With the recent legalization of sports betting in my region all I hear now is over under this, odds of 5-1 that. Then they start talking like pirates with parlay or maybe it’s parfaits, Are they meeting to discuss a truce for unpaid debts? I’m just so confused. Also who comes up with these numbers? Is there like a council of bookies that oversee the gambling world, are the numbers regional?
In: Mathematics
Odds are a way for a bet to be balanced based on the likelihood of a particular outcome. In sports betting, this is based on which team is favored to win, and by how much. This will be based on a combination of statistics on the teams playing, and other factors like wether or not the star player is recovering from ankle surgery. So let’s say the Yankees are three times more likely to win than the Blue Jays, then the odds would be 3 to 1, and a bet of $1 on the Blue Jays would pay $3 if they win.
With sports betting one other key factor goes into how odds are set. They have to be in the bookies favor, so that on average, the bookie will come out on top.
The odds depend on the game being played, and the rules for those are usually the same wherever you are (barring any odd house rules that the casino may have). Basically, what the casino will be trying to ensure is that the odds of the punter winning mean, on average, they’ll receive less money in winnings than they paid in the first place, because that’s how they make their money. To reduce it to its simplest, if they had a game where you pay $1 to flip a coin and you win $1.50 cents if it comes up heads, the win on average will come out to $0.75 (because heads occur half the time) so the casino is ahead. The odds of winning in that case would be 2 to 1.
For your question about spreads, each sports book offering bets comes up with their own odds, although generally a consensus develops between books. Generally, sports books charge a premium to place a bet, the standard being that you bet $110 to win $100 (or any derivative thereof). The goal of a spread, i.e. Kansas City -3 to win the super bowl is not actually a reflection of what the books think will happen, it is designed to create equal action both for and against the line, i.e. 50% of the money is taking Tampa Bay +3 and the other half is taking Kansas City -3. That way the sports book makes their 10% and is very happy. If you’re curious how those spreads work, if you see KC -3, it means you take the final score of the game and then subtract 3 from Kansas City’s total. If they still win, you win the bet. Similarly, if you took Tampa Bay +3, and they lose by 2, you would win the bet, even though they lost the actual game.
Moving on, 5-1 (aka +500 if you see it listed on an American sports book) means that you will be paid 5x what you bet if you win. These kind of odds are reserved for very long shot bets like a fighter coming in off the street in a last minute replacement to face a champion in a ufc/boxing match.
Parlays are combing multiple bets into one at increased odds. So I might take Tampa Bay +3 in the super bowl, and might also bet on an upcoming UFC match. I have to win both bets in order to win my parlay, if I lose either singular bet, I lose the whole parlay. Because of this, sports books are able to offer attractive odds for parlay bets. They are generally considered a suckers bet.
If you ever want to see odds from multiple sports books, vegas insider if your best bet. You can see how closely the major sports books around the world offer lines and how remarkably similar they are. It’s an excellent free resource available online.
**Over/Under:** This is the total amount of points scored in the game (football). You’ll usually see a number like 52.5. or 47.0.
People wager on whether or not there will MORE (Over) than 52.5 points scored, or fewer (Under).
Usually (but not always), the odds for a wager on a bet like this are 11/10, meaning you have to wager $11 to win $10.
It’s expressed as **-110,** meaning $110 would win $100 (or as was shown above: $11 wins $10).
So how does the book make money?
You think there will be more than 52.5 points scored and wager $11. I think there will be fewer and I also wager $11.
One of us is going to win $10… and also get our money back for a grand total of **$21.**
Yet the book took in a total of $22 in wagers. So they’ll pay out $21 and keep a dollar for themselves.
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