Us Betting Odds Explained
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Odds are an integral part of any wager, and they’ll tell you whether you’re dealing with a bet worth your money. That’s the only way to take advantage of betting odds comparisonsand play to win. With this guide, you’ll get gambling odds explained to you. Jan 13, 2021 Betting odds show you the probability of a certain outcome to happen. In American form, positive odds are given to underdogs and negative to favorites. How to understand betting odds? It is very easy to understand betting odds if you know what to look for.
Article and odds updated on November 6th, 2020 at 10:32am EST
There is a huge event sneaking into view in the United States of America, as the 2020 Election grows ever closer. Americans will go to the polls on the 3rd November, with the winning candidate being inaugurated on the 20th January 2021. It will be a huge decision in the USA as they must decide the man that they want to be the President for the next four years.
Online Markets for US Presidential Online Betting Odds
Vegas Odds 2020 election race is nearing its last month but has but far from a clear winner yet.
It doesn’t seem that long ago since Donald Trump shocked the world by defying the odds to beat Hilary Clinton to move into the White House. But, an awful lot has changed since then, and this could turn out to be one of the tightest and more aggressive Elections in American history.
Read on for the Las Vegas presidential odds below:
Current Vegas Presidential Odds
Those gamblers looking to find Vegas Odds for the upcoming or previous elections will be left disappointed.
It is illegal for sports with licenses in the US to offer odds.
That is why none of the leading sportsbooks in Las Vegas have been able to offer odds on US Elections.
An Alternative to Las ‘Vegas Odds’
That is why the majority of online bookmakers, otherwise known as ‘offshore sportsbooks‘ are the way forward for those looking to bet on the 2020 Election.
Football Betting Odds Explained
In any normal scenario outside of the US election, it would have been expected that the Vegas odds Trump commands will be neck in neck with Biden, and this case shows with the online markets below. Again though, there will be no lines available for those looking for Vegas odds President race numbers. The Vegas election odds (online markets) will be updated here live as they become available.
Why Vegas Odds on the US Election Are Illegal
There are a number of reasons why betting on Presidential elections is illegal in the States. One of the main reasons links back to the Black Sox Scandal in 1919. The law is there to ensure the integrity of democracy. Meanwhile, there was also a fear that betting on elections could also have a negative impact on the number of voters that turned out.
The odds are constantly changing as Election night draws closer, and there has been a massive change in favour of Joe Biden. Biden is now the clear -190 favourite in the political betting market with BetOnline.ag, while Bovada also offers the same price for the Democratic candidate from Delaware. Donald Trump, like in the 2016 election, is the outsider to be re-elected, as he is priced at +162 with BetOnline.ag.
There are also other selections in the BetOnline.ag market, as they offer Kamala Harris at +5000. However, that selection would be considered hugely unlikely as Harris is the running mate for Biden in the upcoming election. Meanwhile, Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, is valued at +10000 with Bovada to be elected as the President.
However, the odds online are slightly different depending on the bookmaker, with Betway still having Biden as the favourite but at a slightly different price. Betway offers -167 for Biden to win the election, but the odds suggest it could be closer as Trump is priced at +115. Bet US initially expected it to be much closer than Bovada and BetOnline.ag, as they have both had Trump and Biden valued at -115 at open, with it now being -200 and -182 for Biden and Trump at +150 and +162 respectively.
Changes In US Presidential Odds Since January

The odds have constantly been changing throughout 2020, with Biden being as high as +2000 at the end of February. However, the Democratic Party Presidential primaries changed the odds. Biden’s price with Bovada plummeted to +160 after he emerged at the candidate for the party. Biden was the last candidate standing after a number of other candidates pulled out. Biden went down to -115 after Bernie Sanders pulled out of the election, which was the lowest price that Biden had been at.
The lowest price that gamblers could get for Trump came at the end of February as he was priced at -180 with Bovada. However, Trump’s odds have been changing week by week, and he went to evens at the beginning of June. At that point, Biden overtook Trump as the favourite in the Election betting. Trump went to as high as +140 at the beginning of July, but his price is getting shorter again as we get closer to the 4th November Election.
With the constant overtaking and media parade, who knows what Vegas odds on Presidential election movements we’ll see throughout the final days leading up to Election night?
Where Will The Election Be Won?
The US Election doesn’t always mean getting the most amount of votes; instead it comes down to the States that you manage to win. The winning candidate will need to get at least 279 electoral college votes to win, with 538 in total up for grabs. Most States vote the same way for every election, but there are some that can go either way; these are called battleground States. There are 14 different battleground States, which turned out to be the decisive factor for Trump back in 2016.
However, recent figures have shown that Biden holds the advantage in the majority this time around. Polls show that Biden has the advantage in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Caroline, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Trump has a better rating on the polls in just three of the States; Georgia, Iowa and Texas. The recent figures also show that there is only a slim difference between the candidates in three of the States that currently favour Biden: Florida, North Carolina and Ohio.
Were The Odds Right In 2016?
