Sportsbook Odds Explained

Explained

Sports Betting Odds Explained In May of 2018, the supreme court struck down a federal law that bars gambling on football, basketball, baseball, and other sports in US states. This rule change gave states the go-ahead to legalize betting on sports. One research firm estimated 32 states would probably offer sports betting within five years. Quick Explanation Of How To Read Sports Betting Odds Point Spread - If A Football Team Is -7, Then That Team Must Win By 8 Points To Win The Bet. Over / Under ' AKA The Total' - If An. Sports Betting Odds Explained Online sports betting offers gamblers access to thousands of internet sportsbooks worldwide. Our guide will help you learn how to calculate sports betting odds in different formats and compare them against each other, and improve your gambling with our sports odds calculator.

Odds

Odds change for a couple of reasons, but, once again you need to understand how sportsbooks make money. Essentially a sportsbook looks to have an equal amount of risk bet on all outcomes of the wager. That is the ideal result for them. To ensure this, they adjust the odds to make a bet more attractive to the side with fewer bets.

Let’s take our example of coin flipping again, to keep things simple. Let’s also assume we have 5 bettors all looking to bet $100.

Nov 04, 2020 The odds for favorites are accompanied by a minus (-) sign, indicating the amount you need to stake to win $100. Meanwhile, the odds for underdogs are accompanied by a positive (+) sign, indicating. American Odds are also known as Moneyline Odds. American Odds/Moneyline Odds may be the most popular type of odds that you will see on sportsbooks. They are shown as either positive odds or negative odds. American Odds Example. So, say the Boston Celtics are set to face the Los Angeles Lakers. And, say the Boston Celtics have a +120 odds.

Heads OddsTails OddsHeads WinsTails Wins
Bet 1
-110
-$91.92$100.00

If we look at “Bet 1” (below), the first bettor risks $100 on Heads for a chance to win $91.92. From the sportsbook’s point of view they are at risk of losing $91.92 on a Heads win, or retaining $100 on a tails win. Not ideal for a sportsbook since they look expect to make money on every event.

Heads OddsTails OddsHeads WinsTails Wins
Bet 1-110-$91.92$100.00
Bet 2-110$9.08$9.08

When Bet 2 is placed on Tails, the sportsbook gets an ideal outcome: no matter who wins, the book pays out $91.92 using the losers money, and retains $9.08 itself.

Heads OddsTails OddsHeads WinsTails Wins
Bet 1-110-$91.92$100.00
Bet 2-110$9.08$9.08
Bet 3-110$108.08-$83.84

When Bet 3 is placed the sportsbook will likely not make an odds change to the -110, and they will still be available. By choosing Tails again, the risk to the sportsbook is again in the red. If heads wins, the book will have only one bettor to pay, but 2 losers and therefore would win $108.08. if Tails wins they are at risk $83.84. Definitely not what the sportsbook wants, but you’ll notice that the the overall risk is going down versus after Bet 1.

Sportsbook Odds Explained College Football

Heads OddsTails OddsHeads WinsTails Wins
Bet 1-110-$91.92$100.00
Bet 2-110$9.08$9.08
Bet 3-110$108.08-$83.84
Bet 4-110$208.08-$175.76

Bet 4 is where the sportsbook would get concerned. A third Tails bettor means they could potentially lose $175.76. Remember that the sportsbook isn’t gambling. They are expected to make money. That is why they would look to make an odds change to try to even out their risk.

Heads OddsTails OddsHeads WinsTails Wins
Bet 1-110-$91.92$100.00
Bet 2-110$9.08$9.08
Bet 3-110$108.08-$83.84
Bet 4-110$208.08-$175.76
Bet 5+180$28.08-$75.76

Sportsbook Odds Explained

To do this the sportsbook releases a line that is favorable to Heads, in this case, around +180. That means that a $100 bet on heads pays $180. On coin flipping, take those odds all day! For the book, that means that if Heads wins, they still have $28.08 profit and if Tails wins, the risk, though still negative is a lower -$75.76.

You can see that as this trend continues, eventually the sportsbook takes no risk and takes profit regardless of the result.

Sportsbook Odds Explained Betting

Something to keep in mind about this example is that it is unusual to see lines move with only a small number of bettors or dollars, but you can see that after thousands of people bet on a single event eventually profit is guaranteed and predictable.