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.

1. Betting Odds Explained Football
2. Football Betting Odds Explained
3. Football Betting Odds Today
4. Football Odds Lines Explained
5. Football Game Odds Explained

For example, if you bet $100 on a team winning, with odds at 1.82, then your potential total amount received is $182. Fractional Odds. Fractional odds are one of the oldest forms of odds in sports gambling and are more popular in the UK market. Basically fractional odds show you how much you are set to win relative to how much you put in.

NFL Betting – The Point Spread. This is the most popular bet on any NFL game and is also known as line betting or sides. Each game will have a favorite and an underdog, and the sportsbook. The odds on a totals bet are usually -110, meaning you are risking $110 to win $100 in profit. Understanding NFL betting lines is just the first step towards making profits with football wagering. Once you've got the basics down, it's important to continue learning sports betting strategy to improve your long-term chances of winning. How football odds work - this is where the complicated part of football betting comes. When wagering on a football game, you will have three basic choices - line, point spread and total, all three commonly referred to as 'odds'.

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.

Betting Odds Explained Football

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.

If you’re new to the world of gambling, you need to make sure that you understand the odds before you ever place a bet.

To put it simply, betting odds are a numerical representation of how likely an event is to occur. Take the example of rolling dice. Because there are six possible outcomes from one roll of the dice, there’s a 16.67% chance that you’ll be correct in your guess of which number will be rolled. That’s 100 divided by six, which equals 16.6666666667, to be exact. This translates to a coefficient 6/1 chance of any specific outcome, or 7.0 if you remove the bookie’s margin.

The same basic principle applies to flipping a coin—a coin has two sides, so you have a 50% chance of winning.

Odds can also tell you how much money you will win. Let’s say you’re betting on a team with 4/1 odds in a sporting event. If you bet £/€1 and your team wins, you’ll receive £/€4, plus your stake back for a total of £/€5.

Although it may be confusing at first, it’s pertinent that you grasp how betting odds work if you want to make a go of online gambling or sports betting.

There are basically three types of betting odds: fractional, decimal and U.S. style.

Fractional Odds

In the past, the most commonly used betting odds globally were fractional. They still remain the most commonly-used and understood in the UK, though Hong Kong and Malay odds are favored in other parts of the world.

When you see 4/1 odds, to use the example above, those are fractional odds. This means you have a one in four chance of winning, or a 20% chance. To put it another way, you also have an 80% chance of losing. That also means the winner will be paid £/€4 for every dollar or pound waged.

The same goes for 9/1 odds. You’ll win £/€9 for every dollar or pound waged, but you also have only a 10% chance of winning and a 90% chance of losing.

Decimal Odds

Football Betting Odds Explained

Decimal odds are becoming increasingly popular among bookmakers, commonly known as bookies. Most often used in Europe and Asia, decimal odds use a number with a decimal point as opposed to the fractional format.

With 4/1 betting odds, the decimal odds are 5.0. To get this number, you take the percentage chance of winning (in this case, 20%) and see how many time it goes into 100. 100 divided by 20 is 5.

To figure out your winnings with decimal odds, you multiply the odds by your stake, and then subtract your stake from that number. For example, when the odds are 5.0 and you bet £/€10, you multiple 5 x 10 and then subtract 10, for total winnings of £/€40.

U.S. Odds

Football Betting Odds Today

In the United States, betting odds are expressed using the plus or minus sign. The plus sign indicates the favorite, while the minus is for the underdog. For example, the favorite team might have odds of +250, while the underdog’s odds are -150.

The numbers are calculated according to how much one must wager in order to win $100. Using the example above, you must bet $150 in order to win $100 for the underdog team. If you bet $150 on the underdog team and they win, your winnings will be $250 (your $150 stake + $100 winnings). On the other hand, if you bet $100 on the team with +250 odds, your winnings will total $350 (your $100 stake + $250 winnings). That said, the more you bet, the more you win, obviously. If you bet $150 rather than $100, your winnings with the favorite team would be $400 (your $150 stake + $250 winnings).

Football Odds Lines Explained

Now that you’ve had you know how betting odds work, you should have a better chance of winning, no matter which style of odds your bookie uses.

Football Game Odds Explained

There are a number of online articles that can help you further understand how betting odds work. A little research can go a long way toward ensuring that you’re as successful as possible.