Football Odds Explained

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If you’re new to the world of gambling, you need to make sure that you understand the odds before you ever place a bet.

Football odds are listed by a sportsbook for every single match played that day. The odds are a simple way to explain to the bettor how much they stand to win if their wager is successful.

How football odds work - this is where the complicated part of football betting comes. When wagering on a football game, you will have three basic choices - line, point spread and total, all three commonly referred to as 'odds'. Football odds are listed by a sportsbook for every single match played that day. The odds are a simple way to explain to the bettor how much they stand to win if their wager is successful. The expected payout and odds are based on the calculated probability of who will win the match.

To put it simply, betting odds are a numerical representation of how likely an event is to occur. Take the example of rolling dice. Because there are six possible outcomes from one roll of the dice, there’s a 16.67% chance that you’ll be correct in your guess of which number will be rolled. That’s 100 divided by six, which equals 16.6666666667, to be exact. This translates to a coefficient 6/1 chance of any specific outcome, or 7.0 if you remove the bookie’s margin.

The same basic principle applies to flipping a coin—a coin has two sides, so you have a 50% chance of winning.

Odds can also tell you how much money you will win. Let’s say you’re betting on a team with 4/1 odds in a sporting event. If you bet £/€1 and your team wins, you’ll receive £/€4, plus your stake back for a total of £/€5.

Although it may be confusing at first, it’s pertinent that you grasp how betting odds work if you want to make a go of online gambling or sports betting.

There are basically three types of betting odds: fractional, decimal and U.S. style.

Fractional Odds

In the past, the most commonly used betting odds globally were fractional. They still remain the most commonly-used and understood in the UK, though Hong Kong and Malay odds are favored in other parts of the world.

When you see 4/1 odds, to use the example above, those are fractional odds. This means you have a one in four chance of winning, or a 20% chance. To put it another way, you also have an 80% chance of losing. That also means the winner will be paid £/€4 for every dollar or pound waged.

The same goes for 9/1 odds. You’ll win £/€9 for every dollar or pound waged, but you also have only a 10% chance of winning and a 90% chance of losing.

Decimal Odds

Football Odds Explained Uk

Decimal odds are becoming increasingly popular among bookmakers, commonly known as bookies. Most often used in Europe and Asia, decimal odds use a number with a decimal point as opposed to the fractional format.

With 4/1 betting odds, the decimal odds are 5.0. To get this number, you take the percentage chance of winning (in this case, 20%) and see how many time it goes into 100. 100 divided by 20 is 5.

To figure out your winnings with decimal odds, you multiply the odds by your stake, and then subtract your stake from that number. For example, when the odds are 5.0 and you bet £/€10, you multiple 5 x 10 and then subtract 10, for total winnings of £/€40.

U.S. Odds

In the United States, betting odds are expressed using the plus or minus sign. The plus sign indicates the favorite, while the minus is for the underdog. For example, the favorite team might have odds of +250, while the underdog’s odds are -150.

The numbers are calculated according to how much one must wager in order to win $100. Using the example above, you must bet $150 in order to win $100 for the underdog team. If you bet $150 on the underdog team and they win, your winnings will be $250 (your $150 stake + $100 winnings). On the other hand, if you bet $100 on the team with +250 odds, your winnings will total $350 (your $100 stake + $250 winnings). That said, the more you bet, the more you win, obviously. If you bet $150 rather than $100, your winnings with the favorite team would be $400 (your $150 stake + $250 winnings).

Now that you’ve had you know how betting odds work, you should have a better chance of winning, no matter which style of odds your bookie uses.

There are a number of online articles that can help you further understand how betting odds work. A little research can go a long way toward ensuring that you’re as successful as possible.

Easily the most popular type of betting for NFL football is “spread” betting or more commonly known as betting against the spread. Bettors who are new to NFL betting or betting in general may be a little confused with NFL spread betting, but it is pretty easy to understand once it is explained to you. We will explain what betting against the spread means below.

Football Odds Meaning

What is Betting Against The Spread?

For each NFL game the oddsmakers set a number of points in which the favored team is favored by. Bettors can then either choose for the favored team to win by more than the number of points set, or bet on the underdogs to lose by less than the number of points they are underdogs by or win the game straight up. For example, the spread could be set on the favored team at 6.5 points. This would mean in order for a bet on the favored team on the spread to win they would need to win by more than 6.5 points (7 or more) in order to win the bet. It also means that a bet on the underdog team would win if the underdogs lost by less than 6.5 points (6 or less) or won the game outright.

Example of NFL Spread Bet

Below is an example of what NFL spread betting would look like:

Matchup

Football gambling odds explained
  • TeamsSpread
  • Dallas Cowboys -2.5
  • New York Giants +2-5

The negative (-) sign indicates that the Cowboys are the favorites, while the positive (+) sign indicates that the New York Giants are the underdogs. With the spread set at 2.5 points, a bet on the Cowboys would mean that they would have to win by more than 2.5 points (3 or more) in order for you to win that bet. A bet on New York would mean that the Giants would have to either lose by 2.5 or less points (2 or less) or win the game outright in order for your bet to win.

Here is another example with a screenshot taken from 5Dimes.eu during Week 3 of the 2013 NFL season:

Here you can see that the Rams are +3.5, while the Cowboys are -3.5. So for this example the Cowboys are 3.5 point favorites, while the Rams are underdogs of 3.5 points. If you were to bet on St Louis you would need them to lose by 3 or fewer points or just win the game outright. If you were to bet on Dallas you would need the Cowboys to win by 4 or more points.

If the Cowboys were to win by 3 points, lets say 30-27, any bets on the Rams +3.5 would win. Even though the Rams didn’t win the game they covered the spread of 3.5 points.

Now if the Cowboys were to win by 4 points, lets say 31-27, the Cowboys have covered the spread and anyone who wagered on Dallas would win their bets.

Other NFL Spread Betting Information

Nfl Football Odds To Win

You may often notice that the spread is sometimes set at an even number such as 3, 6 , 10, etc. In this case if the favored team won by the exact amount set for the spread the bet would be pushed, and all bets would be returned. For example, if the Patriots were 3 point favorites and they won by a FG (3 points) than this would results in a push, meaning no matter which side you bet on you would get your money returned to you.

The most common NFL spreads are usually set between about 2.5-10.5 points, but you will also almost always have games each week with spreads lower than 2.5 and higher than 10.5. In the event that the oddsmakers feel the game doesn’t need a spread, it would be set at 0 or what some call a pick’em (both teams are given even odds to win for this type of bet).

The odds given on the spread are usually -110 unless otherwise noted. It is not uncommon to see one side of the spread being -105, with the other side being -115. If you don’t see any odds listed for each side of NFL spreads you are supposed to assume the odds are -110 on each. Not sure how to read NFL betting odds? Check out our Sports Betting Odds guide.

Football Gambling Odds Explained

Now that you know the basics of NFL spread betting you’ll want to check out our Sports Betting Strategy guide which has some great NFL strategy articles written by a professional bettor.