Betting odds explained
Odds are a crucial part of placing a bet. When you bet at a bookmaker, you always will be dealing with betting odds. But what exactly are odds and how do betting odds work? We explain how betting odds work and offer great free odds tools for finding the best odds.
When you are betting at a bookmaker, it is essential to know how do betting odds work. The odds shown at the bookies represent a value for a particular bet. The odds also gives you an idea of how the bookmaker thinks about the chance of winning. On this page, we’ve elaborated on how betting odds work and why thoughtful and well-chosen odds are vital to your bet. Bookmakers.eu takes care of all the ins and outs and will get you the betting odds explained on many different levels. Besides, we also offer several helpful free odds tools on the website. Here you can find the best betting odds and tips, provided by our in-house betting experts.
Free betting tools
Do you want to place an exciting bet right away? For the fast starters and already more experienced bettors, we have carefully sorted out interesting betting predictions in many different sections. Our tipsters give away daily free betting odds on the Betting Tips page. It will give you a selection of the best and latest betting options, together with the highest available odds. We compare all odds in the comparison from all major and well-known safe bookmakers. This way, you always choose from the best betting odds available, and you never miss out on the highest possible amount when winning a bet at a bookmaker. So, become well informed and spot your next exciting (and hopefully winning) betting prediction, with a little bit of help from the betting experts.
As previously already mentioned, our betting experts are daily busy looking for the best bets and selecting the highest odds for you. Find out which exciting bets our betting experts have chosen for the next 24 hours! With Betting Odds Today, we let you compare all today’s betting odds easily for all the best bookmakers. Are you particularly looking for the highest and best betting odds? Go to our Betting Tips page for now and in the future, there will be also a Best Betting Odds Checker and find a great choice of the best odds available. Guaranteed the highest odds of winning with our selection of bookmakers. You don’t have to look any further! We’ve got the highest betting odds selected for you. We let you save time because we share the best betting odds from all the major online bookmakers. The highest betting odds are present in a fair overview, which allow you to compare quickly and gives you multiple options to pick the desired bets of your own choice!
Do you want to calculate the perfect bet with the highest possible profit for yourself? Use our beneficial and helpful Odds Calculator! The betting odds calculator of Bookmakers.eu gives you many options to calculate bets. Simply calculate your next bet with the very highest odds here. Do you want to dig deeper into the odds yourself? No problem! Through the Historical Odds Stats, we offer an extensive list of previously placed bets. Find out the betting tips we have predicted correctly or wrong in the past and which odds we’re applied to the bets. To sum up, by providing various free betting tools, and by sharing well-thought and potential winning betting tips, betting at the bookmakers will be getting so much more fun!
How do betting odds work?
To start betting with a bookmaker, it can be sometimes difficult on how to work out betting odds, and in many cases the odds cause confusion. Odds shows numbers with every bet, but what do those numbers that are so prominent in every bet tell you exactly? The answer to that is simple. They indicate precisely how much you can win with every euro you bet. The odds are different for every game and every bet. And if you view the same bet at a particular bookmaker, you will undoubtedly see other numbers than when you visit the website of many other available bookmakers. If you play it smart and compare different bookmakers, you can get the highest possible profit on a winning bet. So it is very important that you know how to understand betting odds before you start betting. It is also essential to keep always in mind your current bankroll when choosing odds. That is why we explain the betting odds ratio so that you do minimize wrong choices and prevent losing your entire bankroll with one or two wrong bet choice.
Let’s take an example with football betting odds
The bookies certainly do not assign random odds numbers to a match. They want to lose as little money as possible, so the big favourite gets relatively low odds. The underdog, on the other hand, gets much higher odds so that players who dare to take risks can immediately win a large amount of money. Let’s take a look at an example of the football match between FC Barcelona and Atalanta from the Spanish football league La Liga. Football superpower FC Barcelona has performed much better in the past, and besides that, they also play in their own stadium. In our example, this yields the following odds:
- FC Barcelona to win: 1.35
- Draw: 6.50
- Atalanta to win: 9.50
When you bet money on winnings for FC Barcelona, the chances are relatively high that you will win the bet. But because of the lower odds, you end up with less money to win. In the example given above, the football betting odds explained as followed: With a stake of € 50, you will receive (50 x 1.35) € 67.50 from the bookmaker. That means a profit of € 17.50. Do you dare to bet that the game will end in a draw? Nothing is impossible. Then with a bet of € 50, you will receive an amount of (50 x 6.50) € 325 by the bookmaker. So with one bet you already make € 275 profit. And we’re not even talking about profit for Atalanta. This bet will earn you almost € 500! Although you have to dare to take such a big gamble. The bookmakers set the odds so high for a reason. It is attractive to bet on a single bet with high odds. Still, you run a lot more risk than when you bet on a profit for the big favourite. But the bookies are of course not always right. If you have the proper knowledge and statistics, you may come to very different conclusions. And that is the time to strike.
