Gambling Odds

If you decide to start a betting career or simply do it just for fun, you are going to have to learn the gambling odds system. Odds are generally seen as the "price" for a competition. The bookmakers are the ones who set the prices and they do it according to what they believe is a participant’s chance of winning. In translation, the more likely they believe an event is going to happen, the smaller that event’s price will be.

So let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that a certain horse, participant to a horse race, is priced at 4/1. The bookie is arguing that the respective horse would have to run 5 races before winning once. For those of you who like percentages, he has a 20% success rate.

The odds can be presented in three different ways, and how they look like depends on the market that the bookmaker targets. The three forms that the odds can have are the British, European and American odds.

THE BRITISH (FRACTIONAL) ODDS
The British describe the odds as a fraction, like 3/1 or "Three to One". You will say “odds against” when the first figure is higher than the second one. The amount of money you win is greater than the amount of your stake. So, if the odds offered are 3/1, every £1 staked would bring you £3.

EUROPEAN (DECIMAL) ODDS
The rest of Europe likes to work with decimal odds. The quoted figure is the return a punter receives (and this also includes the stake) based on a bet of 1 unit. If you want to transfer from British odds to European odds, you can do it easy. All you need to do is divide the first number by the second one and add 1.

So odds of 4/1 become 5 (4 ÷ 1 + 1 = 5) and odds of 3/6 become 1.5 (3 ÷ 6 + 1 = 1.5). If you want to gamble in betting exchange companies like Betfair, you will have to get used to the decimal odds, because that’s what they’re using.

AMERICAN ODDS
The American system is the most complicated of them all due to the fact that the odds are either positive or negative. The American system is based on “evens” (1/1) which are expressed as 100.00.

So let’s say that a certain event is odds on, case in which the figure is preceded by a minus “-”. The figure represents the amount of money you need to gamble in order to win 100 units. If an event has odds greater than evens then it is a positive figure. This represents the amount you win for every 100 units staked.

The odds system you need to grasp is the one used in the area you are living in. If you decide to start betting on Betfair, then you will really need to learn the decimal odds, because these are the gambling odds used in the system.

About the Author

Dan Borlan is a professional SEO for Mike Filsaime Inc. If you require professional help you can contact Dan at: www.1certifiedinstaller.com