How Does Sports Betting Work
Welcome to the Sports Betting Odds section of The Sports Geek. If you are new to sports betting and don’t understand how to read betting odds (+150, -110, +2200, etc) we will lay it all out for you and help you learn how the betting odds work.
American Odds show how much you’ll win with a $100 bet (odds with +) or how much you need to bet to win $100 (odds with -) In other words, the lower the number, the more likely they are to win, and the less money you win. WInning a bet marked at -220, means that you would win.
The structure of betting on auto racing is similar to that of golf. The most basic wager involves picking the winner of a race. Typically a sportsbook will list 20 or more individual drivers along with a field (all. There are a variety of ways to bet on most sporting contests, from something as simple. How Does Sports Betting Work? Sports betting is gambling that involves placing bets on sporting events to win a certain amount if the team or player betted on wins the event. When betting on a team.
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Sports Betting Odds Explained
Many people don’t know how to read or calculate sports betting odds, so below we have done our best on explaining how betting odds work. The most common type of sports betting odds used in North America are the American style odds which we explain below.
American Style Sports Betting Odds
Most online sportsbooks will list their odds in what is called “American Odds”. There are a couple different versions of sports betting odds, but these American Odds are the most common odds used. Reading and understanding sports betting odds can bet a little confusing to beginners, so we have provided an example below using two NFL football teams:
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American Odds
- Matchup Odds
- New England Patriots +120
- Pittsburgh Steelers -140
The number shown in the bracket represents the odds. The American Odds have two components to them, the first being the positive or negative sign, and the second being the number that follows the sign.
The sign in front of the number indicates whether placing a wager on that outcome will pay out more money then you have wagered or less money then you have wagered. If the odd is negative (-) it means that outcome is more likely to happen and placing a bet on that outcome would payout less than the amount you wagered, while a positive (+) odd shows that the outcome is less likely to happen and it would pay out more than the amount you wagered.
The next step is figuring out exactly how much the bet pays out, which is where the numbers in the odds come into play.
A listed odd with a – sign in front of it, such as the -140 in our example above, shows us how much money you would need to wager in order to win $100. So using the -140, this would show us that you would need to bet $140 in order to win $100 in profits. You can easily substitute the $100 bet for a $10 bet by moving the decimal place over one spot, showing us that you would need to wager $14 in order to win $10 in profits.
Examples:
A listed odd with a + sign in front of it, such as the +120 in our example above, shows us how much money you would win on a $100 bet. Using the +120 odds, it shows us that a $100 bet on that outcome would pay out $120 in profits. Again this can easily be converted into smaller or larger size bets. A $10 bet on +120 odds would pay out $12 in profits.
Examples:
Below is an example of NFL betting odds taken from an online betting site.
In this example you can see Los Angeles is listed at +130 ($100 bet pays $130 plus of course your original wager back) and New England is listed at -150 ($150 bet pays $100).
The great thing about betting online is that the online sportsbooks will do the calculations for you before you place your bet. You can click on the outcome or team you would like to bet on, and then input the amount you wish to wager and it will show you your potential pay out before you confirm your bet.
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Decimal Style Sports Betting Odds
Decimal style odds are used mostly in Europe, and are pretty easy to understand. To calculate the decimal style odds all you will need to do is simply multiply the amount you wish to wager by the decimal odds shown and you will get your payout. For example it may look something like this:
If you wanted to place a $10 wager on the USA at 2.40 you would simply need to multiply your $10 wager by the 2.40 odds (10 x 2.40) to find out that the payout is $24. It is important to realize that with decimal style odds it includes the amount you wagered, so to find out profits you would need to subtract your wager ($24 – $10) to find out your potential payout is $14 in profits.
If you wanted to place a $10 wager on Brazil you would again just multiply $10 x 1.55 to find out that you would win $15.50 total or $5.50 in profits.
Decimal style betting odds are very simple to understand, but you won’t see them displayed in many North American sportsbooks. With that said, most online betting sites will allow you to chose the style of betting odds you want displayed, with American odds set as the default.
How Does Sports Betting Work?If you are new to sports betting, you may just be wondering, “How does sports betting work?”
