 103.2% (2.80), and that surplus is the vig.

How do you calculate the odds that you would’ve gotten if there was no addition to each? Well, you need to know that the bookmaker does not apply it equally. 

A two-outcome match does not split it into two equal halves or three equal pieces for an association football game that can end in a draw.

The formula is simple:

• Fair Probability for Team A (without vig) = Vigged Probability (67.5%) / Total Probability (103.2%). The result is around 0.654, which would translate as 65.4%. If you turn it into odds, you get around 1.53, which is slightly longer than the initial 1.48.
• For Team B, the same formula gives you around 34.6%, which comes in at a longer 2.89.

What do we see, and what do we need to know?

• Each series of odds would pay slightly better if there were no juice. It’s a bit of a nerf, and that ‘lost’ potential is, in fact, the commission kept by the bookmaker for arranging the service of your betting.
• When looking for odds, regardless of when and how, you will want to devig some of the prices that you see to find out what the actual probabilities would be. The closer a bookmaker’s offering is to the devigged odds, the better they are from a fairness standpoint.
• If a bookmaker diverges from the others by having an overtly advantageous one, it’s likely that it made a calculation or calibration mistake. These are commercial entities that run on making a profit with every single opportunity.
• When assessing how a sportsbook sets its odds, you might want to remember that a reasonable range for the vig is between 2% and 7%. If it’s above the upper threshold, it’s simply not a good look.

Common betting markets you’ll likely find at first

The sports betting experience can get really intricate with the granularity of wagers that you can make. This is why you should, at first, know the most popular ones, so it makes sense for you.

1X2 or the general outcome

The 1X2 betting market is the most popular one worldwide because it’s the entry one in association football/soccer, which is the most gambled on sport in the world. It’s as simple as that.

It’s simply a way to bet on the outcome. In this representation, the 1 is the home team, which may come with an inherent advantage of hosting, the X is a draw, while the 2 is the away team.

It can also apply to regular-season American football, which can feature a draw, albeit a much rarer occurrence. Otherwise, the same market is the moneyline for a game, in which you pick the winner.

Based on all the lessons that we’ve taught you so far, you’ll want to remember that all probabilities are all about telling you how likely something is to happen. If Team A has 70% chances to win per these odds, it still carries a 30% risk of another outcome occurring.

Over/Under

This is just as simple. You bet on something being above or below a threshold. If you bet the under, you want the total to be below that set limit, while the over is the opposite.

In association football, you usually have 2.5 goals a match as the universal line. If the teams score 3 goals or more between them, the over wins this bet. If, at most, they score 2 goals, the under is the winner.

Naturally, it can apply to anything in any sport. Total goals, points, touchdowns, aces, takedowns, you name it. It’s a simple line that does not account for who wins a match.

What you need to remember is that the total will generally be with a decimal because there cannot be an equal. At a 3-goal line, does the bookmaker pay those who said 3 or more goals or 3 or fewer goals? That’s the logical fault line that means that clearing a threshold must be clear.

BTTS

If you’re dealing with a team game, this market can apply to all of them. However, it’s not really so. In basketball and, almost universally, American football, teams always score at least one. Hockey is a bit of a middle point, all things considered.

In association football, it’s not always the case. That’s why 0-0 results are far from uncommon, and the BTTS, a.k.a. both teams to score, is a popular market, especially when paired with an over/under on goals.

Some match-ups make it hard for the underdog to score. Others are chess matches that can end 1-0, for example. This is where the gambling comes in.

Handicaps

The most popular handicap bet that you might know is spread betting in gridiron football. They use field goals (3 points) and touchdowns (6/7 points, depending on the extra point) as the benchmarks since they’re methods of scoring in the sport.

Handicap betting is all about the difference between the teams. You are not betting on the actual difference per se, but are gambling based on how a team wins. The payout comes not just by predicting the winner, but also whether they win by a certain difference.

For example, you might have a bet on Real Madrid beating Osasuna in La Liga. The odds for Real to win are 1.20, but for Real to win by 4+ goals are 3.00. If you take this bet, and they win 5-2, you lose, because the goal difference wasn’t stark enough.

The same applies to the spread wagering from above. If you take the Patriots to beat the Jets, the spread might be 10 points, which is a converted touchdown and a field goal. Depending on the odds offered on these wagers, you might find it amenable or not.

Parlays/Accumulators explained

A quick mention before we finish: parlays, otherwise known as accumulators or accas. The idea is enticing. 

• You place multiple bets on different markets on a single betting slip. You pick the winner, over 2.5 goals, BTTS, under 2.5 cards shown, etc.
• Each bet is on certain odds, and, in an accumulator, they multiply among themselves. If you have 1.67 x 2.04 x 1.56 x 3.12 in this parlay with 4 legs (markets), the total is 16.58. The total payout for a $10 bet would be $165.8.
• For this to happen, every single thing that you added to this acca must happen. If any of them fails, despite all the other ones hitting, you simply lose everything.

The truth is that it’s as risky as it is attractive. Its probability of success is very small because of all the variables involved, which is why it’s a very big risk, especially for newcomers.

We’re not saying that you should absolutely avoid it, but adding realistic wagers, placing a small stake, and doing so rather infrequently is the best way to proceed.

Conclusion

That’s about everything that you need to know to get into the mystery of sports betting odds. It’s not hard at all, but you must balance out some numbers and be in tune with the reality of these calculations so you can make educated decisions.

Lastly, we’d like to come up with a very simple list of recommendations: set budget limits, don’t exaggerate with the amount that you stake per bet, and don’t fret too much over what to do. Keeping a lightweight and cautious approach will allow you to gamble responsibly!