The 2020 election will be unlike anything that we have seen before, and the main reason for that is because it is unpredictable. The polls have been wrong on numerous occasions over the past couple of years, which has meant that the odds have counted for very little. The year that Trump won the election, there were two examples that the polls aren’t always accurate, one of which being the Trump election and the other being the United Kingdom voting to leave the European Union.
Back in 2016, Trump was given just a 50% chance of winning the election on the 3rd November, which was just five days before American went to the polls. The unpredictability of the 2016 election meant that huge wagers were placed on both Trump and Clinton, with one gambler from London putting over $200,000 on the eventual winner. One bookmaker revealed that the number of bets put on the election in 2016 exceeded the wagers that were put on other significant events such as the EU referendum, the European Championships and the Epsom Derby.
Whatever happens to in the final debates, one thing is for sure: we remain at the razor edge of our seat to know what Las Vegas odds presidential election candidates Biden and Trump will surprise us with.
Let’s see what Vegas odds president 2020 sportsbooks favor as their lines continue moving toward a dramatic finale.
Fixed-odds betting is a form of wagering against odds offered by a bookmaker or an individual or on a bet exchange. It involves betting on an event in which there is no fluctuation on the payout. In Australia, the practice is usually known as 'SP betting'.
Calculating fixed odds[edit]
It is customary with fixed-odds gambling to know the odds at the time of the placement of the wager (the 'live price'), but the category also includes wagers whose price is determined only when the race or game starts (the 'starting prices'). It is ideal for bookmakers to price/mark up a book such that the net outcome will always be in their favour: the sum of the probabilities quoted for all possible outcomes will be in excess of 100%. The excess over 100% (or overround) represents profit to the bookmaker in the event of a balanced/even book. In the more usual case of an imbalanced book, the bookmaker may have to pay out more winnings than what is staked or may earn more than mathematically expected. An imbalanced book may arise since there is no way for a bookmaker to know the true probabilities for the outcome of competitions left to human effort or to predict the bets that will be attracted from others by fixed odds compiled on the basis personal view and knowledge.
With the advent of Internet and bet exchange betting, the possibility of fixed-odds arbitrage actions and Dutch books against bookmakers and exchanges has expanded significantly. Betting exchanges in particular act like a stock exchange, allowing the odds to be set in the course of trading between individual bettors, usually leading to quoted odds that are reasonably close to the 'true odds.'
'The best of it'[edit]
In making a bet where the expected value is positive, one is said to be getting 'the best of it'. For example, if one were to bet $1 at 10 to 1 odds (one could win $10) on the outcome of a coin flip, one would be getting 'the best of it' and should always make the bet (assuming a rational and risk-neutral attitude with linear utility curves and have no preferences implying loss aversion or the like). However, if someone offered odds of 10 to 1 that a card chosen at random from a regular 52 card deck would be the ace of spades, one would be getting 'the worst of it' because the chance is only 1 in 52 that the ace will be chosen.
Us Betting Odds Explained Betting
In an entry for L'Encyclopédie (the Enlightenment-era 'French Encyclopedia'), Denis Diderot cites a similar example in which two players, Player A and Player B, wager over a game of dice that involves rolling two six-sided dice. Player A wins if the dice add up to 12, of which there is only one possible case. Player B wins if the dice fall in any other combination, of which there are 35 possibilities.[1] It is mathematically disadvantageous to make a bet if one gets'the worst of it.' Accordingly, for the bet to be 'fair,' the amount each player could potentially lose or gain from the wager should be adjusted, depending on the odds of their success.
Laying odds[edit]
When making a bet in which one must put more at risk than one can win, one is laying the odds. Rational bettors will do so only if the actual chances of an adverse outcome are low enough that the expected outcome even after deduction of taxes and any transaction costs is favorable to the person placing the bet. For example, if one bets $1,000 that it will rain tomorrow and can win only $200 but can lose the entire $1,000, one is laying odds that will rain tomorrow. Laying odds is reflected in the colloquial expression '[I would] dollars to doughnuts' — with which the speaker is expressing a willingness to risk losing something of value in exchange for something worthless, because winning that bet is a certainty.[2]
Lay betting[edit]
'Lay betting' is a bet that something will not happen, so 'laying $50 on a horse' is betting the horse will not win. Bookmakers sell bets based on the odds of a specific outcome, but lay betting allows the bettor (in some English-speaking countries, the 'punter') to reverse roles with the bookmaker, using odds to sell the opposite outcome to the bookmaker. In this context, 'lay' is used in the sense of 'layman', i.e., a bet sold by someone who does not sell bets professionally.
Types of odds offered[edit]
There are three widely used means of quoting odds:
Fractional odds[edit]
Favoured by bookmakers in the United Kingdom and Ireland and common in horse racing, fractional odds quote the net total that will be paid out to the winning bettor relative to the stake. The term 'fractional odds' is something of a misnomer, especially when visually reinforced by using a slash (as opposed to, e.g., a colon or the word 'to' or 'on') to separate a potential gain from the amount that a bettor must wager in order to receive it upon a win, because the 'fraction' in question represents not the odds of winning or even the reciprocal of the odds of winning but rather the fraction (for any odds longer than 'even money' or chances of winning less than 50%, an improper fraction) of the amount at stake that the upside outcome represents. This fraction may be derived by subtracting 1 from the reciprocal of the chances of winning; for any odds longer than 'even money,' this fraction will be an improper one.[3][4] Odds of 4:1 ('four-to-one' or less commonly 'four-to-one against') would imply that the bettor stands to make a £400 profit on a £100 stake. If the odds are 1:4 (read 'one-to-four', or alternatively 'four-to-one on' or 'four-to-one in favor'), the bettor stands to make £25 on a £100 stake. In either case, against or on, should he win, the bettor always receives his original stake back, so if the odds are 4:1 the bettor receives a total of £500 (£400 plus the original £100). Odds of 1/1 are known as evens or even money.
