The Betting Odds
It could be argued that there is one aspect that connects every endeavor. And that aspect is motive, incentive, enticement, however, you would like to call it. And the best motive is profit. Not necessarily in the form of money. People put in extra effort to accomplish a feat if they know that there’s something for them at the end of the tunnel. Big, small, it doesn’t matter. For the gambling industry, this is expressed through the betting odds.
Defining the betting odds
The whole of the betting world is based on the law of probabilities. Every single outcome, every single event, every single aspect has a chance of happening or not happening. Sometimes, the likelihood is great, and sometimes minuscule. But it does always exist. And it is exactly this likelihood that is expressed through the odds in this industry. The greater the chance of something happening, the lower the odds. When a bookmaker makes a high offer then it means that the probability of the outcome is low.
This expression serves as the motive. It determines the amount that you stand to make if you place a successful bet. For example, if the probability of an outcome is 10%, then you get odds in the vicinity of 1.90. If you place 1 Euro as a bet at that price then you stand to collect 90 cents as profit. Odds 2.00 mean doubling your stake. No worries, our bet calculator will do the maths for you!
Reading the offers
An integral part of the process is to understand what it is that you are seeing on the screen of a bookmaker’s website containing his betting odds. There are six main systems of formatting them and each one means something different.
The decimal odds, for example, represent the total payout of the bet. The Hong Kong format, on the other hand, tells you how much profit you stand to make. The American system is quite more complicated. It is based on the amount of $100 and if the number is negative, it shows how much the stake should be in order to win the aforementioned amount. On the contrary, if the number is positive, it tells you how much you stand to gain if you place a hundred-dollar bet. In the fractional system, the numerator indicates the profit and the denominator shows the stake.
Determining the odds
The experts employed by the betting establishments have an extensive list of questions. The responses to those questions help them set the initial odds. As time passes by, they can change depending on a number of other factors. For example, the number of people placing bets on the same available bet types, greatly impacts on the price.
Another issue to discuss is who is making the offers. Sportsbooks are also named «fixed odds» bookies as the punters can either accept or reject the offer which also includes the profit of the house. In exchanges, on the other hand, the bettors make their own offers and it all depends on whether they can find another person to accept it or not.
After understanding the cornerstone of the industry, the next step is to discover what’s the best way to use the motive to make the most out of the industry. For that you will need the full set of betting tools that are your disposal.
