You've come to a game on which you desire to place a wager, so why not be certain as to whether it is worth your while prior to placing the bet? This is where an odds calculator is a handy and informative betting tool. Suppose you are going to play $100 on the New York Yankees to beat the Boston Red Sox at a moneyline of -220. By utilizing the odds calculator, you'd know that your profit on this wager would be $45.
Betting Odds Calculator
Whatever betting strategy you decide to employ, no matter the types of wagers you intend to play, our handy betting calculator will allow you to determine which bets offer the top odds and the best return on investment.
Specific Bet Type Calculators
Arbitrage Calculator
A risk-free form of wagering, arbitrage betting allows you to place proportional wagers on every possible outcome of an event through different sportsbooks, at odds that will ensure that you won't be a loser. By utilizing the arbitrage calculator, you can determine what odds you will need to play, as well as what size of wager you will be required to place in order to guarantee that you will turn a profit on your two-way or three-way market play.
Free Play Value Calculator
Almost every sportsbook offers you some sort of bonus as an incentive to sign up for their service, and in many cases, that bonus comes in the form of a free bet or free play at a set amount. Since you are being offered a free bet, it only makes sense that you play a large underdog to try and make a significant profit. What the free play value calculator does is it allows you to determine how to hedge your bet with a rival sportsbook so that you are certain to be a winner.
Let's say you get a $100 free play from one sportsbook and you bet it on the Detroit Lions at +450. Now you want to hedge this wager at a different sportsbook on the solid favorite in that game, say the New England Patriots at -110. Enter these amounts and odds into the free play calculator and it will tell you that if you were to place a $235 hedge bet on the Patriots, you are assured of a profit of $214, no matter which team wins the game.
Half-Point Calculator
Some sportsbooks will offer you the chance to reduce the juice on a game by buying a half-point on the odds on the point spread established for a football or basketball game. While in some cases it reduces your payout on a winning wager, it increases your odds of laying a successful bet. If the Golden State Warriors are 7.5-point favorites over the Phoenix Suns with payout odds of -110, you can choose to add a half-point to the line prior to placing your bet.
The half-point calculator enbables you to determine exactly how the half-point alters your wager payout. For instance, by adding a half-point to the Warriors and increasing the spread to eight points on the above game, the payout odds increase to -114.82. But Golden State must now win the game by nine points in order for you to cash a winning ticket.
Kelly Calculator
If you are going into sports betting, it only makes sense that you treat it as a serious pursuit, because after all, it is your money that you are risking. This is where the Kelly calculator can prove a useful device to you. John Kelly was a scientist who looked at sports betting from a long-haul approach and researched a pertinent question - how much of your bankroll should you risk when the odds are in your favor? It's no different than how the owner of a business would appoach any capital venture, by first doing their due diligence.
To show how the Kelly calculator works, we'll say your bankroll is $500 and you are looking at a wager on a game at odds of 3/1 or +300. You estimate your probability of winning - we'll go with 40 percent - and say that the minimum bet allowed in this scenario is $100. When you crunch all those numbers through the Kelly calculator, the optimal strategy would be to risk a $100 wager, or 20 percent of your bankroll.
The calculations determine that you would get a $300 return on every winning bet and you should expect that by following this plan, you would see an average growth per bet of 5.41 percent to your bankroll.
Parlay Calculator
A parlay is a wager in which you place a single bet, but on a variety of events, usually between two and eight. This is a popular play, because it offers the smaller bettor an opportunity to cash a winning ticket worth a signficant amount, although since you are counting on a number of outcomes going your way, the chances of hitting on a parlay are relatively low. By using the parlay calculator, you can determine the return on what you are risking and whether you think it's worth the wager.
Let's say you opt to play a $100 wager on a four-team parlay on the NHL. You've got the New York Islanders at +275, the Pittsburgh Penguins at -110, the St. Louis Blues at -135 and the Detroit Red Wings at +220. Input the amount of the wager and all of those odds on each game into the parlay calculator, and it computes that the amount you'd win on a successful $100 wager would be $3887.88.
