A Look at the Different Odds Formats And How To Calculate Your Profit

Published on January 5th, 2021 7:21 pm EST
Written By: Dave Manuel


Sportsbooks use different odds formats.

You have decimal odds, fractional odds and American odds.

All of these odds formats boil down to the same thing - they are simply a different way of presenting the information to you.

One of the most frequently asked questions that we see in the sports betting world: how do I calculate my potential winnings using each of the different odds formats?

Here is a quick and easy way of figuring out your potential profit for all three.

Decimal Odds

This is probably the easiest odds format to calculate.

Let's say that the odds for a fighter that you want to bet on look like this:

1.80

In order to calculate your potential profit, simply multiply this number by your wager, and then subtract the amount of your wager to get your profit.

So, if you bet $100 on this fighter at 1.80, your calculation would look like this:

$100 * 1.80 = $180

$180 - $100 = $80

You'd be looking at a profit of $80.

If the odds were something like 3.60, it would look like this:

$100 * 3.60 = $360

$360 - $100 = $260

Your potential profit in this case would be $260

American Odds

With American odds, you will see a number with either a + or - next to it.

For instance, the number might look like this:

+200

Or like this:

-330

Here is how you calculate the potential profit for either one:

In the case of a number with a + in front of it (which means that the side is an underdog), the amount of the number is the amount of profit that you would earn with a bet of $100.

So, if you bet $100 on a +200 line, you would realize a potential profit of $200.

So, your potential profit would be 2x your original bet. So, if you were betting $20, your potential profit would be $40, and so on.

With a line like -330, this means that side is an underdog.

This means that you would need to wager $330 in order to have a chance of winning $100 in profit.

So, simply divide $100 by $330 and then multiply this number by your bet size in order to see how much profit you could earn.

So, if you bet $50, your potential profit would be a little over $15.

Fractional Odds

Let's say that you have a number that looks like this:

3/2

In order to figure out your potential profit, divide 3 by 2 and then multiply this number by your bet to find your potential profit.

So, in this case, we divide 3/2 to get 1.5.

We then multiply this number by our bet (let's say $100) to get $150, which represents the amount of our potential profit on this bet.

-

That's it!

Sportsbooks will almost always let you choose your odds format of choice, and there are plenty of calculators available online to help you figure out the odds, including this one.