Not all fractional odds are traditionally read using the lowest common denominator. Perhaps most unusual is that odds of 10:3 are read as 'one-hundred-to-thirty'.
Fractional odds are also known as British odds,UK odds,[5] or, in that country, traditional odds.
Decimal odds[edit]
Favoured in Continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, decimal odds differ from fractional odds by taking into account that the bettor must first part with their stake to make a bet; the figure quoted, therefore, is the winning amount that would be paid out to the bettor.[4][6] Therefore, the decimal odds of an outcome are equivalent to one plus the decimal value of the fractional odds; in the absence of built-in house advantage to cover overhead, profit margins, or (for an illegal enterprise) compensation for the fact that both chances of prosecution and penalties in the event of conviction tend to be higher for bookmakers than for clients, the decimal odds associated with a given outcome would be the decimal expression of the reciprocal of what the offering party assesses to be the outcome's chance of occurring.[7] Thus, even odds 1/1 are quoted in decimal odds as 2. The 4/1 fractional odds discussed above are quoted as 5, while the 1/4 odds are quoted as 1.25. It is considered to be ideal for parlay betting because the odds to be paid out are simply the product of the odds for each outcome wagered on.
Decimal odds are also known as European odds, digital odds or continental odds and tend to be favoured by betting exchanges because they are the easiest to work with for trading, in this case the purchase and sale of upside and downside risk.[5]
Moneyline odds[edit]
Betting Odds Explained 100
Moneyline odds are favoured by United States bookmakers and as such are sometimes called American Odds.[4] There are two possibilities: the figure quote can be either positive or negative. Moneyline refers to odds on the straight-up outcome of a game with no consideration to a point spread.
- Positive figures
- If the figure quoted is positive, the odds are quoting how much money will be won on a $100 wager (done if the odds are better than even). Fractional odds of 4/1 would be quoted as +400 while fractional odds of 1/4 cannot be quoted as a positive figure.
- Negative figures
- If the figure quoted is negative, the moneyline odds are quoting how much money must be wagered to win $100 (this is done if the odds are worse than even). Fractional odds of 1/4 would be quoted as −400 while fractional odds of 4/1 cannot be quoted as a negative figure.
- Even odds
- Even odds are quoted as +100 or −100. Some but not all bookmakers display the positive symbol.
Odds conversion[edit]
To convert fractional odds to decimal, take the fractional number, convert it to decimal by doing the division, and then add 1. For example, the 4-to-1 fractional odds shown above is the same as 5 in decimal odds, while 1-to-4 would be quoted as 1.25.
The method for converting moneyline to decimal odds depends on whether the moneyline value is positive or negative. If the moneyline is positive, it is divided by 100 and add 1. Thus, +400 moneyline is the same as 5.0 in decimal odds. If the moneyline is negative, 100 is divided by the absolute moneyline amount (the minus signed is removed), and then 1 is added. For example, −400 moneyline is 100/400 + 1, or 1.25, in decimal odds.
Baseball Betting Odds Explained
| Decimal | Fractional | Moneyline | Win% (to break even) | Return (minus stake) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.01 | 1/100 | −10,000 | 99.01% | 1.00% |
| 1.11 | 1/9 | −900 | 90.00% | 11.11% |
| 1.33 | 1/3 | −300 | 75.00% | 33.33% |
| 1.50 | 1/2 | −200 | 66.67% | 50.00% |
| 2.00 | 1/1 | ±100 | 50.00% | 100.00% |
| 3.00 | 2/1 | +200 | 33.33% | 200.00% |
| 4.00 | 3/1 | +300 | 25.00% | 300.00% |
| 10.00 | 9/1 | +900 | 10.00% | 900.00% |
| 101.00 | 100/1 | +10,000 | 0.99% | 10,000.00% |
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^'Wager'. University of Michigan Library. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
- ^Listening to America, Stuart Berg Flexner (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1982).
- ^'Betting School: Understanding Fractional & Decimal Betting Odds'. Goal. 10 January 2011. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
- ^ abcCortis, Dominic (2015). Expected Values and variance in bookmaker payouts: A Theoretical Approach towards setting limits on odds. Journal of Prediction Markets. 1. 9.
- ^ ab'Betting Odds Format'. World Bet Exchange. Archived from the original on May 2, 2014. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
- ^D., Chris. 'What is Fixed odds betting and Due Column betting?'. TBR. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
- ^'Fractional Odds'. betstarter.com/. Archived from the original on April 2, 2014. Retrieved 27 March 2014.