Poisson Calculator
Now we're getting into more complicated and complex forms of calculations. A Poisson probability is designed to enable you to determine the approximate offensive and defensive strength of a team. For instance, with the NHL, you could determine a team's goal-scoring capabilities by measuring their goals-per game output as compared to the goals-per game average of the entire league. Likewise you'd calculate defensive strength by making the same comparison with goals-against per game.
These calculations enable you to gauge probablity distributions and decipher the likelihood that a team might score or allow a certain number of goals in a specific matchup. While this is handy knowledge to have when betting on winners and losers, it is perhaps most valuable when it comes to determining whether to go over or under on a total wager.
Reverse Bets Calculator
Similar to a parlay because it involves wagering on two or more events, a reverse bet is a form of if bet that works for you in both directions. Reverse bets, though, are much more complex. The majority of reverse bets involve two wagers that begin with a single bet, followed by a win, tie or cancel condition. If the first bet is successful, the second bet proceeds, but the second wager flips the two wagers while offering the same conditions.
It's somewhat similar to boxing horses in an exacta or trifecta wager, because it creates a number of scenarios where you can come out a winner. And it's not as risky as a parlay, because the second bet only proceeds if the first bet is a win, tie or is canceled.
Round Robin Calculator
Utilizing this series of calcuations will enable you to determine whether wagering on a series of multi-team parlay bets is a wise investment. A round robin wager is a form of parlay where as the name indicates, three teams are wagered together in a variety of combinations. Say you played $100 bets on the Baltimore Ravens at +8, the Cincinnati Bengals at +2 and the Pittsburgh Steelers at -3. Your total risk here on this wager would be $300. Unlike a parlay, you can win even if you hit on just two of the three bets.
If all three teams win, you would collect $2633.33. If the Ravens and Bengals win, but the Steelers lose, you get $1300. If the Ravens lose and the Steelers and Bengals win, you'd lose $33.33. Should the Ravens and Steelers wins and the Bengals lose, you win $766.67. If just the Ravens win, you lose $300. If only the Bengals win, your loss is also $300. And if just the Steelers win, you again lose your investment of $300.
Streak Calculator
A streak calculator is as simple and as straightforward as the name would indicate. It is a device designed to allow you to determine the probability of a winning or losing streak over the course of a series of wagers set to a specified length. You input the number of wagers to be placed, the length of streak you anticipate and it will provide you with a calculation on the percentage probability of that streak, as well as a loss probability.
Calculating Sports Odds Payouts
The three most popular forms of odds employed by online sportsbooks are American, also known as moneyline, fractional and decimal. Here's how to calculate your winnings on bets placed under any of these forms of odds.
American Odds Calculation
Commonly known as moneyline odds, this is the most popular method of offering odds on sports betting in North America.
For a positive moneyline, you divide the moneyline by 100 and then add one to the result. This gives you the decimal version of the odds, which you then multiply by the amount of money you have wagered. For example:
+110 (110/100) + 1 = 2.1. $100 x 2.1 = $210.
In the case of a negative moneyline, you divide 100 by the moneyline, then add one and multiply by the amount wagered:
-110 (100/110) + 1 = 1.9. $100 x 1.9 = $190.
Fractional Odds Calculation
Odds that are most commonly found when betting on horse racing, fractional odds are determined via one calculation. For instance, if you bet $100 on a horse to win at 5/1, you divide the first number of the fraction by the second number, and add one to the result. Then you multiply that number by the amount wagered.
5/1 = 5 + 1 = 6. $100 x 6 = $600.
Decimal Odds Calculation
The most frequent form of odds employed at European sportsbooks, decimal odds also offer the easiest calculation when determining what you will win on a wager. You just need to multiply the amount of your wager by the odds. So if you had $100 on Arsenal at 3.75 over Chelsea in the English Premier League, the calculation would go like this:
3.75 x $100 = $375.