What Is Fixed Odds Sports Betting and How You Can Profit from It?

1 day ago  Nicky Martin is down to “Plan H” as she prepares the unbeaten Bear Ghylls for the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival. The six-year-old has won each of his four runs so far, taking a bumper by 19 lengths on his racecourse debut before going. Becoming part of the Bear Down Logistics team means you get in on the ground floor. We are an organization betting on the quality of employees we attract, committed to their promotion and movement up into management roles as the business expands.

If political pundits and legal scholars are to be believed, 2018 will be the year that sports betting goes mainstream.

Don’t get me wrong though. Americans are already avid sports bettors, and they have been for decades now.

According to data compiled by the American Gaming Association (AGA), Super Bowl 52 was predicted to generate $4.76 billion in bets nationwide. Yes, I said billion, and that’s just a single game. The AGA estimated more than $10 billion in wagers were placed on the “March Madness” college basketball tournament last year alone.

Clearly, sports betting is a big business stateside, and around the world for that matter.

But with New Jersey challenging the current federal sports betting ban — the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) of 1992 which limits legal sportsbooks to 4 states (Nevada, Montana, Oregon, and Delaware) — the stage is set for full federal legalization.

As of January, 18 states are preparing to pass sports betting regulations, with that legislative movement based largely on the U.S. Supreme Court’s apparent willingness to strike PASPA down.

With legalized sports betting poised to become the next ascendant industry, millions of sports fans and gambling enthusiasts will be placing wagers their first wagers. And when they do, these sports betting rookies will be faced with a complex system of odds used to turn any conceivable game, match, or race into a fair fight.

Encountering a sportsbook betting board for the first time can be dizzying, to say the least. Dozens of leagues and hundreds of games are tied together using nothing but numbers to reflect the odds, and unless you know how to read those numbers, you can quickly become lost.

To help get you started on your sports betting journey, I’ve assembled a comprehensive introduction to the most common wager type: fixed odds betting.

Read on to learn all about fixed odds betting, along with a section answering the all-important question of how you can turn a profit at the sportsbook.

What is Fixed Odds Sports Betting?

In the simplest terms, a fixed odds sports bet is any wager in which the bettor knows exactly what odds they’re facing before placing the bet.

Fixed odds wagers are by far the most popular form of sports betting, but another version known as pari-mutuel betting provides the perfect contrast. When making a pari-mutuel bet, which is also known as pool betting, you’d be presented with a series of potential outcomes along with general odds. From there, the sportsbook calculates the final odds offered to bettors based on the volume of wagers placed on each side.

This system is a bit convoluted, in my humble opinion anyway, which is where fixed odds betting comes into play.

Under the fixed odds system, the sportsbook simply assesses the relative merits of each side, before posting odds that accurately reflect each side’s chances of winning.

Let’s say you were flipping coins with a friend while wagering on the result. In this case, you know the true probability of winning on heads stands at 50 percent, while the odds on tails are exactly equal at 50 percent. If you were betting $1 per flip, a fair system of fixed odds would offer even money or a 1 to 1 ratio on the wager.

In other words, you’d be paid $1 for every $1 wagered while flipping a coin.

But when you bet on sports teams, athletes, and animals of varied skill level, the odds are rarely so exact. One side is usually more talented, experienced, or healthy than the other, creating a natural disparity in the odds offered to bettors.

After all, nobody would bet on the Cleveland Browns — who infamously went 0-16 during the 2017 NFL season — to beat the New England Patriots if the sportsbook only offered an even money payout. To get Browns backers into the fold, sportsbooks have two main methods at their disposal: point spreads or fixed odds on your money.

Point spread betting is a different beast, but the basic premise sees the sportsbook add or subtract points to one side based on their perceived advantage or disadvantage. In this case, the Browns would probably be getting somewhere in the neighborhood of two touchdowns (+14 points), while the Patriots would be giving the points (-14).

Using this format, your bet on the Browns would turn a winner so long as they don’t lose by 15 points, as they’ve started the game with a 14-point advantage. Conversely, a bet on the Patriots would only win when they outscore the Browns by 15 points or more.

Point spread betting has its place, but because the disparity is evened out by assigning each team positive or negative points, a winning bet on either side produces an essentially even money return.

For this reason, many punters prefer the higher risk to reward ratios offered by fixed odds betting.

In the example above, the lowly Browns would be offered something like 4 to 1 to beat the Patriots straight up. That is to say, for each dollar you put on the line, you’d get 4 dollars back in profit. Rather than using points to even things up between two sides, fixed odds betting simply uses the return on your wager to reflect each side’s relative odds.

And if you wanted to back the Pats instead, those 4 to 1 odds would be reversed to 1 to 4. In other words, you’d need to bet 4 dollars to bring back 1 dollar in profit.

