What are Sports Odds?

What are Sports Odds?

If you are looking to get started in active sports betting, one of the most vital elements to understand is how sports odds can affect your position.  Without this, it will be impossible for you to understand how your bets will be able to generate a profit — and this can make it very difficult to decide which teams to choose when you are placing your bets.  For this reason, it is a good idea to read regular expert sports betting analysis.  The best resource for this is FreeTips.com.

Sports odds offer gamblers the opportunity to profit from a bet in cases where the outcome of a sporting event falls in line with the original assumptions of the betting arrangement.  The odds themselves are part of the financial contract that is opened between the bookmaker and the gambler.

Types of Odds

In sports betting, there are three common ways that odds are shown:  decimal odds, fractional odds, and American odds.  But while these might look different when displayed, they are actually telling us the same thing:  the payout relative to the value of the original bet.  Other types of odds include over/under bets and point spreads.  These odds are arranged so that bookmakers can protect themselves from potential losses if too many people in the betting public select one sports opponent as opposed to the other.

In most cases, bookmakers display odds using a plus sign (+) or minus sign (-).  These signs are then followed by a number.  If the odds show a negative number, this means that the team or athlete is the favorite to win the match or sporting event.  The exact number shows by how much that team or athlete is the favorite.  If the odds show a positive number, this means that the team or athlete is the underdog in the match.  The exact number shows by how much that team or athlete is the underdog.

So, for example, if the number next to your chosen team is -120, it means that you will need to risk $120 in order to win $100.  This might seem unfair on the face of it, but the skewed odds here suggest that you are betting on the team that is the favorite to win.  Conversely, if the number next to your chosen team is +120, it means that you will win $120 if you place a bet that is equal to $100.  This means that the odds suggest that you are betting on the underdog team that is not the favorite to win.