Differences between decimal, fractional and American odds
There are several ways that online bookmakers can display their bets in odds. There are three different types of views; decimal, fractional and American odds. Of course, this is only about the way the odd (s) is present, where the height and value of the odds never change and remain the same in every odds form. In the vast majority of European countries, bookmakers use ‘decimal odds’ as standard as a representation. Almost every online bookmaker also shows these decimal quotations immediately. However, fractional odds are the standard for betting in England. Some bookmakers leave the choice of views up to the player, which gives you the option to switch between different odds types. Changing to the desired display in, for example, “decimal odds”, is done with just one push of a button. Of course, you can also use our Odds Calculator, which will do the math for you and will convert easily to your desired odds type! More explanation on the different odds types below:
Decimal odds explained – European standard
In most European countries, bookmakers work with decimal odds. These are numbers such as 2.23 or 4.50. Anyone familiar with sports betting knows how to read these numbers. But how do decimal odds work? In a bet where the odds are at 2.23, each Euro wagered is worth an amount of 2.23 Euro at the bookmaker. Are you placing a bet of 10 Euro on odds of 4.50? Then this bet is worth 45 Euro. Only when you win your bet, of course!
Fractional odds explained – UK standard
When you end up with a British bookmaker, you often come across entirely different numbers. These are fractional odds. The rendering (written as 2/1, for example) is difficult for many gamblers outside of the UK to understand. Still, it seems more complicated than it is. So how do fractional odds work? The fractional score 2/1 indicates that for every time you win (1) you are expected to lose twice (2). In this example, you have a 33% chance that the profit is yours with these odds. Since you are probably thinking in decimal odds, a 33% chance of winning says little. Fortunately, there is a simple way to determine which decimal odds go with this. The calculation of 100% / 33% gives a result of 3.00. And that is precisely the odds associated with your bet.
American odds explained – USA standard
The Americans have a completely different way of indicating how much you can win with a bet. They work with positive and negative odds (for example, -200 or +150). The plus sign indicates how much you can win with a $ 100 bet. If the odds are +150, you make a profit of $ 50 with a bet of $ 100. You convert this to decimal odds with the formula “plus number / 100 + 1”. That means that the odds at +150 come out at 2.50. The lower odds are indicated with a minus sign. A quote of -200 suggests that you will make a profit of $ 100 if you bet an amount of $ 200.
Best sports betting strategies
Ultimately, sports betting is all about one thing: beating the bookmaker. Or rather the odds compilers employed by the bookmaker. Odds compilers are the people who determine the number and height of the odds per match and bet. To bet on excellent odds with a positive outcome by win to follow, many bettors use a thoughtful betting strategy to get the most out of their bets.
To beat the odds compilers, you have to follow a good betting strategy. For the best sports betting strategies, you have to view the results of head-to-head duels from the past and make sure you know how well the teams have performed in recent weeks. The players and participants individually also have a significant influence on the course of the match. Is the top scorer not in shape or are there injuries that might get in the way of a maximum performance? It will undoubtedly affect the game. You can also see this immediately in the odds. But, the analysis that the bookmaker makes does not have to correspond entirely with your findings, and you may be able to beat the bookmaker. There are plenty of cases where this happens, and this is where you earn big money. With your sports knowledge, combined with our free betting tools such as the daily betting tips and highest betting odds, you increase your chance of making a successful bet.
Increase odds with Asian handicap bets
Asian handicap is a betting type, which bookmakers mainly offer with football betting. Asian Handicap is popular because of the more options you get with football betting odds. With Asian Handicaps betting, the team of your choice is handicapped according to their actual current shape. In short, this means that a stronger team must achieve more results and start with a fictitious backlog. In the case of a stronger team in Asian Handicap betting, therefore, more goals will have to be scored before you win the bet. As the name Asian Handicap betting implies, this form of betting originated in Asia, where variations from quarter goals, half to multiple goals were used in bets. As you will understand, betting by this type offers attractive Asian Handicap betting odds. It gives you various choices of betting odds by Asian Handicap, compared to the traditional 1×2 betting option. Asian Handicaps eliminates the outcome of a draw. As a result, compared to 1×2 betting, the outcome of a bet has gone from three options (win, draw or lose) to only two possible outcomes (win or lose). So with Asian Handicaps, you have a success rate of 50% with only two outcomes. The versatility of betting options and the unique Asian Betting odds, in particular, makes betting via this bet type interesting.
Asian handicap explained by example: Handicap Away -2.5 means the victory of the away team with a handicap minus two and a half. The essence of the odds is that one of the teams gets an imaginary advantage of being behind. In our explanation, the backlog to the home team is 2.5 goals at the start of the match. To win your bet on average in this example, the away team must score at least three goals – without any goals from the host – during the match.
Odds calculator and converter
The Odds Calculator is a helpful betting tool where you can calculate the winning betting odds for any type of bet. This way, you know how much a bet yields based on the amount of the odds. Calculating betting odds work smoothly: Enter the type of bet, your desired stake and the type of odds (decimal, fractional or American) and then click on the calculate button. You will immediately see how much your bets are worth.
Besides calculating odds, the Odds Calculator on Bookmakers.eu offers the possibility to convert odds between the three different odds types. So no more math headaches with calculating the different types of odds yourself. You can convert decimal odds, fractional odds and American odds quickly and easily with the Odds Calculator, in quick steps and without any difficulties.