How Do American Betting Odds Work
Jul 01, 2016 The American odds format uses a combination of positive and negative numbers of three or more digits to indicate how large your return will be if the wager wins. American Odds always use a baseline value of $100. For favorites you are always risking the money to win $100, and with underdogs you risk $100 to win the amount. A -135 favorite means you must risk $135 to win $100 from the sports book. So you either lose $135 or win $100, or push. Feb 28, 2021 American odds (aka moneyline odds or US odds) are popular in the United States. The odds for favorites are accompanied by a minus (-) sign, indicating the amount you need to stake to win $100. If the odds are minus (–), then that amount of money must be wagered to win $100. –150 means you must bet $150 to win $100.) If the odds are plus (+), that amount of money would be earned on.
American odds are primarily used by sites that cater to US sports bettors, also know as “moneyline odds” they are the odds most often used for moneyline betting for American sports bettors. American odds are probably the easiest to understand as odds represent how much the bettor will have to wager to win $100.
Introduction
American Odds are simply one way to express odds. A pick em will be listed as “pk” or “pick” or “pick ’em” depending on your site. There are two basic types, favorites and underdogs
Favorites come with a – symbol attached. The higher the absolute value of the number, the better the chance the bet will win. So for example a -200 favorite has a better chance to win than a -120 favorite. 200 is greater than 120 so this is what we mean by absolute value, you ignore the – sign and take just the number when considering this.
Underdogs come with a + symbol attached. The higher the number, the larger the underdog. So a +200 underdog has a better chance to win than a +500 underdog.
Have a look at the betting markets at some of our highest-rated bookmakers to see how they price up games in American odds:
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What Do The Odds Mean?
American Odds always use a baseline value of $100. For favorites you are always risking the money to win $100, and with underdogs you risk $100 to win the amount.
A -135 favorite means you must risk $135 to win $100 from the sports book. So you either lose $135 or win $100, or push.
A +350 underdog means you risk only $100, but you win $350. You either lose $100 or win $350, or push.
American Odds can easily be converted into other odds such as decimal or fraction, using our free online calculator. Most, if not all, sites also offer odds in those formats, by simply choosing your preferred format.
We can also convert American Odds into percentages. This is useful because it gives you a breakeven % that you need to achieve long-term to win when betting certain odds.
The most common odds are -110 so we will use that. The question to ask is “how often will we need to win, when betting at -110 odds, to break even?” The answer is “enough so that you turn 110 into 210 often enough to overcome the juice” but it is expressed in percentages. So we take our $110 risked, divided by the ultimate $210 payout if our ticket cashes, and come up with .5238 or 52.38%. This means you must win at least 52.38% of your bets at -110 to break even.
Another example will involve underdogs. Let’s say we have a +200 underdog. How often do they have to win for us to break even? We take a $100 risk and divide by the ultimate payout of $300 and get .3333, or 33.33%. So any +200 underdog that wins 34%+ of the time is a profitable bet.
American odds are attached to point spreads in most American sports such as the NFL and NBA. Here is an example from the NFL:
Atlanta +3 -115
Carolina -3 +110
The American odds will give the bookmaker influence over the point spread without changing the key number of 3. Odds worse than -110 as we discussed can hurt your breakeven percentage and should be taken into account even when betting spreads. On the other hand, underdog plus odds will help your bottom line.
Conclusion
American Odds are convenient and fast once you get accustomed to them. Just like any other format, it is all personal preference. It is also easy to convert American Odds to fractional or decimal odds and can easily be done using our online odds converter.
Ready For More?
This guide will help you understand how betting odds work.
There are 3 different kinds of betting odds; Fractional, Decimal and American. American odds are often called Moneyline odds.
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HOW DO DECIMAL BETTING ODDS WORK?
Decimal odds are the easiest type of odds to understand.
To calculate your winnings using decimal odds, simply multiply your [tooltip text=”stake” gravity=”n”]Your “Stake” is the amount of money you wish to bet[/tooltip] by the decimal number. For example…
If you placed a $10 bet at odds of 2.00, you would simply multiply 10 by 2.00 to calculate your return.
10 x 2.00 = 20.00 = $20 return from your $10 bet
How about placing a $15 bet at odds of 1.57?
15 x 1.57 = 23.55 = $23.55 return from your $15 bet
That was easy wasn’t it?
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HOW DO AMERICAN [MONEYLINE] ODDS WORK?
American odds are calculated based on how much money you have to bet in order to win $100. The odds are always accompanied by either a plus [+] or minus [-] symbol. The symbols determine whether you need to bet more than $100 (-) or less than $100 (+), to win $100.
This may sound confusing at first, but it’s really not that difficult!
Lets jump right into an example of how American odds work. Remember that American odds are all about how much money you have to bet, in order to win $100.
Imagine the odds looked like this for a particular fight…
Fighter A = -150
Fighter B = +200
When working with American odds, you need to remember that the minus [-] symbol always means that you will have to bet more than $100 to win $100. Minus [-] odds are considered the “favourite”. Odds with the plus [+] symbol are considered the “underdogs”.
If you take a look at the odds above, you can see that Fighter A is the favourite at -150. This means that in order to win $100, you would have to bet $150.
Fighter B on the other hands is a +200 underdog. This means that you would only have to bet $50 to win $100. Here are a couple more examples using more challenging odds…
Fighter A = -600
Fighter B = +1000
In this example Fighter A has odds of -600, which means that you would have to bet $500 to win $100. Fighter B on the other hand has odds of +1000, which means you’d only have to bet $10 to win $100.
Working with American odds will take some getting used to and it can be difficult to work out the exact amount of money you will win from your bets at first.
You can practice working with American betting odds by visiting Best Fight Odds and using an Odds Converter to calculate your returns.
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HOW DO FRACTIONAL BETTING ODDS WORK?
Fractional betting odds are favoured in the United Kingdom and Ireland and they’e the most popular type of odds used in Horse Racing. Although they may look confusing at first, they’re actually not that hard to work out. Lets jump right into looking at an example of how Fractional odds work…
If you wanted to bet $50 at odds of 6/4 six to four, this is how you would work it out:
How Do Betting Odds Work 250
First you have to add the numbers of the fraction together, in this case it would be 6 + 4 = 10. Then divide this number by the second number, in this case 4. 10 divide by 4 = 2.5. Then multiply this number by your stake. 2.5 x 50 = 125. Your return for a $50 bet at odds of 6/4 would be $125.
(6+4 = 10) 10 divided by 4 = 2.5
2.5 x 50(stake)= £125
How Do American Betting Odds Work In Sports
If you get stuck and you’d like some help calculating how betting odds work, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.