Football Betting Odds Explained

A quick guide to understanding odds and how they affect your football bets.

What’s It All About?

Relatively few punters have a full understanding of betting odds and how they affect wagers. That’s hardly surprising because they become complicated once you move past the basics.

Unless you were one of those kids who loved doing fractions during double maths at school then understanding betting odds can seem as daunting as learning Swahili. Deciphering odds is not unlike learning a new language. Sure, you can get by with a few words in any language but isn’t it more rewarding when you can speak the lingo like a native?

Below you’ll find links to our guides on all the various aspects of odds and how they relate to football bets. Click Here to jump to that section.

Crash Course In Betting Odds

Before you dive in at the deep end, you might want a crash course on ODDS. Simply put, the ‘odds’ are the multiplier the bookmaker is offering you for risking your money. For instance, a bookie might decide to offer 10/1 on Diego Costa scoring the first goal for Chelsea this weekend. When you see two numbers (10/1) separated by a slash ( / ) these are the ‘odds’, sometimes referred to as the price. This fractional number will allow you can calculate how much money your bet could win.

10/1 for example works like this… for every £1 you bet, you’ll win £10 back from the bookmaker (10/1) if the odds were 5/1 you’d get back £5 for every £1 you risk. Usually, the first number is the biggest (10) and the second number the smallest (1) however, if a team is heavily favoured to win you might see odds where this pattern is reversed – this is called ‘odds on‘. For example, 2/9 means you’ll only win £2 for every £9 you risk.

This way of displaying ODDS is called the ‘fractional’ system. It’s used extensively by UK bookmakers. However, another system for displaying odds is also in use, known as the DECIMAL system it’s popular in Europe. In many ways, the decimal system is easier to understand and many UK bookmakers have adopted it as their default method of display.

If the decimal odds are 11.00 and you place a £1 bet your total return is £1 x 11.00 = £11. This is equivalent to a traditional price of 10/1 (+£1 stake returned). Decimal odds make it much easier to figure out which odds are best – the bigger the number, the higher the odds.

$fractionalodds$

Although the odds above look different – they pay out the exact same amount.

Above you can see fractional and decimal odds examples as they would be displayed by bookmakers. 10/1 and 11.00 both give you exactly the same amount returned for a £1 bet (£10 plus £1 stake returned = £11). The decimal odds system automatically adds in the stake, which is why it’s displayed as 11.00 and not 10.00. Whereas the fractional system only shows your profit, not the total return.

Online bookmakers like Betfair allow you to choose which system to use – just pick the one you’re most comfortable with and select it from the drop-down menu at the bottom of each Betfair page.

Of course not all odds are as easy to understand as 10/1 (11.00 decimal) or 3/1 (4.00 decimal). What about games where a team is ‘odds on’ to win? It’s not uncommon to see a football team priced up to win at odds of 4/5 (1.80 decimal). This means that for every £1 you wager you’ll win £0.80p, which is known as an odds-on bet. Everything you need to know about these short priced odds is covered our very first in-depth guide below.

Odds In More Detail

Below you can read in more detail about betting odds, the first guide in our series covers ‘odds on’ wagers. We will be adding more guides in the coming weeks and months.

ODDS ON

It’s the phrase we hear all the time but what does ODDS ON really mean? Do you know the difference between 1/8 and 8/1?

COMING SOON

More guides to betting odds will be arriving soon, please check back in a few days for more information.

COMING SOON

More guides to betting odds will be arriving soon, please check back in a few days for more information.

Who Sets The Odds?

The quick answer is the bookies. Initially they will look at all the available historical data about an upcoming match and frame the odds accordingly. The crafty bookmaker will attempt to show a profit regardless of the outcome of the game.

For instance, you can expect bookmakers to offer smaller odds on forwards like Ronaldo, Messi and Aguero scoring the first goal than any given defender. A bookie may initially quote 3/1 on Real Madrid’s Ronaldo scoring first and 50/1 on Galactico defender Sergio Ramos netting. Nevertheless, if punters start making a large number of bets on Sergio Ramos then the bookmaker will cut his odds and simultaneously lengthen other players odds, thus reducing the potential liability should Ramos score. This is why you see the odds fluctuating right up until kick off.

So the bookmaker sets the odds at first but the volume of cash placed on any team or player will move the odds.

Example Odds & Payouts

Below you can view example odds and returns (winnings) represented in fractional and decimal format. These odds are typical prices you will see quoted on major football matches during a season.

£1 Stake At

1/10

Fractional Odds

1.10

Decimal Odds

£1.10p

Total Returns

£1 Stake At

2/9

Fractional Odds

1.22

Decimal Odds

£1.22p

Total Returns

£1 Stake At

2/5

Fractional Odds

1.40

Decimal Odds

£1.40p

Total Returns

£1 Stake At

8/11

Fractional Odds

1.73

Decimal Odds

£1.73p

Total Returns

£1 Stake At

10/11

Fractional Odds

1.91

Decimal Odds

£1.91p

Total Returns

£1 Stake At

Evens

Fractional Odds

2.00

Decimal Odds

£2.00p

Total Returns

£1 Stake At

5/4

Fractional Odds

2.25

Decimal Odds

£2.25p

Total Returns

£1 Stake At

13/8

Fractional Odds

2.63

Decimal Odds

£2.63p

Total Returns

£1 Stake At

5/2

Fractional Odds

3.50

Decimal Odds

£3.50p

Total Returns

£1 Stake At

11/4

Fractional Odds

3.75

Decimal Odds

£3.75p

Total Returns

£1 Stake At

7/2

Fractional Odds

4.50

Decimal Odds

£4.50p

Total Returns

£1 Stake At

4/1

Fractional Odds

4.00

Decimal Odds

£5.00p

Total Returns

£20

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