Fixed odds betting isn’t limited to sports games involving two teams. Sportsbooks use fixed odds to handicap the field in horseraces, NASCAR, and other events which involve many competitors at once.

Using the table from last year’s Kentucky Derby horse race as an example, you can see how the fixed odds system works when several sides are pitted against one another:

As you can see, the favorites in that race were Always Dreaming and Irish War Cry, both of whom offer 9 to 2 odds on your money (which breaks down to 4.5 to 1). On the other end of the spectrum, Untrapped came into the race as a 57 to 1 longshot.

In the end, it was Always Dreaming who crossed the finish line first, so bettors backing that horse earned $4.5 for every $1 they wagered. But had Untrapped pulled off a miracle, those bettors would’ve earned $57 for every $1 risked.

Thus, fixed odds betting is the preferred method of evening things out between any two or more sides.

Now that you know the basic premise, let’s dive into the details of how this way of wagering works.

Odds Against Bets

With an “odds against” bet, you’re taking a side that isn’t favored to win, or the underdog in betting parlance.

Of course, in the case of races with multiple sides competing in a single event, the vast majority of wagers will be of the odds against variety. In fact, as the Kentucky Derby table above demonstrates, every single horse in the race offered odds against.

When you see an odds against bet, the terms will typically be presented in the following formats:

• Return : Bet
• Return / Bet

Always Dreaming offered a $4.5 return on every $1 wagered, creating fixed odds of 4.5 to 1. With that pesky decimal sticking out, most sportsbooks use the factoring method to create a nice, round number (9 to 2 in this case).

The narrowest of odds against bets would be 2 to 1, but depending on your tolerance for risk, many futures bets and extreme longshots can come out at 100 to 1 or worse.

Even Money Bets

The classic coin flip is the perfect example of an even money bet, as both sides have exactly the same odds of winning.

An even money wager offers odds of 1 to 1, so you’ll always double whatever you put on the line.

When using a point spread to level the playing field, many bets are brought down to nearly even money. This is because the spread has already accounted for the advantages and disadvantages of each team, creating an artificial matchup between two evenly matched teams.

With that said, two teams that happen to be evenly matched can offer an even money experience without any point spreads to speak of.

Odds On Bets

An “odds on” bet is simply the opposite of odds against, so you’d be taking the favorite.

In the example from earlier, you saw that the Browns would be offered 4 to 1 when facing a top team like the Patriots. But if you wanted to bet on New England instead, you’d be offered 1 to 4 odds.

In other words, you’d need to wager $4 to win just $1.

Most bettors don’t like the idea of betting big bucks just to win fraction of their stake, which is where point spreads come into play. If you like betting on underdogs, you’ll usually take the odds against and hope to turn a little into a lot. But for folks who prefer favorites, the point spread provides an opportunity to turn an odds on bet into even money.

Fractional Odds (U.K. Odds)

So far throughout this page, I’ve chosen to use the most familiar way of presenting odds, which is the X to Y format.

Whether you’re getting 4 to 1 on your money, or 1 to 4, this system is known as “fractional odds.” The name comes from the United Kingdom and Ireland, where odds of this type are typically written out as 4/1 or 1/4.

Decimal Odds (European Odds)

If you’re betting from continental Europe, Australia, or Canada, you probably prefer a system known as “decimal odds.”

Decimal odds are presented just as it sounds, so you’d see something like 1.25 or 5.00 alongside each side.

I’ll provide a handy tool for converting each of the odds formats later on, but for now, let’s run through a rough guide to the process.

Let’s stick with the 1 to 4 example when betting on the Patriots over the Browns and see what happens.

By dividing the payout (1) by the wager (4), you get 0.25. Next, add that decimal to 1.00, which gives you 1.25. Thus, the decimal odds on a 1 to 4 bet would be expressed as 1.25.

On the other side of the spectrum, odds against bets use a different formula to convert from fractional to decimal: (Payout + Wager) / Wager.

To turn the 4 to 1 odds offered on the Browns beating the Patriots into decimal odds, you’d add the payout (4) to the wager (1) to get 5, then divide by the wager (1) to get 5. Thus, the decimal odds on a 4 to 1 bet would be expressed as 5.00.

And if you’re faced with fractional odds that don’t use a X to 1 format, but rather X to 2 or X to any other number, the formula still works to perfection. Take those 9 to 2 odds offered on the Kentucky Derby favorites. In this case, you’d add the payout (9) to the wager (2) to get 11, then divide by the wager (2) to get 4.50.

