Different Types of Odds When Placing a Bet

 

At the time of this post, we are entering the weekend of Superbowl LVI with the Cincinnati Bengals will be playing the Los Angeles Rams at the new Los Angeles stadium (SoFi stadium).  I looked up the odds for wagering on the game and found the following breakdown (at of 2/11/2022 – game to be played 2/13/22).

(From: Super Bowl 2022 odds: Lines, picks, prop bets | FOX Sports)

The first column listing the Spread, has LA at -4 and Cincinnati at +4 (to win an even money bet on LA, they have to win by more than 4 points). The second column listing To Win, has LA at -200 and Cincinnati at +170. The third column lists the over/under as 48.5 (an even-money bet based on the total score).

For those readers who have not made a sports bet but have only gambled in a casino, one might wonder how to translate the odds posted above to those you might see on casino table games such as 2 to 1, 3 to 1, etc.

If one has only been to a US horse racetrack where the odds are posted on a tote board, the amount posted is the total amount returned to a winning bettor based on a $2.00 bet. This is a different system than the football and casino examples above.

There are even more systems of expressing odds when gambling. There is a system called European odds, where the odds offered for your bet is the total value paid to you including your original bet. So, if you won on 1.80 odds, and you bet $10, you would be given a total of $18.00. This would be example of betting on the favorite, while odds higher than 2.0 would be those offered for the underdog.

Going back to our example of the US Superbowl LVI, the middle column is referred to the Money Line (Ram -200, Bengals +170). For the Rams’ bet one has to wager $200 to profit $100 if the Rams win or wager $100 to profit $170 if the Bengals win.

Consider converting these to the other odds-expression methods.

On the website Bet New Jersey, there is an informative site that explains the difference in the various odds expressions. It had an “odds converter” for expressing the equivalent odds statements in different methods. Entering “-200” for the Rams, the odds converter gives us the following conversions:

US Money Line: -200

Decimal (European): 1.50

Fractional (British): ½

Probability: 66.67%

The other two columns from the table at the top of the post, Spread and Over/Under, can't be directly converted to the various odds above. However, generally, the more a team is favored, the higher the Spread will be. Independent of that, the Over/Under line will be made by the oddsmakers based on balance of the combined offenses and defenses of both teams.

Since we were discussing American horseracing tote boards earlier, based on a $2 wager, if one enters a $2 bet, the payoff would be $3 (the original $2 bet plus the $1 profit).

Fraction to Decimal Odds Conversion (racing-index.com)

How to Read Odds | Understanding Odds Types, Conversions & Chances (bet-nj.com)

Update 2/13/2022 - Today the Los Angeles Rams won the Superbowl 23-20. In sports betting terms, the Rams didn't cover (the spread of -4) so even-money bettors wagering on the Rams loss while money-line (Rams -200) bettors on the Rams won 100 for every 200 wagered.