A Quick Guide To Understanding Sports Betting Odds
Do you like the idea of taking part in sports betting but lose interest after you see just how confusing sports betting odds can be? You’re not alone! The betting odds that are created for sporting events can be difficult to wrap your head around when you’re first getting started. It’s why you should make a push to try to understand them before putting in any sports bets. It doesn’t matter if you plan on placing team bets or player bets. It’ll still be very important for you to get to the bottom of how the odds for sports bets work. It’ll put you in a much better position to win your bets when you know how sports betting odds work. Discover more about sports betting odds on Bettilt or in our guide below.
What Are Sports Betting Odds?
It’s very rare that you will put, say, $100 down on a sports bet and win $100 if that bet wins. There are almost always sports betting odds on sports bets that will cause you to win more or less than the initial $100 that you put down.
If, for example, you bet on a team that is the favorite to beat another team, there will be sports betting odds attached to their matchup that will account for this. You might have to bet $150 to win $100 on this team.
By the same token, you might be able to win more than $100 on a $100 bet when you put down a wager on a team that is an underdog against another team. A $100 bet might win you $150 if you bet on an underdog and they win.
Sports betting odds are put in place to make things fair for both sports bettors and sportsbooks. They’re also designed to make you think a little harder about which sports bets you want to place.
Where Can You Find Sports Betting Odds?
Now that you know a little bit more about what sports betting odds are, let’s talk about where you can find them. You shouldn’t have any trouble tracking them down when you sign up for an online sportsbook account and log into it.
When you’re on an online sportsbook, you’re going to see a long list of matchups with sports betting odds right next to them. There will be numbers like “-110” and “+240” next to different teams that will show you what odds you’ll be getting when you bet on them.
Always make sure that your online sportsbook is showing you American odds as opposed to decimal or fraction odds. They’ll be easier to understand in the grand scheme of things.
How Do Sports Betting Odds Work?
Once you’re able to locate the sports betting odds for matchups that you’re interested in wagering on, you’ll need to figure out how they work. We’ve already touched on this a little bit in our explanation of what sports betting odds are, but we want to drive this point home to make sure you understand it.
To make things simple, we’re going to continue to assume that you’ll be placing a $100 bet on a sporting event. You’ll need to look up the sports betting odds for this event to see how much you could potentially win by putting $100 on it.
If you bet $100 on Team A to win a game and their betting odds are -200, you will win $50 back. This is going to be because Team A is heavily favored to beat B based on their sports betting odds.
But if you bet $100 on Team B to win this same game and their betting odds are at +175, you will win $175 back on your bet. This is because Team B is the underdog.
You might also want to place what’s called a point spread bet on a sporting event. In this case, Team A will be favored to beat Team B by X amount of points with both teams having sports betting odds somewhere in the neighborhood of -110.
You’ll need to either bet on Team A to win by more than that number of points to win your bet or bet on Team B to win outright or lose by less than that number of points to win your bet.
This might all sound confusing at first. But once you get the hang of putting in sports bets, you’ll start to see how sports betting odds work.
How Can You Be Sure You’re Getting the Best Sports Betting Odds?
One thing you should always remember when you’re betting on sports is that not every online sportsbook will extend the same sports betting odds. Take a look at this page to see what we’re talking about.
Your goal should always be to get the best sports betting odds that you can. You might want to go as far as to set up several different online sportsbook accounts so that you can make wagers through the ones that offer the best odds on any given day.
If you don’t make it your mission to obtain the best sports betting odds, you’re going to be giving up the edge that you could potentially gain on sportsbooks. It could lead to you winning less money and losing more money than you should on bets over the long run.
Check Out Sports Betting Odds Before Putting Any Bets In
Far too often, casual sports bettors will make the mistake of putting in sports bets without giving any real consideration to sports betting odds. You don’t ever want to do this when putting in sports bets.
Get yourself into the habit of monitoring sports betting odds in the days, hours, and even minutes leading up to a matchup. You might be able to get some insight into how other people are betting on games by watching the odds go up and down. It’ll indicate which teams are being bet on more than others. Find more useful sports betting tips in the other articles published on our blog.