If these formulas and conversions are stressing you out, don’t worry about that at all. Unless you’re betting on an internationally based online sportsbook, you won’t be dealing with decimal odds all that often. And even if you do bet with a bookie abroad, most modern sites offer configurable odds in each of 3 main formats.

Moneyline Odds (American Odds)

Last, but certainly not least, are the “moneyline odds” used by American sportsbooks.

When you step into a Las Vegas sportsbook, you’ll see moneyline odds posted alongside every wager, creating a veritable codebook of positive and negative numbers.

The moneyline format uses the “+” and “-” symbol alongside any number of 100 or higher to signify the return on a winning wager.

A moneyline of (+XYZ) represents an odds against bet, with the numerical figure reflecting how much you’d win per $100 risked. And a moneyline of (-XYZ) represents an odds on bet, with the numerical figure reflecting how much you’d need to risk in order to win $100.

For an even money bet like a coin flip, the moneyline is expressed as (-100), meaning you’d collect $100 per $100 wagered.

If you wanted to back the Browns in the running example bet, those 4 to 1 odds would be shown as (+400), so you’d receive $400 for every $100 bet.

Those taking the Patriots would see a moneyline of (-400), so you’d receive $100 for every $400 bet.

Of course, you don’t have to bet in increments of $100, so the moneyline can be applied to any possible wager amount. For positive moneylines, just divide the number shown by 100, then take the new number and multiply that by your bet size.

Let’s say you’re betting $65 on that (+400) longshot. To see what you’d stand to win, take 400 and divide by 100 to get 4. Then, multiply 4 by your bet of $65 to arrive at the $260 profit this wager would produce.

You can also reverse this process for negative moneyline bets. With a (-400) moneyline and a $65 bet, you’d divide by 4 to arrive at the $16.25 profit this wager would produce.

Chart for Converting Odds

Once again, if calculating formulas isn’t really your thing, check out this handy chart which converts all of the basic fractional, decimal, and moneyline odds side by side:

And to make things that much easier, you can always use a convenient Betting Odds Calculator, which are offered by such companies as Oddshark and other similarly designed programs.

This invaluable resource lets you plug any odds and wager amount in, before calculating the eventual profit on a winner and even displaying the other two odds formats for comparison.

How Can You Profit from Fixed Odds Sports Betting?

Now comes the all-important question: can you win money on fixed odds sports betting?

Well, you certainly can turn a profit betting on sports, especially in the short term. If you’re planning a trip to Sin City and want to hit the sportsbook, placing a few intelligently chosen wagers is actually one of the easiest ways to beat the house.

Depending on your acumen for a particular sport and your ability to bet objectively rather than as a “fan,” you’ll always know exactly where you stand when making fixed odds sports bets.

You might choose to back longshot underdogs and collect on those inevitable upsets or stick with the favorite and print money when the great teams perform as expected. That choice is up to your own personal betting style, but the beauty of fixed odds betting is that both sides offer identical levels of value.

But success in gambling is always measured over the long run, and in this case, more betting equates to less profit. As the old maxim goes, even the best sports bettors on the planet — folks who use supercomputer algorithms to track all conceivable data points — only manage to reach a 54% win rate.

That may not seem like all that much, but you won’t find any game on the casino floor offering players a 4% advantage.

Assuming you’re no Jimmy the Greek, you should expect to break even at best on fixed odds sports betting over the long run. That’s just the nature of the beast, as the bookies work tirelessly to set “fair” odds that provide both sides with a relatively equal chance of success.

Bear Down Betting

Conclusion

It’s easy to get confused when looking at sports betting lines and odds. Different places use different ways to display the same thing. Use this guide to fixed odds sports betting to learn what all of the numbers mean.

Tedy Bruschi is headed back to his alma mater. Monday, it was announced that Bruschi would serve as a senior advisor to new Arizona head coach Jed Fisch.

Bare Down Meaning

For his part, Fisch was the quarterbacks coach for the New England Patriots in the 2020 season. He replaces Kevin Sumlin, who was fired in December.

For his part, Bruschi was one of the best Wildcats of all-time. He recorded 185 tackles, 74 tackles for a loss and recorded 52 sacks. He tied the NCAA Division I-A sack record with that number. He played for the Wildcats from 1991-95.

Bears Rams Pick

In a statement put out by University of Arizona, Bruschi expressed his excitement for coming back.

“I am very excited to re-establish my connection to the Arizona Football program,” Bruschi said. “Coach Fisch, and his vision for the program, is the main reason for my new level of involvement. I look forward to assisting Coach Fisch and the program in any way I can as we develop the next generations of Wildcats who are purposeful, resilient and original. Bear Down!”

Bared Down

It will be interesting to see what kind of impact Bruschi makes in his new role. If the impact is anything like what he accomplished in New England, it will certainly be a positive one.