While betting on your favorite team can be lucrative and fun entertainment, you should be aware that it can also be very risky especially to your finances if you are not careful. For you to minimize the risk of losing money, you should have research skills and in-depth knowledge about the odds.
The first one is easy to explain. The more you know in the game, the more likely you can avoid a wrong bet. Aside from the rules of the sports, the punters should also know the standing of the team, as well as other factors that may influence the flow. This may include the weather, players’ injury, and the winner of the toss coin. There are many reputed sites that can provide you information about that. In Vietnam, for instance, putters rely on vi-nowgoal to learn about the past results of the tournament and the score.
Calculating sports betting odds, on the other hand, can be a little bit tricky for new players. However, you cannot possibly participate in sports betting if you don’t know how betting odds work. As confusing as it may seem at the first glance, the odds can tell you many things about the tournament. The odds can show which is the favorite team is and which one is the underdog team. It can also tell you how much you could possibly win when you make a winning bet.
There are three main types of odds you can find in a sportsbook. These are decimal odds, Fractional odds, and American Odds. While some sportsbooks allow their players to customize the odds they see on the screen, it is worth knowing how each of these odds works.
Decimal Odds
The Decimal odd format is widely used in sportsbooks based in Asian countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, and much more. These odds are displayed in decimal.
Using Decimal odds, you can have a glimpse of the probable outcome of the tournament as well as the money that will return in case you win.
To know your team’s probability of winning based on the odds given by the sportsbook, you only need to divide 100 by the given odds. Let say the sportsbook give “Team A” a 1.50 odds. Here you will have 100 / 1.50 = 66.67 % chance of winning. Here, you can say that Team A is a Favorite team.
Now to calculate the money that could potentially return to your account when win, you need to multiply the decimal odds by your bet. Let say you place $100 bet on Team A with a similar odds of 1.50 odds. When the team wins the tournament, you will receive 100 x 1.50 = $150 in return.
Take note that the amount that will return to you already includes your bet. So, in the example above, your profit in winning the bet is $50.
American odds
American odds are the favorite of many expert punters because they can easily show the underdog team and the favorite team. American odds use the plus symbol (+) to indicate the underdog and minus (-) for the favorite team.
The plus symbol also shows how much money you can win for every $100 bet. This is easier to understand if we have an example. Let say the sportsbook gave “Team A” a +500 odds. Here you need to place a $100 bet to win $500. In case you win you will also receive the $100 that you place as a bet. This would mean that you will receive a total of $600 in return.
The minus symbol in the sportsbook indicates how much money you need to place to win $100. For example, “Team B” receives a -600 odds from the sportsbook. Since this is a favorite team, you need to bet $600 to win $100 as profit. Here, the total amount you receive will be $700.
Fractional Odds
Fractional odds are the third type of sports betting odds. This is very popular among British players and is used by many international sportsbooks. As the name suggests, this is in fractional format, but many sportsbooks around the world prefer to use a hyphen (-). This would mean that a 4/1 fractional odds is equal to 4-1 odds. The expression shows that for every 5 occurrences (4+1) negative results can happen 4 times while a positive result can happen 1 time.
To calculate your potential profit using these odds, you only need to multiply your bets by the fractional odds.
Let’ have an example. Let say you place a bet of $ 100 bet on team A with 4/1 odds of winning the match. When Team A wins the tournament, you will receive 100 x (4/1) = $400 as a profit. Aside from your profit, you will also get back your $100 bet. In total, you will receive $500 in return