Top Tips for the Novice Sports Bettor
The concepts of the point spread, the Moneyline, and reading odds are fairly simple. It is also easy to find places that will accept your sports wagers, such as the platforms offered by AcePerHead.com. However, moving on from the basics is often a challenge for novice sports bettors. Let’s take a look at some tips to help you move from the basics of sports betting as you look to start turning profits from your wagers.
Tip #1: Begin with smaller bets
Figuring out how to outwit the sportsbooks will take you a great deal of time. Different sports bettors figure out the path to victory more quickly than others, but even for the most ingenious sports bettors, you have to get through a learning curve. Unless you just won the lottery, you just have some money that you have free to wager on sports, so while you are in the learning phase, do not make the error of betting too large per game.
While you are in the early phases, think about limiting your biggest bets to about $20. For other bets, shoot for the $5 to $10 range. Over time, as you start to learn more and more about how to win, you can put that maximum higher, but remember to limit your wagering to using money that is not part of your budget for living essentials.
Another way to figure out your maximum is to figure out how much you can spare for your bankroll. Put this money apart from your other funds, and only use it for sports betting. Divide that bankroll by 100 to get your maximum bet. So if you have $2,000 in your bankroll, your max bet would be $20. While very little in sports betting is certain, one thing you can bank on is that you will make mistakes, so using small parts of your bankroll will limit the damage that mistakes cost you, giving you a longer wagering life before your bankroll disappears.
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Tip #2: Focus your wagering on a specific area
The vast majority of sports bettors get into the action by wagering on their favorite sports teams and putting down bets on big events, like the NCAA men’s basketball tournament or the Super Bowl. This is a fun way to start because these events get lots of press. However, one reason a lot of new sports bettors lose a lot of money at the start is that they end up betting a lot on events that they do not know much about. For example, if you have read that 12-seeds often upset 5-seeds in the men’s basketball tournament, and you try to be trendy by betting on all four of the 12-seeds without reviewing all four matchups carefully, you will just be handing money to the bookmaker.
So if you are wondering “How does sports betting work?” at this point, pick just one sport and focus on that. Narrowing your focus will allow you to develop a research base that will help you select winners. If you find that researching college football takes too much effort (and there are a lot of teams to learn about), just select one conference. You might think about picking a mid-major conference instead of one of the Power 5, because there is some room for error in the sportsbooks the further you get down the college football hierarchy.
Tip #3: Put your bets on the moneyline
The majority of sporting events have a minimum of two different lines. One will go against the spread. The other is a moneyline. In this sort of wager, you pick which team will win the game. When you bet against a point spread, you usually spend $110 to win $100 on either side of that spread, although moneylines can be adjusted from that point if action comes in too hot on one side of the point spread. In a moneyline wager, the various figures show the disparity. An example might feature Ohio State playing Indiana in football. If the moneyline is Ohio State -180 / Indiana +220, you would have to bet $180 to win $100 on Ohio State, but if you bet on Indiana, and you put down $100, you would win $220.
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It is often much easier to decide which team is going to win a game outright than to pick against a point spread. If you have an eye on an underdog that has a solid chance at winning, that can make a smart wager. If you win on underdogs, you do not have to place as many bets to make a profit.
Sportsbook
This is just the beginning when it comes to tips for the novice bettor. You are far from alone if you find yourself wondering, “How does sports betting work?” However, this is a topic that can help you turn your cash into profits while doing something you love – watching and staying engaged with sporting events.
AcePerHead.com is a platform that offers sports betting options to hundreds of agents. Each sportsbook has a separate owner, who is responsible for setting odds, choosing events, establishing props, and signing up betting clients. You can often find some fairly wide variance among the different sportsbooks on Ace Per Head, as they try to establish a competitive advantage based on information (or intuition) about events that they believe will help them beat the odds that most of the larger sportsbooks have set. If you start betting with a sportsbook that uses the Ace Per Head platform, you have peace of mind thanks to the encrypted third-party payment system that we use to move money from betting clients to sportsbook owners. You can use bitcoins, Gift cards, and other payment portals to send and receive funds. Obviously, you’ll hope to be pulling in more money than you send out – that’s the dream of every sports bettor. Hopefully, this advice will get you on your way.