Us Betting Odds Explained

American Odds are the default odds at American sportsbooks. These odds are based on winning $100 for a given bet. Betting a Favorite: The odds for favorites will have a minus (-) sign, and represent the money you need to risk to win $100. So if you're betting on the Packers at -140 against the Vikings, that means Green Bay is a slight favorite. 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.

Odds change for a couple of reasons, but, once again you need to understand how sportsbooks make money. Essentially a sportsbook looks to have an equal amount of risk bet on all outcomes of the wager. That is the ideal result for them. To ensure this, they adjust the odds to make a bet more attractive to the side with fewer bets.

Let’s take our example of coin flipping again, to keep things simple. Let’s also assume we have 5 bettors all looking to bet $100.

If we look at “Bet 1” (below), the first bettor risks $100 on Heads for a chance to win $91.92. From the sportsbook’s point of view they are at risk of losing $91.92 on a Heads win, or retaining $100 on a tails win. Not ideal for a sportsbook since they look expect to make money on every event.

When Bet 2 is placed on Tails, the sportsbook gets an ideal outcome: no matter who wins, the book pays out $91.92 using the losers money, and retains $9.08 itself.

When Bet 3 is placed the sportsbook will likely not make an odds change to the -110, and they will still be available. By choosing Tails again, the risk to the sportsbook is again in the red. If heads wins, the book will have only one bettor to pay, but 2 losers and therefore would win $108.08. if Tails wins they are at risk $83.84. Definitely not what the sportsbook wants, but you’ll notice that the the overall risk is going down versus after Bet 1.

Bet 4 is where the sportsbook would get concerned. A third Tails bettor means they could potentially lose $175.76. Remember that the sportsbook isn’t gambling. They are expected to make money. That is why they would look to make an odds change to try to even out their risk.

To do this the sportsbook releases a line that is favorable to Heads, in this case, around +180. That means that a $100 bet on heads pays $180. On coin flipping, take those odds all day! For the book, that means that if Heads wins, they still have $28.08 profit and if Tails wins, the risk, though still negative is a lower -$75.76.

You can see that as this trend continues, eventually the sportsbook takes no risk and takes profit regardless of the result.

Something to keep in mind about this example is that it is unusual to see lines move with only a small number of bettors or dollars, but you can see that after thousands of people bet on a single event eventually profit is guaranteed and predictable.

Donald Trump has declared himself the winner of the 2020 presidential election and called for "all voting to stop" in remarks delivered live from the White House on election night.

The betting agencies are providing huge clues about the election result. Picture: Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP

A bookmaker has declared a Joe Biden victory, already paying out on bets for him to become the next US President.

Sportsbet tweeted the announcement just after 11am Australian time, even though the election is yet to be officially called by anyone.

The betting agency has paid out $23 million on election bets, but says it is still taking bets on who will win the presidential race.

The betting site had Biden at $1.10 and Trump at $6.50 but odds has been shifting dramatically over the past 48 hours.

Just yesterday afternoon, there was a huge swing to Trump, whose odds plummeted to a narrow $1.22.

But this morning, things wildy swung back in favour of Biden as the race narrows in key battleground states.

This is how Australian bookies were tracking this morning. Basically, it means for every $1 you put on that candidate, you would get the below in return if they win.

HERE ARE THE LATEST ODDS AT 2:30PM:

• Biden: $1.14

• Trump: $5.50

• Biden: $1.11

• Trump: $5.80

• Biden: $1.11

• Trump: $9.40

• Biden: $1.10

• Trump: $6.50

• Biden: $1.10

• Trump: $6.00

Scroll below to see how they compared to last night.

Joe Biden is firming up in betting odds to become the next president as polls close in the US election. Picture: Jim Watson/AFPSource:AFP

In 2016, Trump was $2.35 before markets closed ahead of the election.

Biden’s highest price was $26 in February this year.

The US election has been so popular for TAB that it will hold more money for the historical event than the AFL or NRL Grand Finals and it’s the same situation for Sportsbet.

RECORD BREAKING BET

Over in the UK, a British businessman is so confident Trump will win that he has placed a record breaking bet on the president staying in the White House.

The mystery former banker used private bookies registered in the Caribbean to place a bet of $5 million ($A6.97m), with odds of 37/20, on Trump’s win, according to The Sun.

If he is successful, the businessman could be taking home almost $15 million ($A20.9m).

