Sports Betting Tips

Sports Betting Odds and Bets

Betting on sporting events can be a fun and exciting way to enjoy your favorite sport with the added excitement of placing a monetary wager on the outcome. While betting on sports can be very lucrative, it can also cost you a great deal of money if you are not familiar with the odds and various types of bets available when you place money on any event. This article will describe the meaning of odds and list some of the most common bets that you can place.

Odds

Odds are the likelihood of any event occurring based on the expertise of the professionals determining the odds. People usually determine odds based on a team or players previous performance, reputation or general standing in their league or organization. Odds also determine how much you would need to wager to win any money. Odds can appear in three different ways based on the preferences of the website with which you are placing the bet.

Decimal: These odds are common in Europe. On this scale, 1.00 represents an even bet.

Fractional: These odds mostly appear in the United Kingdom. On this scale, 1/1 represents an even bet.

American: These odds are common in the United States. On this scale +100 represents an even bet.

In fact, all odds are given by individual sports books. These odds can differ from website to website because they are, in fact, an educated guess. They are not the actual predictor of any event but only the opinion of the gambling website. They will set odds based on how they think each event will end. Sports books always place odds in a way that will likely make them the most money. For example:

In a 3 horse race, a sports betting website places odds on three horses as:

Horse A: 60%
Horse B: 30%
Horse C: 10%

Bets made on Horse A will not award as much money (if any) as bets made on Horse C. Notice how the percentages equal out to 100%. This is not always the case. A sports betting agency may increase the odds of each horse by 10% to equal 130%. Provided that bets are made evenly on each horse, an “overbooking” of 30% would result in the agency paying out 100% in successful bets and keeping 30% for themselves.

Bets

In general, there are two major types of wagers that can be placed on sporting events. They are the straight bet (money line) or the point spread. One of the most practical point spread betting venues is basketball while sports such as boxing or hockey would not usually allow for point spread bets.

Straight Bet: This is the most common type of bet and is often used to bet on the outcome of an entire event. For example, you may place a straight bet on which team will win a specified baseball game.

Point Spread: A point spread bet is a bet based on the amount of points that will be the difference between the winning and losing team. Point spreads are only won if the team you select wins. For example, you may bet that basketball team A will defeat basketball team B by more than 27 points. If this occurs, you have won the bet.