How To Understand Sports Odds

Sports betting is becoming the new favorite past time of people after they come home from work. For this reason, many people are spending their hard earned cash either online or at the casino, in order to turn such a huge profit, that they no longer need a nine to five job. With this in mind, one of the biggest mistakes that new bettors make, is they do not understand the value of sports odds. Today, we’ll be looking at how to understand the odds and where the odds can be in your favor or avoided.

Firstly, to understand the odds, you have to understand how a moneyline is made. Essentially, a moneyline requires that the bookie software sportsbook place a minus in front of teams favored and a plus sign in front of underdogs. A minus sign means, that in order to bet on the favorite, you have to risk more to get back less. Conversely, a plus sign requires that you bet less to get back more. Here is an example.

New York Giants +140

New England Patriots – 180

In this example, the Giants are the underdog, as depicted by the plus sign, while the Patriots are the favorite represented by a minus sign. To bet on the Giants, you only have to risk $100 to get back $140. Conversely, to get back a profit on the Patriots, you need to risk $180 to get back $100.

Although it sounds simple, the moneyline can be very confusing. Basically, many sportsbooks offer the moneyline in American or International odds. American odds use the minus and plus system we mentioned earlier. At the same time, the International moneyline uses a decimal system to depict the favorite and the underdog. For all intents and purposes use the American moneyline odds, as it is more straightforward.