A betting industry source told the publication the bet was believed to be “the biggest ever made on politics”.

While most indicators predict a Biden victory, if 2016 taught us anything, it’s that there’s no such thing as a shoo-in.

There has been a huge rush in bets on the US election, providing some major clues about what to expect from one of the most crucial votes in recent history when it comes to the polls – and the betting agencies.

WHAT DID THE POLLS SAY?

On election eve in the US, there had been a flurry of last-minute polling, with the Des Moines Register poll showing Trump beating Biden 48 per cent to 41 in Iowa – a massive swing from its previous survey, which had the race tied.

A poll of New Mexico from The Albuquerque Journal, which showed Mr Biden winning 54-42, was in line with the conventional wisdom that New Mexico was a little too Democrat-leaning these days to be considered a proper swing state.

The latest batch of New York Times/Siena polls covered four different states. Those polls showed Biden up 49-43 in Arizona, 52-41 in Wisconsin, 47-44 in Florida and 49-43 in Pennsylvania.

An EPIC-MRA poll of Michigan had the Democrat leading 48-41. Another, conducted by St Pete, showed him winning Florida by a razor-thin 49-48 margin. And finally, a pair of ABC News/Washington Post surveys had Biden up 51-44 in Pennsylvania, but Trump winning Florida 50-48.

RELATED: Biden’s long fight to take on Trump

The odds are in Joe Biden’s favour. Picture: Drew Angerer/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP

RELATED: How mail voting works in the US

WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

Democratic hopeful Joe Biden has been the clear favourite across the major betting sites in the lead-up to the election.

But as the vote continued into the night, odds switched back in favour of Donald Trump.

Many believe betting odds offer a more accurate election prediction than polls, as people have invested their own hard-earned cash in the outcome.

These were the odds according to some of the major betting agencies, as of November 4 at 6.30pm, so you can see how much they’ve shifted.

• Biden: $3.20

• Trump: $1.34

• Biden: $3.20

• Trump: $1.34

• Biden: $1.45

• Trump: $3

• Biden: $2.88

• Trump: $1.36

• Biden: $3.10

• Trump: $1.33

PUNTER’S STUNNING $130K GAMBLE

A record number of bets have already been placed on the US election – but one cocky TAB punter shocked betting pros by laying down $130,000 on a Biden win.

The unnamed gambler bet the staggering pile of cash at odds of $1.57 this week.

Other big recent bets include $100,000 at $1.56 on Joe Biden and $40,000 at $2.50 on Donald Trump.

DIFFERENT BETS YOU CAN MAKE

All eyes are on the big one – whether it will be Joe Biden or Donald Trump in the White House for the next four years.

But there are also a string of other bets on the table, including the number of electoral college votes each candidate will receive, who will win the popular vote, the state electoral college winner, the state margin, seat margin, US Senate winner and many more.

For example, Trump is paying $4.50 to win the popular vote compared to Biden’s $1.18 (the candidate to get the most votes across America).

In 2016, Ms Clinton won the popular vote but still lost the election.

RELATED: Why Americans don’t want to vote

Will US President Donald Trump manage to pull off another miracle? Picture: Brendan Smialowski/AFPSource:AFP

RELATED: America’s confusing voting system explained

ODDS BEFORE 2016 ELECTION

When Donald Trump took on Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, it wasn’t just the pollsters that got the outcome disastrously wrong – the betting sites also incorrectly predicted a Clinton victory.

In fact, Irish bookmaker Paddy Power failed so spectacularly it ended up with a £4 million ($A7,399,793) bill after prematurely paying out £800,000 ($A1,479,958) to those who had backed Clinton ahead of Trump’s shock win.

According to OddsShark, Trump’s odds to win the 2016 election were close to 5-to-1 on election day eve and over at TAB, Trump was $2.35 before markets closed ahead of the 2016 election.

HOW TO BET

Us Betting Odds Explained Predictions

Betting on political elections is very much illegal in all 50 states in the US.

However, the same rules don’t apply in other countries, which means betting agencies based in Australia, the UK and other nations are open for business, with most companies allowing punters to place a bet online.

Boxing Betting Odds Explained

According to Fortune, gambling insiders are expecting the previous record set in 2016 to be broken again this year, with some bookies expecting the election to be even bigger than the Super Bowl where betting in concerned.